Last times?

 

Yesterday I had a craving for roast chicken so I went to the store and picked up a chicken and brought it home and roasted it.  I was going to stuff it but got lazy at the last minute and didn't.  So a while later it was done and then I had to pull the meat off the bones and pack up the bones, skin etc for green composting, then make gravy.  It was good but it was so much bother and there seemed to be so much chicken fat involved in all this processing.  And I was still left with the roasting pan to scrub out.

Usually when I want a whole chicken I just buy a fresh-cooked one from the store.  They're really good meat (better than anything I manage to cook at home) and a reasonable price.

So all that has left me wondering if I will ever again make the effort to roast a chicken.

Which has led to me, as a person in his seventies,  thinking about the last time we do things. Life comes to an end and for everything there is a last time we will do it.

When I was around 30 my parents were selling their property in the country and one afternoon while I was there alone I decided to climb a tree.  In the decade or more they lived there I had never done that and it occurred to me that if not that day, I might never climb a tree again.  So I did, and it was fun.  But I haven't climbed a tree since and at this point it seems likely that I won't again.

Around ten years ago friends arranged an ice skating party on the lake at their cottage.  They cleared an area near the shore and a group of us skated around all afternoon and it was joyful.  Even though I had skated a lot growing up I found myself very unsteady on the skates and I was pretty sure that it was the last time I would do it.  I was right and now I can't imagine ever risking broken bones or strains by getting on skates again.

I'm not upset about any of this.  Nostalgic yes, and perhaps a little sad.  But accepting.