40

It's the hill that all men reach; in Psalm 90, the years of our life are three-score-and-ten, and if by reason of strength they are four score, yet all their days are trouble and sorrow. Forty years is the mid-point of the titration that separates the 'growing up' from the 'growing old'. I will be at that mark in fewer days than I think. Perhaps, in fewer days than anyone else thinks. I give myself about two months.

I suppose what makes this particular year so rich and powerful in all its nuanced and secret ways (like Tim Powers's Drawing of the Dark) is that I've had so many brilliant and unusual co-stars. If this were a soap opera, it would be far more eloquent and action-packed than anything seen on the silver screen or the plasma screen. I've felt a lot like Harrison Ford though, with only two facial expressions at times: pained, and more-pained-than-usual.

After this year, there will be no such confluence of factors. The ladies will no longer be compared to those I met in my years in the convent on the hill; successive generations will have to bear the burden of comparison with the excellent quality of those who have graduated before. Arthur will no longer sit sleeping, awaiting the call of his country, a once and future king. Neither will clever Hans make light work. Evanescence will be the order of the day, and the numinous qualities of butterflies will no longer ennoble the assemblies of dawn.

And in days to come, the 370 men and women I have come to know with pride and humour will become legends in their own days. They don't personally feel like legends now. They may not ever feel they have deserved that right. (And I am somewhat limited in my capacity to extol their individual virtues without sacrificing whatever is left of their private lives.)

But from my hill, I look out upon the plain where ignorant armies clash by night and I see that what they have written in the water will still illuminate the shadows. I will remain, locked in one place and time of their perception and memory, while they go on to other things. As the years go by, everything fades.

As often before, I feel the ghost, that spirit of portrait-painting poets once named Robert Browning, looking over my shoulder. But there are no unkind words from this wraith – only a benediction of sorts. Rather, I head downhill into the valley of shadow knowing that my eternal Guide has nothing but the best for me.