Birthday

I once said that every time August the 8th came around I would listen to The Sugarcubes' "Birthday."

I had it on cassette tape. But then I kept forgetting to do it, misplaced the tape, found it, and then forgot to do it again. Now it's been a few years since I've listened to it. And it's already August the 9th. Listening to it is mute for another 364 days.

Such is life.

But remembering that I once said I would do it made me think about the transient nature of birthdays. For periods of my life they were marked with animal-shaped cakes and theme parties, then by late nights in bars, then group dinners to the hottest new restaurant and then, more recently, by a newfound ambivalence, a need to be quiet about it.

For all the transience, though, there are constants. There's a new digit added on every year. There's a tune I'm pretty much guaranteed to hear.

And there's something beautiful, really, about honoring another year of experience and all I got from it. It isn't always how I look at aging it our wrinkle-obsessed corner of the globe, but getting wiser is every bit as much a part of a birthday as everything else.

Which brings me to the final constant: the people I do end up seeing and connecting with on my birthday year in year out. Days like birthdays tend to weed out the transients from the constants.

But the constants, they're the real gift.