I rummage around my office for a Mary Oliver poem.

I'm not much of a poetry type.

Why hint around, just come out and say it.

But Mary Oliver is the one poet who does speak to me.

And it's that one work of hers.

I just know it's going to give me a spark.

Here it is.

The summer day.

And here is specifically that last brilliant line.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I recite that line multiple times daily over the month I turn 60.

I'm ready.

I'm ready to catapult myself back to not a fingernail better.

It's been decades since I've been a champion swimmer, but one epic venture still swims around

in the back of my imagination.

It's known as the Mount Everest of the Earth's Oceans, the crossing between Havana and Key West.

I tried it once, way back at age 28, and failed.

By the 1980s, Diana Naird had left competitive swimming behind, embarking on a successful

career as a sports broadcaster.

But after a meeting with Superman actor Christopher Reeve, who's thrown from a horse left in

paralyzed from the shoulders down, she's reminded of a challenge that once fueled her

early athletic ambitions.

...