This is an unusual post, for any blog, let alone mine. And unusuality can incite scepticism, though this post is meant wholeheartedly. But, given its unusual unusuality, you may wish to print it off and attach it with a magnet to your fridge. To impress people.
Today is the hottest day in 62 years that I have celebrated my birthday. There were periods during the 80s and 90s when I only knew it was my birthday because it was raining. Most birthdays I celebrated alone, partly due to my inbred melancholy, partly the fact it was pissing down with rain.
This coming Sunday is the 17th September, which is not my birthday, clearly, obviously, don’t be silly; but I normally celebrate with a few friends on the nearest Sunday after my birthday. My mother turned 21 on a Monday and wanted to celebrate the event with friends on the previous Saturday. My grandfather forbade it: “You will not be 21 until the Monday, and therefore it is on the Monday that you will celebrate.” Theatres are often closed on Mondays, but a theatre was found that was performing that Monday in 1947 and, according to protocol, a jolly party was had on that Monday, theatre visit included.
Only a few years later, after an evening celebrating his own birthday, my grandfather had a stroke in the night and passed away before my grandmother would dare to disturb the neighbours in order to call a doctor. On his own birthday. They had no telephone. All according to protocol.
It was when working in Germany, and upon the fall of my birthday, that a lunch of attorneys (what a cosy collective noun that is) raised a glass to me to celebrate the day in their own, German manner. Not the day of my birth, but the start of a glückliches, neues Lebensjaar: a happy new year of life, and the concept struck a chord with me.
A lost chord, that may yet, one day, be found again. Some who read this may not even be on the same continent as me, but some know me personally. I invite you to come on Sunday and celebrate the start of a new year of life, for, whether it is our birthday or not, each day is the start of a new year of life, a continuation of the search we pursue, each of us, for his or her lost chord.
Come one, come all. If you don’t know the way, you know my e-mail address, and there are comments below.
Clip: From Switzerland, Sir Arthur Sullivan’s The Lost Chord. He wrote the tune in memory of his brother Fred. For me, it works only when played by a brass band.
Will certainly drop by.