Birthday Blues

1.23.09 N. A.M. NYC.

Reflections on Yesterday

It was a relatively normal working day for me. I don't take days off for these sorts of things. Back track. Katya woke up early and prepared an enjoyable meal of biscuits and sausage gravy, OJ and fresh coffee. It was so nice to spend the morning hour with her. We even took the train together. The workday as mentioned was fine. A photography deadline for our March catalogue and lots of incoming property to sort through set a brisk pace for the day. I let out to a few here and there and the word spread. People invest a great deal of energy and excitement into these anniversaries.

Emails between mom and myself contained wonderful moments of truth and reality. By the time she was my age now, she’d already mothered three of us, and undergone knee surgery, endured my brother and his condition, a relatively fresh marriage and so much more. I was thinking of her and a tremendous amount of things that I began sensing were far beyond what I would be capable of dealing with as effectively as she had. She wrote to me that there was no need to compare the two of us in any way. We all are different and confront our challenges in the best ways we can. She expressed a desire to regain some of the strength of her youth but she reminded me and reconfirmed what I’ve been doing here, whom I’m with and how far I’d come. This was not without the emotional charge you could only expect from one’s mother. This dialogue left me with more to reflect on and I was able to slightly enjoy the day more.

For me the birthday is that of being more a mile marker of one’s mortality, the ever-fleeting nature of life and change as we age toward the inevitable truth that waits in the corner of the room patiently. It sometimes or mostly feels like this.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, reminds one of the delicacy and precious precariousness of life which is at its base level borrowed time. A reality that let me enjoy myself last evening at the Blind Tiger Ale House in the West Village. Note: A blind pig, or tiger or any number of other names is an old speak easy code name for a bar.

6:30 P.M. was the marked time for arrival. My friend Aaron from work and I rolled down to the spot arriving real early to a bustling crowd of middle age men. The slow but fun realization of which settled in that this was not just a typical after work bar with a male majority on a weeknight. This became clear with several glances I caught from other patrons. (Train Note: Young woman in cerulean blue tights with red knit leggings knee high, black miniskirt and navy style sailor’s coat with knit beige solid hand mittens Union Sq.)

In short many friends arrived and we proceeded to have a grand evening filled to the brim with beer and then pizza near the Vanguard and further on to Reggio’s cafe which I was less moved by than it’s history. I picked up that tab from our party as a way to thank the crew for coming out in the cold night to play. (Train Note: Black suede boots with grey fur lining fringe. Same woman as before off to class according to her dialogue with her over charged class mate presumably.)