It Happens Every Year At This Time

 I get to be a year older. My birthday today used to be the vernal equinox but I seem to have lost that distinction owing to the whims of the firmament.

It has taken me ninety-one years to get this far. I may be old but rumors that I knew Aristotle are untrue. I did, however, call him one day and got his answering machine which, I swear, sounded more like Plato’s voice.

It is fun being old; perhaps the closest thing to being young again. Far from seeing with jaundiced eyes, the world appears to be newly sprouted. Each day is an orange I find myself squeezing for more possible juice.

Where did that gold medallion tree come from? The crumpled tissue bears some resemblance to a Frank Geary building. With a friend’s suggestion I recently discovered Alice Munro's short stories. I had neglected persimmons all these years. This morning, I found a long-lost shirt in the back of my closet. And then there is Rufus Wainwright.

On the other hand, seeing the world fresh could be my astigmatic eyes. I’ve grown emotionally attached to my organs. I’m on good terms with my entrails and I don’t care to hear what nefarious plots they may be hatching. They are all out of warranty. My ears don’t hear like they used so I’ve come to their aid. My architecture has gone from no-nonsense-straight-up-Bauhaus to wavy Hundertwasser, from vertical to diagonal or so it seems.

I have vowed not to talk about Trump. I’m not going to speak of the steep decline in American society with its embrace of malice and imbecility. But I repeat myself. The imaginary candles I am blowing out on my imaginary cake do not signify the snuffing out of enlightenment. The election coming up is a plebiscite on the sanity of this country, to determine whether that substance of decency within still prevails.

If much of the tech world has passed me by, I am enjoying the bliss of unknowing. I am probably running out of gigabytes. Yet I have a grip on the enduring verities. For all the rest I rely on the kindness of strange young people who were born savvy having spent their embryonic months in a sea of umbilical apps.

I am so far out of the loop I don’t remember where the loop is. I could already be on a metaphoric ice floe. However, being unmoored offers a distant perch with an amplitude of vision. There is a temptation to measure the devolution, which I resist. I prefer to think that society has only taken on new forms I don’t recognize. 

I learned from Peggy not to rehearse bad news but that what if gene still shows up now and then. As always, love, friendship, creativity, caring and beauty are still at the center of my being. I hope to be still evolving. I aspire to poetic language not only as a way of saying but as a way of being with a certain sensibility.

I find myself giggling a lot. I laugh at myself searching for my car in a Costco parking lot. And I snicker at grown men on a basketball court running around in colored underwear. Carbonated holiness is what Anne Lamott called it. What could be more absurd than the spectacle of a certifiable sociopath out to destroy every shred of civility yet casting a spell over millions of us? So laughable it makes me cry but not enough to follow Socrates with a hemlock smoothie.

When I Google myself, I do not exist yet automatic doors open before me. I still have exclamation points to gasp about. And I still reflexively apologize when someone bumps into me in a crowded elevator. Giving that up shall be my birthday resolution.