As I Lay Dying.

The mind plays tricks doesn’t it. Some days I can convince myself I am still thirty five. I don’t feel older, but my body tells me otherwise. That’s ok. It means I have to slow down.

An old friend dropped by the other day. What a wonderful gift.

He was passing through the village where I spend a lot of my time these days. He’d been camping with Indigenous elders in the sacred Lake Mungo. Mungo is the home of the oldest human remains located in Australia.

Hugh and I have known each other for forty years. We started our careers in the same newsroom and our lives have wound around each other since. We have been colleagues and rivals. We worked in London for opposing networks then in China together for the American news giant CNN.

We have covered together and apart, the biggest stories of our time, from revolution to natural disaster and war. We have lost friends on the way. We are fortunate to be still standing. Still close. A little weary, a bit slower. Ambition dimmed but still vital.

We don’t quite rival the antiquity of Mungo Man and Woman, but we have gathered our share of dust.

We have great futures behind us, Hugh and me. What a wonderful place to be. I wonder though, how many days like this we still have. What surprises does life still hold?