Even as autumn settles on us, hearty flowers remain, beautiful and cheering. Besides this wonderful patch, I see a very abundant rose garden, hearty old fashioned roses -- some manage to last until Thanksgiving. These flowers can easily be a metaphor for those of us who are in an autumn of life. I see many hearty, active people older than I and I enjoy being in there company.

I have a correspondent who writes that she knows she should walk walk, should lose weight, but inertia has trapped her. Inertia is our enemy. The older we get, the more we have to truly fight inertia, the mutters that the weather is not good enough to go for a walk, the thought,why not have another cookie? It is difficult for those of us with a high threshold for pain to empathize with those who are bothered by every twinge -- we just ignore those twinges. Inertia really is the enemy. The older we become the more we must care, the oftener we have to chant the mantra, "Use it or lose it." That grows truer and truer as the years add up. I don't advocate taking up marathon running in ones 60s; but taking up one of the gentler forms of yoga -- yes! or tai chi -- both exercise the mind as they exercise the body. And about the mind we REALLY mus remember "use it or lose it". I think about these things very, very often. I plan to keep on walking beside the ocean as the weather gets colder -- I have warm clothing. I have ended up near to the ocean at this point in my life and continue to want to know it in all seasons, all temperaments. It was very different today than yesterday, like a person with a touch of the manic/depressive in his personality, calm and lapping yesterday,roiled and slapping today. My legs tell me they are glad I'm using them. My eyes and ears are still full of today's Ocean Voice.