Birthday Blog

Tonight is the eve of my 78th; not even a prime number thanks to 13 but prime enough for me.

In Irish lore Truth is an odd number. I'm fine spending a year in the untrue column. Anything to feed the fiction and fecundity. I like truth better without the capital T and many faceted. Since I'm about to be 78 it is also a fact I'll be in my 79th year, true enough.

The vernal equinox is the time of equal light and dark; an apt metaphor to own one’s shadow. As to the question, who am I, the answer is less certain than it was fifty years ago. Happily I'm discovering new versions every now and then..... preacher, manager of an all-night laundromat, third base coach, double-agent urban guerilla, alchemist, sorcerer and sleuth.

At this age only zero ending birthdays warrant much notice. The dirty little secret about aging is that the heft of the number bears no correspondence to wisdom. That sums up my contribution as a sage.

If I ever had it all figured out I've long since forgotten or disabused myself of such foolishness. The so-called meaning of life is a heavy burden to carry around. It feels better traveling light.

If you say life is a baseball game I must be in the late innings having thrown enough pitches to call it a complete game. It could be the top of the seventh or the last of the ninth. When it's time to check out I'd much prefer a walk-off home run to the slow steps out to the mound by the manager. But I must stop such talk at once. I'm not ready to start planning my afterlife.

I don't know why you say goodbye; I say hello.

I'm still greeting the greeny things. There is Peggy sprouting daily. And there are my daughters-three blooming in their separate ways. And there my grandest of grandchildren are still in the summer of their seasons and Ron and Laura and all my friends who are like family in this picnic on the grass. The brook is babbling, bees are bumbling and butterflies are fluttering by.If it rains, so be it. Our throats, like succulents, will open for the drink. When a softball game breaks out I'll be the guy in a rundown between third and home; it could last for years. Pop the cork, set in the candles, let's blow in the stars. After that final nocturnal NO, there is another Yes. It's everybody's birthday; the anniversary of yesterday.