In my thirties in Clanbrassil, country silence felt like a held chord, fields sustaining themselves without resolution. I’d stand in that kitchen and think by older age this whole life will feel like a tune played too fast. And now I’m here. It really does feel like that. The I can still see the younger man, imagining old age as a grand final chorus. But there is no orchestral climax. Just another morning. The kettle again. Life is less like a composed masterpiece, more a long improvisation where you forget the head and keep on anyway. You’re just stringing phrases together, hoping the groove works. Death will enter the way a drummer clicks his sticks and counts the song in without warning. Not dramatic. You’ll be waiting for a bus, looking for your shoes, answering the phone and then poof. No cymbal crash. Just air where sound used to be. I don’t imagine it will feel like one climbed a mountain of wisdom or earned a trophy for Best Life Lived. More likely it will feel like setting the instrument down between songs, not realizing the set is over. The speed is what astonishes. The whole long set is really just like one breath. Radio fading in and out, heart thumping time. Someone switches off the amp.