While fingering my keyboard with some thoughts and memories of the first few hours of the second half of my 70th birthday on Tuesday (May 19), I was also shadowing other similar but different anniversaries and Big Things that happened on that date.
The UK media highlighted the 8th anniversary of the royal wedding that hitched Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on May 18th, 2018; and Russian President Vladimir Putin was landing in Moscow (for the 25th time) — and Cuba was getting ready to celebrate one of its two Independence Days the next day.
But I was satisfied with simply sharing my May 19 with two global legends: Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, whose words and works changed life and times beyond their native shores in the USA and Vietnam, respectively.
Following a sumptuous lunch with a lifelong friend, I started reflecting on the number of persons who told me I don’t look my age – meant to be a compliment, but in some cases also complemented with doubt.
Indeed, I was twice asked to produce my ID Card, only to be told ‘They have to be false…’
So, I left the Doubting Thomases to reflect on the Ascension of The Lord, as celebrated by Catholics worldwide two days before (May 17).
Many times, too, came the question: ‘How do you feel being 70?’ – and my response (maybe with different words each time) was: “From tomorrow (May 20), when my first grand-daughter turns 19, I’ll also be turning a new leaf of life — starting my Seventy 2.0”.
The other repeated question was: ‘Where’s the party?’ – to which I responded: “I’ll let you know when I plan it…”
Truly, I didn’t plan any party because I wanted to sit the day out at home and soak-in the congrats on a long life I’m actually still starting to live.
I still maintain that while it’s a great milestone achievement in an age when more people are dying younger (and most of my schoolmates look and sound older), 70 is also just a number — and not the end of life.
Thankfully, this is also an age when the world is starting to realize that people don’t get ‘old’ — they simply keep maturing in age and wisdom, continuing to replenish our eternal memory banks with new knowledge, by the minute, through every day we breathe.
Pensioners used to be considered as having worked hard enough to be relegated to the scrapheap of the forgotten and forcefully rendered no longer useful to the services they helped construct and maintain.
But I’ve lived to see a Saint Lucia Government, under a self-proclaimed ‘Servant Leader’ (Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre), give government pensioners their deserving retirement dues by increasing their monthly payments and making it easier to access social services, including free healthcare.
Late on my birthday afternoon, I walked downhill to my favourite watering hole at Big Mama’s (by the bay), sat and ordered my usual beverage — and while waiting, I’d be reminded by one who never forgets: ‘As if is today that’s your birthday, right?’ (Meaning: ‘Where are the drinks?’)
Two hours later, not wanting to share the experience of the old man who died unable to unravel ‘…why it takes me only five minutes to walk down to the rum shop and it takes me 20 minutes to climb back up the hill…’, I humbly asked a tender at the bar (also called a bartender) to ‘Drop me home!’ – only to be told ‘You have to be called to the bar first…’ (Meaning: ‘One more drink — for the road!’
I decided to sip slowly, but one ‘goggere’ (one who ‘grogs’ more than others) told me (with certainty): ‘You can’t be going home before dark, on your birthday…’
His highly-spirited lesson to me was: ‘Now you have one for the road, you will need two more — one for the drive and one more to arrive alive…’
There and then, I invoked Derek Walcott’s penchant of listening more than talking.
The bard with brushes and words had painted a cover for one of his poetry collections featuring four men playing at a domino table, their faces featuring deep thought and concentration on what next card to play — and one evening he told me (at his then home overlooking Pigeon Island) that with eyes on the (domino) table and ears tuned to talk from loosened tongues, ‘One can learn more than reading a newspaper or following the radio or TV news…’
True, conversations by Big Mama and at Wendy’s Vigie Beach emporium (my other favourite fact-finding destination) range from who did what and where last night, to which minister did what and where, when and how, to how service providers should calculate passing-on their additional costs to consumers of goods and services supplied.
Call them bars or rum-shops, these are locations frequented by Mr. Big and Ms. Small, Bankers and Stevedores, Investors and Hustlers, Friends and Frenemies, Rival Siblings – people of every creed and breed – cohabiting in an equal space where anything and everything goes and comes and where, once mouths open, stories will jump out.
In the mid-1970s as a writing reporter, I used to ride coastal passenger trucks around-the-island on Saturdays to simply listen to passengers venting their spleen or washing their dirty linen on others – and in-between, always got the on-the-ground facts about a community issue attracting national attention.
Today, even with the world at my fingertips 24/7, instant messaging takes on a different meaning in small and shared spaces and places, but I managed to crawl out from Big Mama’s unnoticed, if only to also measure how-long it would take me to climb the hill back to my humble abode.
Back home safely after like forever, I stuffed my mouth and blessed my belly with my usual early dinner-and-sleep routine, ignoring the warnings of the sages over ages to ‘Doh eat and lie-dong!’
In the brief period between my dimming daze and dozing-off, my mind floated back to my early days growing-up singing a song by a band called ‘Rare Earth’ called ‘I just wanna celebrate another day of living…’
Last thing I remember, though, was asking myself whether the band got its name from the Rare Earths that China holds the most on Planet Earth – and pressing the button on my smart watch to see what was the last time I saw…
… and 30 minutes after the day’s 20th hour — having been up for the previous 16, I silently prayed thanks for another day of living — and the beginning of that next phase of life.
Then I crashed…