THE BIG OH

I’ve celebrated my 18th, 21st, 40, 50, 60 and 65th birthdays. Now I am soon to be celebrating my 70th. I have never even considered acknowledging certain birthdays let alone celebrating them. For instance, I couldn’t really care about my 23rd, 47th or 62nd birthdays. Its seems if your age ends in a zero or a five then it must be celebrated. A bit like a human tombola!

Getting older seems to inspire some to carry out death defying activities such as going to Tesco’s in the rush hour. Or maybe jumping out of a plane without a parachute before it taken off and whilst still taxiing on the runway. I am no stranger to these thoughts and wanted to celebrate all my birthdays but if I did this then how could I better myself every year? This year I thought I would make seventy daffodils in March. This being springtime and daffodils being seasonal at that time. That was quite easy of time consuming, but job done so move on. Currently I am writing seventy blogs of which this is just one. Also, I am planning to make seventy figures maybe human, maybe not. These to be arranged at either an exhibition or outside my studio along the riverbank.

Away from glass then I do write. I wrote this blog which proves it. I kind of write poems and specialise in poems that don’t rhyme, and they don’t even make sense. It’s a kind of therapy in reverse. Instead of calming me and seeing writing as an outlet of releasing stress it gives me pain and I always feel frustrated and angry after a writing session! One distraction I gave myself which was pretty pointless but that didn’t stop me was to write down seventy names of people in my life that had died but had left a certain memory with me. My starting point was my grandmother who died in maybe 1984 but the date isn’t important, it’s the name that is vital and with the associated memories of that person.

Writing severity names of loved ones lost wasn’t as hard as remembering them. Of course, I changed the rules halfway through this mental exercise and included famous names such as the Queen and David Bowie. Most names were and are personal and obscure. It took me ages to write the list and mistakenly I repeated myself at least a couple of times. I added up the names every few days and was always way off target. Then after a week of non-activity I came up with fifteen names. On adding up I was shocked to realise that I have exceeded my original target of seventy names by one. I had on my list seventy-one names and not as I wished, seventy. What was I going to do? Who would I delete? In deleting a name did that give me power like God to give and take as I desired? In the end I left the list alone and changed the title of the list and had to accept that I had seventy-one names. Oh well that’s the trouble with knowing so many people I suppose. A week later I reread the list only to discover that I had repeated a person’s name. I had written their name twice. Oh, joy of joys. That was the answer then. Just cross off the duplicate and I was back to seventy names left on the list. Perfection!

Getting old isn’t all its cracked up to be. I mean life is rewarded by giving out medals to all those oldies that have just survived. Its all about what you do. I’m pretty certain I have done almost everything I want and maybe I am sort of treading water now as far as ambitions go. I mean I am not planning anything for my 80th birthday (yet!). Maybe as you get older every birthday should be celebrated. Maybe every day you wake up alive (and without pain) should be a party excuse. I do have a soft spot for anniversaries and find its always a good excuse for some kind of celebration. There used to be calendars or diaries that all anniversaries were highlighted. Maybe these books are still in circulation. We have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Last year was the year of Glass which was a particular favourite of mine. With a little bit of imagination then every second can be celebrated as a unique occasion

I knew someone who didn’t want to live to be 100 years old, so they died a few months before this landmark birthday. That clever planning and I wonder how long had this thought process been bubbling under so to speak.? Imagine if every birthday we had could be our last? Then we surely would feel we are almost obliged to celebrate every birthday and not just the so-called biggies. For now, I am looking forward to my 70th and 71st and after that who knows?