|
01.24.05 - 11:49 p.m.
an odd day for a birthday i turned 31 today, on a monday the first day of the spring semester... this day begins my final semester of research funding (read, teaching free-semester), that i have here. some people would call me nutty for stepping anywhere near campus. so what? call it skulking, instead, i'd rather call walk a my desire to just have a normal day... at least i stripped the misanthropic, self-pitying resentment off my anonymous walk-a-bout. after all, i've told myself, i did not ASK to be born on january 24th. i certainly didn't ASK a snowstorm blizzard to strike over the past three days... a blizzard so thick, i would not dream of asking my friends to endanger their lives to drive out to meet me for celebratory drinks even IF i DID feel like calling such an event... no, i walked about campus purposefully NOT looking to meet anyone's eye as if they OWED me a birthday greeting... instead, i wanted to just let myself 'lean into the afternoon,' as pablo neruda might say and take a low-key jaunt stroll to sign up for another semester of part-time tutoring (hopefully, my last)... and, as it turned out, to walk by the classroom i loved so dearly last semester and say goodbye to teaching there and the magic spark my students engendered there twice a week last semester... a spark that kept ME going, when nothing else would. nothing else much happened today. oh, of course small things happened, like a dear friend took me out for an impromptu birthday brunch... and my sister called me at 8AM, to wake me up and wish me a happy birthday...all on her own... (she's almost 20, not 10, so i hate talking about her as if she's that young. gotta understand, though, that
any contact with my sister unmediated through my parents bears celebrating as a step towards adulthood)... and i gave myself the gift of a 12 step meeting, even though i haven't enterred those rooms for over two years -- the gross slime of other people's histories clouded over any serene spiritual uplift those meetings used to provide me... thankfully, even their spirits have left those rooms... so i gave myself the gift of a fresh start... rather than make any resolutions that all will be well starting today... just for today, i'm finishing a lesser-known james baldwin novel and appreciating the intense feelings of anger and fear his sojourns through new york city, atlanta, birmingham, london and paris communicate... and i'm embracing and breathing in growing out the valences of this core emotion ANGUISH , which baldwin uses as corridor to transport the common emotional stream flowing through all his characters here; a mixed-bag of pain,loss, sorrow, and above all yearning. baldwin reaps anguish equally from the zenith of accomplishments (imagine the anguish that an world-record marathon runner exudes after breaking through the finish-line ribbon first place )... and of course baldwin captures the more familiar anguish the anguish of bottoming out, giving up, dying on empty, surrendering to hopelessness. who knew one word could squeeze the range of both poles of feeling?? the other sparkle of life came today in a brief 5-minute phonecall today with my dad... he and my mom ALWAYS retell some aspect of the day i was born, reminding me of where the environmental circumstances surrounding my birth.. in plainer words, the winterstorm that befell these two jamaican immigrants on an new england afternoon when i arrived a week earlier than expected in 1974 in today's birthday retelling, my dad said: well, well. circling. what a storm. i remember that ice crystals glistened from the trees on your birthday i sent my dad a telepathic hug when i heard that: the trees glistened on the day of my birth!!! . damn,are those details not the stuff of noel carols of good tidings and joy??? so what, if my 31st birthday ranks high on the underwhelming scale?
or that i've feel like, my life at present does not ocassion a reason to celebrate? remember: once upon a time, on the day you were born, trees glistened like crystals as you breathed your first breath,
conjure the image. and remember your breath your life was that special. that powerful. that natural. that moving. and your life can mean all that, and more, again.
MUSIC:
READING: jamesbaldwin
FEELING:
�
|
