My 40th birthday was on October 20th, 1989. This was a Friday. I’m not a “party guy” but I felt that I needed to do something to mark the day. Decade birthdays deserve a celebration. I decided to have an “open house” the day after my birthday on Saturday, the 21st. There would be a schedule of activities throughout the day and people could join whenever they wished. I called it a BIRTHDAYATHLON. The schedule made it look like a yoga retreat.
| 7:30-8:30 | Meditation | |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30-9:00 | Breakfast | Juice, Tea, Fruit, Nuts, Yogurt, Toast, Jam |
| 9:00-10:00 | Shaving of Beard | |
| 10:00-11:30 | Bicycling | West Cliff Drive, UCSC |
| 11:30-12:30 | Lunch | Soup, Bread, Cheese |
| 12:30-2:30 | Games | Uno, Crazy 8’s, Pictionary, Monopoly, Backgammon |
| 2:30-4:00 | Swimming | |
| 4:00-5:00 | Speeches | |
| 5:00-6:30 | Dinner | Rice, tofu, vegetables |
| 6:30-8:00 | Music | Piano, Sax, Guitar, Song |
| 8:00-9:00 | Cake and Ice Cream | |
| 9:00-12:00 | Rest, Chat |
The “main event” was the shaving of my beard. I had had a full face, generally untrimmed, beard since I was a freshman in college. I’m not a “true” hippy but there’s a lot of hip in me. I decided that one way to mark the big day was to shave the beard off and see what my long unseen face was like. I would grow the beard back right away, of course, because that bearded image was “Who I Am”. Before the shaving day I let the beard go completely untrimmed for a few weeks.
Four days before the birthday open house on October 17th at 5:04 pm, the earth shook. It was an earthquake! A BIG one. I was at work on the second floor. Ceiling tiles began to fall. The shaking got worse. It kept going. It got MEAN. It was like a very angry person suddenly came into the room and started clobbering us. It. Did. Not. Care. Eventually there was a pause. I ran out of the building and got in my car. Safe in the car I saw the asphalt of the parking lot heaving up and down in waves.
This was the Loma Prieta 6.9 quake near Santa Cruz. The World Series Quake.
Highway 17 to San Jose was shut down for several weeks due to landslides. My two siblings, their families, and my father would not be able to attend my birthday open house. The earthquake was followed by many aftershocks. My kitchen was a tossed salad and my psyche was severely traumatized and jarred for several weeks afterward. If you can’t trust that the earth itself will “stay put” what can you trust?
3 days after the quake, on my birthday, on Friday the 20th, the day before the BIRTHDAYATHLON, I sent an email to everyone with this message:
The beard was shaved. My face was revealed – to everyone’s astonishment.
It had been many years since I saw that face. It didn’t seem like me. I was going to grow the beard back immediately but that would take a while. I was freaked out. I avoided mirrors and reflective glass surfaces for weeks so that I wouldn’t have to witness that weird foreign face. At some point I decided that it was ridiculous and that I really needed to come to terms with “Who I Am”. The face is not “Who I Am” - I Am much more than That. The bathroom in the apartment had a wide counter next to the sink. I got up on it and sat down and faced the mirror and assessed my face. I sat there for 15 minutes looking carefully, closely. Eventually I did accept that that face was mine and I didn’t need to avoid it.
Now, at age 73, I am OLD. Birthdays are not that special any more. Even decade birthdays. Birthdays are a sobering reminder that each day is simply one step closer to the Drop Dead Date. Birth is wonderful and miraculous and deserves celebration. Death is a hard inevitable reality. It is a natural pair to birth.
My mother died at age 63 in 1987 (heart attack, smoking) - two years before my 40th birthday open house. She did not see my shaved face. This brings me a certain sadness. My father lived for 12 years after my mother’s death to the age of 77 (lonely, miserable, drunk, smoker). He died on October 17, 1999 - exactly one decade after the earthquake.
My mother's death at 63 was an early death; too early. Early deaths are harder to accept than a death at the end of a long life. I am sad to report that my brother died at age 45 in 1999 and my sister at age 60 in 2008. I have been the “last of the clan” since age 58.
On my web site (logicalpoetry.com) I have a simple web page entitled “Not Yet”:
| Name | Birth Date | Death Date |
|---|---|---|
| Dad | August 13, 1922 | October 17, 1999 |
| Mom | December 19, 1923 | June 27, 1987 |
| Elin | December 8, 1947 | June 25, 2008 |
| Jon | October 20, 1949 | |
| Leif | August 14, 1953 | May 13, 1999 |
All of the above dates are special to me. I know them by heart.
There's only one date left to fill in.
When? Not Yet.
Who will do it? Not Me.