It's been another birthday. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling twenty-two. That's what I said when I lost in black jack. I'm actually about a decade older than that but isn't age really just spirit, daesein? Yes, I'm feeling another year older, and yes it's harder to wake up early in the morning, and yes it's more tiring being on my feet at work all day, and yes I've got lots of laundry to do, and yes all my relationships are like a chess game, etc. But in the end I still feel like a young grasshopper, a mere sapling awash in the pools of the universe, awaiting the wheel of fate.
I spent my birthday weekend in Las Vegas with friends. The trip itself wasn't remarkable but I had a lot of fun playing black jack, baccarat, and roulette with friends, learning it on the fly, as well as some slots as the casino. My favorite meal was a Monte Cristo sandwich. The bread had the texture of fried chicken. I would take a bite and then drink some coffee to go with it.
There were three metaphysical moments I experienced over that birthday weekend in Vegas.
1) On the drive there, when we left California and entered into Nevada, there were these dust storms and doom-inspired mountains. A sign on the highway read Shoshone. When we passed that landscape and that sign, I had some kind of meta moment in time. Something about the land or something.
2) On the drive back there was a car accident on the road leaving Nevada and going to California. This is probably a big drinking/smoking in the car road. Anyway, so this car gets into an accident and the car is completely totaled, especially the front end and the car seat was crumpled/crushed into itself, meaning this person was killed instantly on impact. It really is the city of sin, for I saw Death himself, staring back at me from the abyss.
3) On the last day the guys wanted to go to a antique shop to look around. I stayed in the car with the window down and did a lot of reading and got some rest. I was in that state between wakefulness and intense sleep, meanwhile the weather outside was going from sort of hot to more mild coolness and breeze in the mid afternoon hours. It was the most relaxing part of the trip.
As if that wasn't enough, as soon as I got back, on the next day's morning, I had an 830am-5pm shift, right back into the saddle again, ad infinitum.
But you know, I'm feeling good. I said a prayer for the deceased in the car accident, did some meditating in the car, and turned on Handel's Water Music to vibe out to something flowery. And you know what? Life is good. I'm older but I still feel young. Covid is still raging but I'm healthy. My house is in order: I'm reading books, I'm playing guitar, I have a for work life and a for fun lifestyle that most people would be jealous to have or can't have because they're busy doing other things like trying to make ends meet. Most people are stuck in obligations at work or have kids, or both, and meanwhile, I'm out here trying to figure out how I'm going to get Korean spicy spare rib soup for dinner or how I'm going to manage to find time to finish the Ring Cycle.
The world from say 2004-2021 went through a drastic cataclysmic change. I cannot see the world in the same way as it was say in 2004. Covid has created a new system in which we have to learn to find a new way to life. That's really all we can do.
I don't know about you, but I'm feeling twenty-two.
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