Leftover sex…things I didn't have room for in my last post

First, there were some words by Schopenhauer (pictured), whose thoughts about most things reflect my own better than anyone else I know. He was looking back when he wrote:

“…after sixty, the inclination to be alone grows into a kind of a real, natural instinct; for at that age everything combines in favor of it. The strongest impulse—the love of women’s society—has little or no effect; it is the sexless condition of old age that lays the foundation of a certain self-sufficiency…”


Then there was this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a woman who had her own share of lovers—of both genders. I memorized two of her poems, including this one. It too was written while looking back.  

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain


Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh


Upon the glass and listen for reply;


And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain


For unremembered lads that not again


Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.


Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,


Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,


Yet know its boughs more silent than before:


I cannot say what loves have come and gone;


I only know that summer sang in me


A little while, that in me sings no more.”

Finally, there was a song by Shakira. Nobody celebrates sexuality like Shakira. I wonder what she will have to say, looking back.