It was delightful to find, particularly given the existential insignificance of turning fifty seven. Sixty? That's a Birthday. Fifty five? Also a Birthday. But fifty seven is neither here nor there, neither fish nor fowl. It's a grey and liminal thing, marking an in-between place, becalmed in the fogged doldrums of deep middle age.
Not that I mind, not at all. It's a pleasure to still be drawing breath, to enjoy the blessings of creation around me, the soft quiet of hours spent reading and the good company of friends and family.
I write this shipboard, in the lap of ease. For the last hour, I've been out on a veranda overlooking the rolling ocean, reading Zola's Germinal as eight foot swells rock the ship and I give thanks for dramamine. It's the fourth and final book I brought with me on this trip, and it's more engaging than I'd anticipated. Immersed in that desperate, carnal tale of the lives of coal miners in the late 19th century, the dissonance between their brutish, desperate labors and my own comfort is as jarring as a Ligeti Requiem ringtone.
Today may not be any particular thing, but I'd have to be delusional not to appreciate the fifty seven seasons of my own good fortune and happenstance. These last near-sixty decades have been good ones, with more days filled with song than not.
Take enjoyment of your days, counsels the One Who Assembles, and I shall enjoy this one with gratitude.
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