30,000 Days! And Just Getting Started...

— body language by Dwight  —​

(FYI: 30,000 days arrived on Setember 6th, 2026)

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I was born that July of nineteen forty-four,

And I've woken up hungry for the world evermore.

Do the arithmetic slowly, count it all sorts of ways,

Today is the day of my thirty thousand days!

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Some lifetimes get three thousand. Some get ten.

No one is promised the where or the when.

So I won't say it softly, I'll stand up and shout:

What a gift to be handed! That's what this is about!

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Thirty thousand days, and today is day one!

The past was the prelude. My life’s just begun.

Come holler it with me and shout it with glee:

It’s the best place to start! The best place to be!

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Now don't bring me a scrapbook. Don't dim down the light.

Don't sit me down softly and sum up my flight.

I've no interest in monuments, marble or stone,

The best part of this story is one yet unknown!

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Now suppose I could choose, any age, any year,

Twenty, or forty, or sixty, or here?

I'd wave them all off with a laugh and a bow:

There has never been a when that was better than now.

​

Thirty thousand days, and today is day one!

The past was the prelude. My life’s just begun.

Come holler it with me and shout it with glee:

It’s the best place to start! The best place to be!

​

At twenty I had all the fire, but an obsolete map,

I ran like a rabbit and often got trapped.

At forty I'd mastered some how and some where,

But still I sought praise, and got caught in that snare.

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At sixty I dropped keeping score with the crowd,

And nothing fell over, and no thunder was loud.

At seventy I finally knew what to say,

And the saying kept getting more easy each day.

And now at thirty thousand, the pattern is plain:

Each stretch just gets lighter, and more still to gain!

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Out of nothing at all, on that July afternoon,

Came a holler of a boy who was hungry for soon,

Thirty thousand mornings, and none of them tame,

And none of the next ones will find me the same,

Forever just dawning, I marvel, I rise,

Astounded and open beneath boundless skies!
 

The tools in my hands are astonishing now,

I can ask a whole library, and it answers me how.

What took me a decade, I get in a day,

Yet the more that I learn, the more's hidden away,

For the faster the pieces get set into place,

The longer the border, the wider the chase.

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A horizon's a promise it never will keep,

And I love it for that! It's the reason I leap.

A road with an ending will finish and dry,

But this one keeps running clean into the sky!

​

Thirty thousand days, and today is day one!

The past was the prelude. My life’s just begun.

Come holler it with me and shout it with glee:

It’s the best place to start! The best place to be!

​

So come raise up a glass, come and dance in the street,

Bring your out-of-tune singing and two clumsy feet.

This is not a farewell, and this is no review,

It's a starting-line party! And you're invited too!

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Give me one more good morning, and then give me more.

I'll keep opening windows. I'll keep trying the door.

And if anyone asks me what all of it's worth, 

I will say: every day of it, starting with birth!

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Out of nothing at all, on that July afternoon,

Came a holler of a boy who was hungry for soon,

Thirty thousand mornings, and none of them tame,

And none of the next ones will find me the same,

Forever just dawning, I marvel, I rise,

Astounded and open beneath boundless skies!