I often think author and activist Arundhati Roy introduced me to mortality in her novel, The God of Small Things.

Since reading her haunting, poetic prose when the volume was published in 1997, I have had her words – Thirty-one. Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age – ricocheting around in my psyche ever since.

​It follows me when I travel, even for short distances, and it causes me to be leery of making long-range plans. It reminds me to think (but not speak of) hidden prayers no better than anxious superstition.

​But we have reached that viable die-able age when I have to tell my husband to hold off on booking that pricey vacation he’s been fixating on until after I get the results of the annual mammogram.

​Now that we are well into our viable die-able years, we have to plan........

© The Saratogian