Amidst the uproar of a world in chaos, I was born seventy-five years ago. Now in these more peaceful times… no, wait. Other way around. In those peaceful times in 1949, I was born, and seventy-five years later…
So, yeah, I’m seventy-five. I’m writing a book and composing piano tunes, and today Marcia and I schlepped ten wheelbarrow loads of oak into the woodshed and put out the garbage cans and tied the lids down to dissuade the bears, and I’ll bake some cod for supper to have with quinoa.
*
I remember when it became possible to make a recording of my music on a cassette tape recorder and give a cassette of my music to someone else, and it was a miracle. I remember when the very first photocopy shop opened, maybe the first one in the whole world, and I made ten copies of a collection of short stories and gave the collection to ten people, and that was a miracle, too.
*
I was born at Saint Luke’s hospital in San Francisco at 6:33 AM on October 17, 1949. I was ten months in my mother’s womb. Otherwise I would not be the double Libra I am, whatever a double Libra is. My parents took me home from Saint Luke’s to the little house they’d just finished building in Mill Valley, which in 1949 still had an active mill turning redwood logs into lumber. My parents bought their lot and built their house in Mill Valley for 7000 dollars.
*
I make a point of asking people on their birthdays if they have any words of wisdom they’d like to share, or if not wisdom then something to chew on. Since I am the birthday person today I asked myself if I had any words of wisdom to share. What came to mind was the upcoming election and the many other elections in my lifetime won by horrible people who did all they could to enrich a tiny percentage of the population at the expense of everybody else while doing nothing to slow the ruination of our planet. And I remember the days after those elections feeling sad and distressed and wondering why we keep choosing avaricious dishonest people as our leaders, and then I got back to writing and playing the piano and schlepping firewood and cooking supper and being a good friend and trying to live lightly on the earth.
fin