b h a g . n e t visual and conceptual exchange b h a g . n e t
THE BIRTHDAY
Driving the three hours from Allentown to New York City, she's leaving home and coming home. She can make a home for herself wherever she lives. It hasn't been easy, but she's learned to do that much. It's just a matter of working it all out: doing what needs to be done and imagining what can be done even if you've never done it before. She was running a household at age ten for her ailing mother. Later, for her own ailing husband. She held on. They had held on as long as they could. Now she's starting over, this time making a life for herself.
Checking the rearview mirror, she casts her gaze ahead into the seam between headlight and night. Interstate 78 is a straight line on the map, but here on the asphalt it's long hills and broad curves. Aside, dark shapes rise and fall—the hills somebody built a house on, the fields somebody made a life in, some kind of life anyway.
It felt strange last week, descending the dark mountain highway into the amber lights of Lehigh Valley again, into streets that were familiar not so long ago. What a trip: Coming back for the Christmas and New Year's holidays with all their jostling parties and the chance and chore of seeing people again after a long time. Wanting to like them and hoping to feel like one of them. All through her childhood, they never quite let her feel like one of them. Town records say all those cousins and aunts and uncles are supposed to be her family. Etiquette says they should have class to match their money. Why don't they act that way? Now it feels just as strange, ascending the dark highway out of town, heading toward morning and the City. Tomorrow is her birthday. She had almost forgotten.
Headlights, tiny lights, far back in the rearview mirror. Open road ahead and aside. The cars in the mirror are static under her stare and loom closer only after she looks away.
What are birthdays for anyway? We celebrate them like holidays, but they aren't. Our birthdays don't get printed on calendars unless we're dead presidents or son of a god or something. She likes pondering these quirky sorts of questions, figuring things out. It exercises the mind. And what else can we do anyway but try to understand? The New Year—well that's just technical. We can choose any calendar we want, as long as it keeps us in the right place at the right time. Everyone needs a calendar. As for Christmas, everyone needs a savior or something like it—a prophet, an angel, a god, a hope. And for that very reason Christmas and New Year's and the holidays of every faith are for everyone—everyone who believes in them. But a birthday.... Or maybe it's the same. Maybe it's for everyone who believes in your birthday.
Five cars in the immediate field of view; two in front, one behind, one left, one gaining on the right, making a move to pass. Why do people like to pass on the right? Do they think they're getting a free pass? Or maybe a secret pass that no one else knows about? There's some kind of esoterica at work there, or obtuseness anyway. Dark bridges, dark rooftops, dots of light.
Maybe she should let the birthday pass. Let it pass on the right, quietly like it's not even really passing, and before long—guess what?—it's gone. Anyway, there's plenty to keep her busy when she gets home. Rest first. Rest up from it all. And then back to work. Her design project could lead to something big. You hope for a chance like this, but god it's scary. The first meeting is a week away. "They already like what you do", one friend told her, "They just need to know you can deliver on deadline." Just deliver the goods. She can do that. But life is like a boat full of holes. How can she patch them all fast enough to stay afloat? She has to remember that in spite of all the work she's doing, she remains unemployed, which only means unpaid. There are very few people in the world who are really unemployed, really not doing any work. But there are plenty working and not getting paid for it. She has succeeded in joining their ranks. She finally succeeded at something. Damn. What a life. The apartment needs fixing up too. She's got to do that. She's got to. But there really isn't time for both right now, for making a home and making a living.
Who would she share her birthday with? One by one she crosses them off the list. The birthday list, the dating list; everything is transient now. Having two homes gives her the comfort of family past and the hope of friendships future. There is her late mother's house in Pennsylvania. People say "You're so lucky to own a home." They're lucky to have parents. The funny thing is, it still is home in a way, even though there's no one left there. And then there is the ghetto rental in New York City. "So ghetto" like they say in Brooklyn about anything that is short on style and going nowhere. Life is so ghetto. She meets people, and loses people, all the time. A litany of names almost comes to mind, but she stops it. There's nothing worse than being sentimental. She's learned that much. Anyway, they all pass. Maybe not all. There are a few friends she's held onto. Or maybe she'll spend the day with a new friend. Less history means more hope. Less obligation and more freedom: To come together, to fall apart. "It's just got to be someone who believes and makes a believer out of me."
The light of the City dawns on the horizon, beating the sunrise by a few minutes. Traffic swarms the lanes. No more open road. No more daydreaming. Time to focus. Time to make a life.
© 2003 John Clay