While I cannot find *ANY* confirmation of this on the net, I’m going to go ahead and say anyway that Warren Zevon once said that the hard part of coming up with any song was coming up with the title. After you’ve got that, I’m sure I remember hearing him say, it’s smooth sailing.
His penultimate album was titled “My Ride’s Here”. He hadn’t yet been diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, but if he was capable of doing anything, he was capable of coming up with one heck of a title.
My father’s ride showed up the first time in the 70’s. Moles that got sunburned when he was a kid, then again as a teen, then again as a young adult turned into something that the doctors said “you know what, we should remove that”. In the early 80’s, they became a mishmash of medical Latin and a melange of the M section of the practice for your PSAT words. Malignant Melanoma. Morbidity. Metastasis. Mortality.
He lived until he was 39. I’m told that the last birthday party was a big deal. Lots of 39-themed gifts.
On October 5th, 2012, I turn 40.
The various mediations one can have on such an event range from the “well, what will you finally publish?” to “well, what have you learned?” to “well, what did you have hoped to accomplish by the time you turned forty?” to “have you not yet grown sick of your navel?” Of course, all of these essays have been written by others and, yeah, they’ve been written better than I could have written them. I only have a handful of vague and useless observations.
When I was a kid, football (or any sports, really) made no sense at all. Now, I understand that it is (and they are) a fairly important sublimation of war.
When I was a kid, I didn’t understand why grownups preferred to listen to music that was 20 years old to the new and fresh stuff coming out. The moment when I realized that “Summer of 69” was closer to 1969 than “1985” was to 1985 was a real moment of insight.
When I was a kid, newspapers were boring, op-eds were excruciatingly boring, and the talking heads shows on Sunday were equivalent to torture. Now, newspapers are (almost) dead, the op-eds are the only reason to pick one up in the bagel shop, and being one of the talking heads is something that I discuss with my friends online and how this night is not a good night for me and that night is and this other night is out of the question because, sigh, I don’t watch enough television to be willing to pay for cable(!).
When I was a kid, grownups seemed so very Grown Up. I feel like a 20-year old who isn’t very good at faking having gone around the sun so very many times.
And then I find myself writing a sentence like “The main thing I’ve found, however, is time to digest things that I’ve managed to read, hear, or otherwise absorb over the last… golly… forty years” and hoping to find nuggets of wisdom to pass on from folks like Jim Henson or Tolstoy or Jesus or even (especially?) Groucho and imagining these quotes making people smile and maybe blow their nose because of any dust that happens to be in the room… but then only finding one quotation that really sums up everything that one hopes that those out there listen to and, more importantly, adopt and change their lives in order to follow because, really, it’s the only advice that will both be able to be followed in the same amount as it is worth following:
“Enjoy Every Sandwich.” –Warren Zevon
Happy birthday, my friend! Turning 40 is a lot of fun. IIRC, my 40th involved a fair amount of grape juice. And a selection of people chosen from nearly every phase of my life, from late grade school to the contemporary years. A fabulous time. I hope yours is too.
Now, there’s a price to pay. There’s this guy, who needs to lose some weight and get a better haircut and smarten up his wardrobe. Looks a lot like my dad. And somewhere along the way, I don’t remember when, the dude just moved in to my damn house! I wish he’d go somewhere else and let me get back to feeling like I’m still 25, like I do when there’s no mirror around.Report
We are one of three couples that hang out together often (though not nearly often enough) and the males of these couples are all turning 40 within a few months of each other. We had a discussion about how we absolutely *CAN’T* have a party because…
We asked ‘A’ what he wanted to do for his birthday and he said that he wanted to go up to the mountains, do some fishing, make a campfire, maybe drink some mash, and sleep under the stars.
We asked ‘P’ what he wanted to do and he said “Strippers! No… HOOKERS!!!! And we can all wear togas! And I get a throne and people take turns fellating me! EVERYONE AT THE PARTY!!!!!!”
They turned to me and I said “I want to get drunk and write an essay.”
I think, of the three of us, I am the only one who will have my birthday wish come true.
Of course: The year ain’t over yet.
I mean: thanks.Report
Happy birthday.
I tried to type something out about your brief story about your father and his death, at an age earlier than the one you’ve now reached, but nothing really comes out. So thank you for sharing, and happy birthday again.Report
I tried to do the exact same thing.
I mean: thanks.Report
I was touched.
Sometimes you only have to open the window a little, I suppose.Report
Happy birthday, JB. It was a lovely essay. I’m sorry you lost your Dad so young.Report
I originally had a paragraph about the evolution of the worst thing that has ever happened to something statistically likely to happen to something that is the way the world ought to be, all things considered, assuming it’s peacetime… but I couldn’t do anything with it.
I mean: thanks.Report
Happy Birthday…nothing to really add…just have many more happy birthdays.Report
That is, indeed, the plan.
I mean: thanks.Report
Powerful piece Jaybird. And Happy Birthday!Report
Feliz cumpleaños, dude and well done as always.Report
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
=Wordsworth.
Many happy returns of the day to you, Jaybird. Forty was a long time ago for me and a good year it was, too. May it be such a year for you, too.Report
Happy Birthday.
Milestones are bittersweet. This hit home in that I’ll (hopefully) pass a similar milestone in a few months – the age when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. So far, I’m cancer-free, but the mammogram (scheduled just after the birthday) will be an occasion for reflection.Report
Happy Birthday JB.Report
Happy Birthday.Report
Happy Birthday Jay! Beautiful essay. Bonus points for quoting Warren Zevon.Report
Happy Birthday Jay ol’ boy! Now the important question: what’ve you selected to do for your midlife crisis?Report
I’m thinking about writing a childrens’ book.Report
Young adult novel or picture book?
And happy Birthday. And while I’m not sorry you’ve outlived your dad, I am sorry that he’s not here to share your life.
I’d put the 40’s down as being the best decade of life. Comfortable in your own skin, not yet seeing the drag that will, inevitably, slow life down, point of gaining real mastery over the things you do. Old enough to earn respect from experience but young enough to take physical risk. It’s a good decade.Report
Just a picture book. I’ve gotten the treatment from the ‘tubes.
I’ve heard 34 pages. Just write the words, don’t find an artist. They have in-house artists. (You can write what you want the picture to be doing, of course.)
I’ve also found this. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll pound it out this weekend.Report
32 pages. Print books are printed on a sheet that’s folded and cut to become eight pages, called a signature. Picture books are always multiples of eight, for that reason; and that includes title, copyright, and end pages.
If you read through several and count pages as you follow the story, you’ll see that it actually defines the arc of story. There’s a specific rhythm to a 32-page picture book, which is the standard. It’s good to get a feel for that, too.
But one never ‘pounds out’ a children’s book; every word counts, and it’s the most competitive publishing market out there. I’ve submitted dozens of times, had two accepted, and the houses either consumed by a larger house of out of business between acceptance and anticipated publication; so no published success stories.
Best advice from successful children’s authors I’ve known is get an agent. And they’ll never tell you who their agent is, either.Report
If it’s the children’s book you’ve talked about before, you should totally write it.Report
I hear paranormal teen romance is a popular genre these days.Report
Happy birthday, my friend. That was one hell of a post.Report
Your essay reminded me of another piece that moved me, which seems appropriate to post here. It’s by one of my favorite poets, Donald Justice:
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
The rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices trying
His father’s tie there in secret
And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.Report
That poem made me weepy.Report
I enjoyed it as well, Tod.Report
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
Lovely. Would “Returning to” be a better last line, or does that make it too sing-songy?Report
I must really speak to the maintenance staff about the amount of dust in the cubicle area…Report
May the God you don’t believe in bless you fully at this tipping point in your life. Please say hello to the missus for me, and thanks for sharing this observation. I don’t remember turning 40, but 30 and 50 are in there pretty solidly.
Still hope to meet you some day so we can move our love-hate-love relationship to 3 dimensions.
So happy birthday.
gggReport
jaybird — My dad: got to age 45 with his malignant melanoma. I was 16.
My 40th (many moons ago): spent au naturel in a south pacific lagoon with FemRex. Lovely.
Your essay: Touching and valuable.
I mean: thanks.Report
Thank you all for your lovely wishes.Report
Every few months I’ll spend an afternoon youtubing Warren Zevon songs. He’s the only artist I do that for. He was a genuinely bittersweet songwriter and musician: not bitter or sweet, but both.
My dad is 90 and I’m 47. I not only don’t want to outlive him, I’m not that crazy about outliving him.Report
Old Chinese story. The emperor asks a philosopher what the perfect fate would be. The philosopher replied “You will die and your son will bury you. He will die and his son will bury him. His son will die and his son will bury him.”
Enraged, the emperor responds “What a terrible fate that would be!”
The philosopher replied “Would you have the burials in any other order?”Report
Happy Birthday. May you have many more, all while sticking around here.Report
You’ve survived another round trip around Sol on spaceship Terra! +1 Wisdom! -1 Constitution! Choose a new skill!Report
Happy birthday, knucklehead (that’s one of the great complements).
I had my dad around for a long time, but it wasn’t enough. This weekend is his birthday — I’m going to call my mom and celebrate.Report
I remember the first time I watched Field of Dreams after my Dad passed away. Good thing grown men don’t cry.Report
HPY BD JB, U INTP U, MHR
Since everyone is doing poems:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Report
BTW 40 is quite a ways in my rearview mirror now. My oldest is roughly a dozen yrs younger than you. I envy you what was in many ways my best decade and in many ways my worst. Naturally if I could do it all over again I would.
Hang on, I’ve got to go yell at some kids on my lawn.Report
Happy birthday, Jay.
“When I was a kid, grownups seemed so very Grown Up. I feel like a 20-year old who isn’t very good at faking having gone around the sun so very many times.”
I often think this, too. The benefit of time and distance has allowed me to look back at dad as he was when I was growing up and realize that the experience was the same for him, too.Report