Good morning, Cubao!

Never be fazed by mortality or the prospect of leaving behind "unfinished business."

Ever since I was 18 I'd been keeping a notebook of ideas for novels, short stories, plays, and paintings. I swore to myself to create all those before I die--two books in particular, another trilogy of plays, and a series of unusual art exhibits that make me feel all tingly whenever I think about them.

Yet, at 72 going on 73, I find that there are days and nights when I prefer to just be with my children and grandchildren, oversleep, eat out, do shopping, arrange and rearrange the house, savor sunrises and sunsets over cups of coffee and tea, leave my pens untouched, ignore the canvases with half-finished construction lines in the studio area.

I have learned that there is beauty in incompletion, in letting go before having to let go, in living like a normal person, and in that reality I see that time is mine and that I have all the time in the world.