This is not at all easy for me. I am terrified by death. It mortifies me far more than the thought of developing dementia. I have no fear of dying itself, because pain brings clarity and that is the ultimate means to put everything into perspective. No. It is the terror of non-existence. I used to think I had certain knowledge that some thing--any one thing--about me in this lifetime could carry forward. That it could influence some essence that could count me, the conscious me, as part of it. I was raised on reincarnation. Disabusing myself of my mother's ideology was the best and worst thing I ever did.

So on my birthday, I told no one. My ex-girlfriend and my oldest friend were the only ones to send messages. I received no call from my mother or grandmother for the 2nd year in a row--and it hurt a lot less this time. Not at all, actually. I was thankful for it.

So on that day, I worked at the same high impact science crap I've been doing the last few weeks. Met with one of my new students. Found out my two old students are basically as good as dead to me for their usefulness. Continued to revise and re-do analyses and figures. At 7pm I was sitting there. At the terminal. In a dark, dark place that had no depth, only an insubstantial vastness that encompassed my emotional and mental landscape.

I left work, went to my car, dropped off my laptop. I stopped. I park literally 6 inches away from a graveyard every day. Last year I went at night and sat among the tombstones, taken aback by how quiet and devoid of anything the place was, and how very different it's been in the past at other sites when I was more in-tune or hallucinational, whatever you're more comfortable with.

This year, it was still light out. Overcast. The rain was a sprittering fog of cherry blossoms blowing every which way. I walked through the cemetery for the better part of an hour. I saw the gravesites of confederates who never went back to their native soil. Of a 17 year old kid that died in a car crash back in 2007, and she's got mardi gras beads hanging from a wooden cross and plastic toys like snoopy on his doghouse carefully mounted on her tombstone. Even saw a scientist with a marker made of a fine ivory-colored stone.

I walked and wondered that I'd left my twenties behind me. I'd ended up here in Wisconsin, with a Ph.D., far away from local and distant familiarities. I'd lost many people as a function of breaking up with Emily, but then I'd come to know old friends better. That is itself an old pattern, our old pattern: losing touch with many people and continually re-making our story as we go along, through old paths that occasionally shift through some brush onto new ground and back again.

I felt a sense of peace at the thought of being closer to dead. I left.

I'd originally (and surreptitiously) planned to go to Muramoto with Erik on the pretext of his wife doing an internship there. She is one of the makers of the holy asian slaw. It is gargantuan and delicious. At the last moment, he phoned me to say that she'd gotten off early and let's do it next week. Naturally I could have revealed my true intention there. But I took it as a sign to stay true to my birthday ethos.

So I went there, alone, with my '1,001 Arabian Nights' book, and had slaw and sushi alone. The host was an effete white cylinder of stale dick spunk. The waitress was nice. I sat there and read and felt mildly awkward at the sushi bar. But I wanted to have a nice meal. And the duck + mango was, as always, fantastic. The eel tempura avocado eel sauce 'dragon' roll was alright.

I went home and did nothing of consequence afterward. Nothing of consequence. And that was okay because I chose that. I made the day exactly as I wanted it.

So sometimes I have doubts about how I treat my birthday. The decision used to be made for me, but I am the sole arbiter of my choices and it feels alright. I don't like it, but it is proper.

previous - next