Filling the Glass By Mary Jane Scott, '27 I try to live like her. She was a simple soul Glass half full kind of lady Always elegant and at peace Her creased face sagged with the weight of 99 candles And her blouses boasted a bounty of fatigued flowers, Her age was ever apparent, accept for when she donned her blazing scarlet bonnet I never quite knew why she revered it so much She always said that it was to protect herself from getting pooped on by birds (Although if I were a bird, that neon hat seemed like a pretty darn good target) Nevertheless, it was her iconic “see it from a mile away” , bonnet Her incessant accessory I like to think that she wore it as a reminder that her life had not completely waned behind the shadow of the years it was just simplified. I try to live like her. Though she couldn’t do much- Walk a couple steps Hum a song that was probably last played on a cassette, or read a book with print so large there was practically one sentence per page. But what she really loved was going down to the park to go “people watching” “That’s it” “That’s literally it” She would sit on a park bench (With her bonnet of course) And she would watch the people Sometimes she would gaze at the children playing on the playground Sometimes the joggers or the dog walkers Sometimes just the squirrels and the butterflies Just sitting, and thinking, and breathing And that was all she needed in life She was perfectly happy I don’t understand why, But she was happy. I have tried to live like her for so very very long To be a fan in the stands and not a player To find purpose in the most abstract I try to live like she did with a glass half full even when the glass hasn’t actually been full in quite a while. Even if the glass was very much empty. So Instead, like most everyone else, I join the rapid fire conveyor belt trying in vain to achieve more, more, more I pretend that people will care what my grades are once I graduate. I pretend that my resume will matter once I retire. I pretend that my records will still be significant when my legs become brittle and my joints all jiggly. I pretend that I will never reach that point in my life when I feel cursed to do nothing more than watch everyone else I pretend that I live like her, with the my glass half full But really I just go around all day trying to fill it.