Wednesday, April 12, 2006

They Say It's Your Birthday


Isn't this guy cute? No reason; just wanted a picture. He's from New Orleans. I hope he made it out OK.

Well folks, it's time for some obligatory ruminating. If only I had some thoughts about which I have been ruminating. Back when I actually contemplated great literature, I remember loving Tolstoy. One reason why was because he believed that the extraordinary occurs during the most prosaic events. In other words, when you are supposed to be feeling great emotion during a wedding, funeral, birth, or other life-changing, allegedly meaningful event, you don't. Or at least not with the momentousness you expected. On the contrary, sometimes you feel the greatest emotion or engage in the deepest of thoughts during the most ordinary events -- while you are on the el, buying groceries, or having dinner with friends, for example. That is life. That is why when you capture a photograph of a meaningful event (such as a wedding, birthday, graduation, etc.) what stands out years later is not the people and their forced smiles, but rather the newspaper in the background with the headlines of the day, the face of an onlooker, the time captured on a person's watch -- the unplanned. That is the experience of life in its purest form.

At 30 years, this is how I feel -- it's just another day. Given the somewhat emotionally turbulent nature of this year thus far, I'm glad. I'll save my neuroses for every other day of the year. Stay tuned. : )

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