On the cusp between Leo and Virgo…
On the cusp of the half-century mark…
On the cusp of the cusp of something more…
Today I turn 49 years old. I don’t quite know what to do with that, other than to play this song, and to pray. Yes – I pray. Every night. At every moment of doubt, at every moment of worry. Little prayers, little offerings, little exercises in superstition or faith and what’s the goddamn difference?
You wake to greet the brand new dayWake up, realize you’re lateRush out to make your planeCan’t find your keys again…
You need to reawake, nowListen to the wordsI’m saying in this line, andThat your life will be just fine, andYour troubles do not stayThey get replaced with good timesNow you’ve got a great lifeSmile as you walk byThinkin’ ’bout the day
Born of fear, born of trauma, born of need and desire and survival – we all come into this world in such similar ways – messy and wet and crying out of lonely desperation, clinging to whatever is immediately around us, grasping at something or someone to take care of us – for protection, for security, for comfort, for love. Some of us never learn how to stop crying. Some of us never learn how to start again.
This body, the only body I have ever known, the only body I will ever know, this shell of my physical existence, breaks down a little more with each passing year. The lithe and limber days of carefree, flexible, quick-to-bounce-back forgiveness calcify and become brittle at the turn of an almost-half-century. This body – it cracks and crinkles now, it whispers and laughs and collapses – it betrays this mind, disconnecting from what I think I can do, what I once could do, what I lost the ability to do… and today of all days I can barely formulate a coherent sentence.
It’s late, your legs won’t rest todayYour body seems to acheYour mind will win the raceBurnin’ by your sleep again
The light blooms from the sunThe long dark night undoneAnother day of funWaiting for some luck to come
Should I fear this year then? This final year of my forties, death knell to any far-fetched and barely-feasible semblance or pretending of youth? Maybe… maybe. Strangely it’s not fear I feel, nor the rush to get on with it. It’s really just another day, just another year, and the way we mark the days and years is just some silly system of numeric designation, as if 49 means something more than 48 or less than 50. There is nothing at all different today from yesterday – even if nothing is at all the same.
You keep hoping for a dayWhen things will go your wayWhen all decisions have been madeAnd karma’s finally found its way
The drinks, they pass the timeThey help me to unwindThe guilt is killing meInside your eyes
It’s gray, the rain pours down my faceThe tears become erasedA cleansing of my faceSplashing down into my grin
My eyes become aliveA feeling left behindA hidden world untiedCreating all you see today
The clouds, they went awayForever, did I waitAnd karma finally found my plateAnd now I’m smiling by the sun
And so I step gingerly back into the river of life, the banks on which I have probably paused more than most – shy and skittish, scared and scarred from that moment of birth, and never quite having been able to get completely over it. I watched more of it go by than I ever took part in, and though it’s not regret I am experiencing, there is a sense of loss, even if I can’t be mad about it. It’s never helpful to be angry at who you used to be. Instead, I offer thanks, even for those days when I didn’t want to be part of it, when I swam to the shore, coughing and spitting out the anxiety, crying out the salty worry, spent and exhausted from trying to swim against the current. All these silly mixed metaphors have me feeling a little muddled, and what I originally wanted to be a contemplative birthday post has turned into something slightly different. The unexpected accident, the messy inconvenience of being human. What I most wanted life to be – something pretty, something perfect – is precisely what a human’s life can never be.
We’ll meet again somedayWe’ll smile and then I’ll say:“When it rains, it pours all dayUntil love can find its way”
Now, listen to the words I’m sayingIn this line that your life will be just fine,And troubles, they do not stay,They get replaced with good timesNow you’ve got a great life,Smile as you walk byNeed to reawake nowLIsten to these words thatI’m saying in this lineAnd your life will be just fineTroubles, they do not stayThey get replaced with good timesNow you’ve got a great lifeSmilin’ ’bout the day…
