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Sunday, my birthday, arrives, stays awhile, and
passes on through without celebration or special
attention. Well ... okay ... a few cards and emails
have arrived.
Birthdays can't be helped. People bring them to
you whether or not you bring them to yourself. They're
like the baby you find on your doorstep ... "What
do I do with it? Gad! It has dirty diapers."
Strange in this older man's body to feel boyish.
I wouldn't want to be a boy again for all the reasons
everyone knows. Fortunately, this body still works
pretty well.
First autumn morning:
the mirror I stare into
shows my father's face
~ Murakami, Kijo (1865-1938)
In one email message, a high school friend asks:
"Where did it go?"
I had always heard that time would accelerate,
but I didn't know it would be like this-a roller
coaster ride, the coaster taking forever to go up,
up, up, then teetering for a second, suddenly a
mad plunge for the bottom taking you with it.
This quick rush to the bottom is reinforced by
the passing seasons. Earlier today, I walked on
Whitemud Creek with my black and white border collie.
Barren trees swaying in the breeze, leaves rustling
as they flow across the trail. And, now, standing
in one of my favorite places, on a small bridge
crossing the half-frozen creek, I realize that only
moments ago I was standing in this same place, but
it was springtime-the time when I heard the soft
hoots of the resident great horned owl calling its
mate.
barren now the trees
where just yesterday
I heard the owl's mating call
The owl is gone, but luckily I'm not.
Back home, I sip a rich Ceylon tea, skim the newspaper,
munch toast with loaded with jam made from the sweet
dark purple plum called 'Damson.'
I don't read the obituaries, but I do notice death
announcements in the main part of the newspaper.
They bring on the roller coaster feeling. The notices
are never about about THEM, they're about ME. I
almost always look for the person's age.
This year, among the more well known names, Victor
Borge, age 91, and Steve Allen, age 78, died. Remember
them? How about Nat Adderly, age 68, jazz cornetist
and composer for the Adderley Quintet. Nat helped
popularize soul jazz in the 1960s. His compositions
include the standards "The Work Song,"
"Jive Samba," and "Hummin'."
And then there's Svyatoslav Fyodorov, age 72. Svyatoslav
was the pioneering Russian eye surgeon who developed
radial keratotomy, an operation on the cornea that
improves the vision of the nearsighted. He was also
one of the country's leading capitalists and took
advantage of Gorbachev's perestroika, opening and
running the Fyodorov Eye Microsurgery Center in
the mid-1980s. He ran unsuccessfully for president
in 1996 and was a member of the Duma from 1996 to
1999.
The winds that blow -
ask them, which leaf on the tree
will be next to go.
~ Kyoshi Takahama
But I don't let all this ruin the sweet taste of
the Damson, the warmth of the tea. Perhaps it's
even valuable to occasionally focus on age and aging
and that's what birthdays are for.
So much for the melancholy of birthdays, aging,
dying, death ... I prefer dwelling in other places,
with other matters.
Like doing what I'm doing right now.
waning moon-
a dark wind presses in
from the west
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