Sunday, November 10, 2013

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Today is my father's birthday.  Being a dutiful and loving son, I have already called him to wish him the joy of it, and I sent a gift in what ought to have been enough time to get it to him on or before the day.  So there is that.

Those who read what I write will note that November is a month that has given my family much; many of us are born in November.  In some way, that is appropriate; if October used to be Death Month, it follows that the cycle of years would move on to new life, thus birth, thus many babies coming to my family in November.  But as October no longer really counts as Death Month, November will not be Birth Month much longer, at least not for the family as a whole.  My child, for example, is due at the end of March--and that is not the only way in which the new generation of my family is messing around with family traditions.  (Others are known by those who need to know.)  But the combo-breaker represented is most welcome.

There is, perhaps, some oddity in celebrating the beginnings of life when, in the Northern Hemisphere in which I and my family live (I know of no exceptions), the life of the world is sinking into quiescence, still mourning alongside Demeter after millennia and with the almost-certain knowledge that Persephone will come again (the trauma of the imagery only now occurs to me).  And I am certain that in generations past, expecting through the winter--with its environmentally imposed limitations on food and travel and the challenges in keeping healthily warm--was...less than desirable.  I am also certain that having the first months of life outside the womb being those darkest and coldest does...something* to those of us who have the sense of timing to be born into what many consider the worst part of the year.

Then again, we are also born into the festive times, with harvest and winter holidays greeting us soon after we greet the world.  Our earliest lives are surrounded by joy and the preparations for it, and insofar as beginnings go, ours are good ones.  My father shows it, certainly; his continuous optimism (I have never known him to show a lack of hope to his children--or to anyone else, come to think of it) bespeaks being solidly rooted in happiness and cheer.  It is one of the many things that people love about him, that he is a happy--not annoyingly bubbly or forcedly ebullient, but happy--person; it makes him good to be around.

I am not able to be around him today; the demands of work prevent it, and he well understands working life, I know.  But I would have liked to have.  And I have done what I can to help him have a good day.  He is most certainly worth it.

*What that "something" is varies.  I have much of the winter about me, while today's birthday boy has much of the summer.  I am sure there are metaphors in that.  Then again, I study English; I would be sure of it.

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