Birthdays, Capricorns and Expectations

[peg22]

So I was cursed with a holiday birthday. Cursed. For the first few years of my life, I either had measles or chicken pox on my birthday. The year I finally got my Easy Bake Oven, I couldn't play with it cuz my mother the nurse didn't want me baking tiny bacteria cupcakes under that lightbulb. So my uncle used up all the little powder packages to make a huge cookie.

When I got older, I always had to have my birthday party WAY after my birthday since no one was in school and most parents were either hungover or watching football and couldn't be driving their kiddies down to Shakees Pizza . . .

When I got even older, the birthday became the finale of the New Year's Eve party. Midnight, kiss, kiss, bring out cake, sing happy birthday, eat cake, try to sober up, drive home . . . whoooo hooooo

So on my 40th birthday, I took off. To NYC. By myself. Best decision I ever made (except when I decided not to shave one side of my head and color it purple - hey it was the 80s okay?!)

I stood in a line at a real live deli on the Upper West side on the night of my birthday and my best friend called me and then I realized that Anthony Michael Hall was right behind me in line . . . And I saw Hugh Jackman in Boy From Oz and the last weekend of Take Me Out and Patrick Stewart in The Caretaker and I swore to never be home on my birthday again.

So this year (and last year) I've gone international. To Canada. And this year it snowed like it snows in On The Banks of Plum Creek when Pa had to eat all the Christmas candy cuz he got stuck in the snow bank and he was only able to save the oysters cuz they were in a  can and I sat by the fire and I drank Bailey's and I turned another year older and I hardly noticed a thing. And it was perfect.

The problem is that I like it better when I'm on control of things. It's the Capricorn in me. Plus I'm a first born born on the first. Of the month. Of the year. Of everything. So I can't really help it.

And now I have to try, in the next few months, to give up, well LOADS OF CONTROL. Throw caution to the wind and  throw in with another and leap empty handed into the void and make a left hand turn from the right hand lane. And it's just about as scary as finding my way from Charles De Galle airport to a hostel in the middle of Paris in the middle of the night with no map, no french money and no french words except the chorus of Lady Marmalade. But that turned out okay.

So I'll just make the decision to spend most days alternating between terror and terpsichory  and be grateful that the void is there to leap screaming into.

Or something like that. I think I'm gonna have to write a lot of CRACK.

Comments

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

Well, Happy birthday one day late. :-) And good luck. (and yay CRACK! Crack is FUN.)

[lyricalsoul.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday from your soul-twins: Mr. LS, and the J boys, who are 11.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Especially HER crack, OMG.

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

Caution? To the wind with you, to the wind!

Sounds like a lovely birthday, and the perfect omen for 2008 for you and yours...*g*

Now get cracking, bachgen.

[mara-snh.livejournal.com]

You think out loud in poem, and when you pause, it's natural for them of us as is readin' you to fill in the spaces with memories of what other clever people have had to say about the scary things the bravest of us do for love. You reminded me today of (and I quote this only because I know you and yours AND the fireplace to be all three of you perfectly fry-proof):


the lesson of the moth

By Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927


i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

[peg22.livejournal.com]

girl, you know the way to my poesy heart! thanks for the amazing poem and the fb. feeling braver by the minute.