Jeremiah's School of Levitation

I just recently turned 42, which I suppose I should have broadcast, but didn't because it wasn't the happiest of occasions, though I did receive some lovely gifts, not the least of which being an iPod Shuffle, from my kids. The tiny silver miracle is a marvel considering many things, but being the music geek I am, it is especially marvel-ous because, just a few birthdays ago, I was loving on my portable CD player, thinking that was truly a sign that we had arrived at The Future. Now, we have the Shuffle, which, if you're not careful with it around your mouth, you could end up accidentally swallowing 250 songs.

No, the fact that I'm as hip as the next teenage My Space-r didn't make me goofily happy on that day. I, instead, even as I clutched my Shuffle, went into a Spiral of Contemplation that left me feeling existentially drunk and nearly as ridiculous as I would have felt had I danced naked at church. I mean, at this point, I should have figured it all out. I should be discussing stocks with the guys, building shelves and kitchens in my spare time, achieved a career that includes cell phone calls at home to solve emergency occurances and travel to Boston to "seal the deal." I should be able to choose between a variety of suits, wear some cologne, and know more about investing than I do about the contestants on The Apprentice. Yep. Seems I never grew up, and, as charming as that may seem on the surface, it kind of bothers me when the house gets quiet and the walls get really close.

It's the classic "what have I done?" thing, I know. It gets bigger, though, when you start rifling through your writing, which was supposed to be your ticket to the moon, and you see unfinished everythings everywhere. Scraps of thoughts, wisps of wanderings, and tatters of tales that gather and now look like a sewing room floor--multicolored strips of tangled ideas just as paisley as they are mottled, as they are ragged and frizzled. Pick up one, turn it in your hands, smell it, and throw it back down to get lost again in the Shuffle of color.

And, of course, none of it has gotten me to the moon. It has, ironically, only gotten me to a place where I can't breathe and I don't weigh much.

My kids are quite the legacy. My youngest son is a natural athlete, able to pick up a ball of any shape or size and get it into the hole, over the net or the fence, or right into the hands of another kid with a deftness that defies effort. My oldest can dip and swerve around words and concepts like he had two pair of wings. I'm proud that some vestige of my abilities survives fully in them. I want them, though, someday to think "But, yeah, my dad, now HE really knew how to [fill in the blank]!"

No point here. It's just that after 42 years of service to mankind, I'm disappointed that mankind may possibly have no knowledge of me.

Labels: contemplation

Happy Birthday! Is there a way for us to have a virtual beer together? If so, let's do that.

BTW, it doesn't get any easier as you get older...I still have a crisis every birthday about where I "should" be, and my pile of writing bits just gets higher and higher. I say, we throw them all together and make a patchwork quilt of stories and poems...we'll make lots of money....

Take a look around at most of the people around you. Are the majority of them doing anything great?

I didn't think so. I know i'm not.

Happy Bithday Sir.

I can say that you have made a mark on at least one human being on this planet. When I read your words, the way you weave them like silk, I am inspired. So, while I cannot speak for mankind, I can speak for me as one of mankind and I'm glad I have what knowledge I have of you.

Happy Birthday, introspective one.

first belated happy birthday! next, Peter realized that upon leaving the UK, he wasn't going to get around to starting up the radio station he had fantasized over. I said do it in CA.

life isn't just about sealing the deal. it's sometimes as simple as not swallowing the shuffle...