Audit #51

I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago now - thank you - and as is my custom, I found myself doing an audit of the year just gone, and what I've experienced, for better or worse, since the last time I blew out the candles...it gets easier as you get older - who can be fagged putting 51 candles on a cake, really? By the time you've got the last ones lit, the first ones are already puddles of hot wax all over the icing, you've got through half a box of matches and suffered half a dozen burns to your fingers and forearms...at most, at this age, you'll get but a motley handful, representing 'many'…either that, or those candles shaped like numbers...get 'em lit, get 'em blown out, and let's eat the damn cake, that's my motto...

The day in question itself doesn't seem worth making so much of a fuss about these days...I agree with Dave Barry that there is an age past which your birthday is of no real interest to anyone else. That age is twelve. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy celebrating my anniversary, another year still out here swinging, a nice excuse to spoil myself a little, maybe receive a gift or a card, a call or an email, maybe go for a spin on the bike, have a beer or two, go out for dinner somewhere...I like birthdays - specifically, I like my birthdays…I do take pleasure when my kids have birthdays, to see them reach different milestones and reflect on what I was doing at their age…interestingly, I never find myself wondering what they'll be doing at my age, I have no mental picture at all…I do know how well they can each think for themselves and stand on their own two feet, and that makes them pretty well equipped to toddle around the planet, using their powers for good and not evil....unlike when they were younger…

Having a mid-year birthday also gives me a chance to look at life outside the distractions of the festive season, and reflect on how things have changed over twelve months...it always surprises me when I stop and sit down and actually think of everything that can happen in a year, and the first year of my 50s has been as interesting as any, with some unusual twists...

Fifty-one is pretty much one of those nothing birthdays...'fifty something'...the big five-oh is a year behind, and whether you saw that birthday as a milestone or a millstone, you've had a year to get a grip on yourself again...I love being in my fifties, to be honest...it's like some kind of sign that you've paid at least a few dues and satisfied one or two rites of passage...it's like making Sergeant in the Army - unless you're a complete wanker, people will give you some credibility from the get go until you prove yourself otherwise, on the premise that you must know something to have got to this point...that's the way it seems to be panning out so far, anyway...

The most striking thing about this most recent birthday is that I celebrated it in the same house for the third year in a row...I've lived in this cool little cedar shingle house, here in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, for two and a half years now...which, in and of itself, wouldn't be much of a big deal for most people...but it's the second longest I've lived anywhere since I left home in the mid 70s...I officially moved out in '78, but I'd not slept there more than two or three times a week on average since I got my first car in '76...that was what struck me, I think - I knew I'd moved around a lot, but when I started thinking about actual numbers it was like seeing my lifelong dissatisfaction with standing still in a new light...well over thirty years, and two and a half years is the second longest I've lived anywhere…the longest, for the record, was 8 years, in my 'first home'…and, since you've got me started, here's a tip from one who knows - anyone who tells you that "you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar" or "God's not making any more land" is a thief, a rogue and a lying scoundrel, and you can tell them so from me…it did turn out to be a pretty good place to live and get a toehold on being a real grownup, but it cost me a helluva sight more than renting would have done…however, I digress…

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows that I disappear for periods of time varying from a few hours to several years, often without much trace...so, it all begs the question as to why I'm still here, and why haven't I been scratching my fingertips bloody against the inside of the door? Well, I'm glad you asked…

I think that living in a new country goes a long way, especially one where there is so much to see and do...if you can't find something you like in America, there really is something wrong with you...I've always been irresistibly drawn by America, even as a small child in England...when I read Eric Clapton's story of having won a book about America as a child and being fascinated, I understood him completely...I passed through the USA once or twice before I moved here, and so far I haven't regretted it...I have finally shed the constant feeling that I was living inside a movie, which characterized my first two years here...now, I think I can safely say that America has become as much Home as anywhere else has ever been...I've almost completed my two year conditional residency, and by Thanksgiving I should have my unconditional Permanent Resident card, valid for the next 10 years...all of which have lead some to ask, yet again, whether I have finally got wandering out of my system and s-s-s-s...koff, choke...s-s-settl....ack...'settled down'....eeurgh....well, no....

I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have been able to structure my life so that I can pretty much go anywhere I want, whenever I want...somewhere, I must have done a something or two right to have attracted karma this good…and, whether I choose to meander around within a hundred miles from home, or head off and cover a couple States, or whether I choose to stay home and plant roses, knowing that I can is pretty much all of the battle for me...I need to be able to far more often than I need to actually do...and here, with hundreds of icons to visit within a 3 or 4 day road trip, I'm not going to run out of new things to see for a few years to come yet.

I wasn't sure when, or if, this time would come, but I think I can finally say that, for now, I am sick to death of flying...I am very well aware that an extraordinary number of people - including my callow young self of twenty or thirty years ago - would love to be able to say "I'm sick of flying", so I'm cognizant of trying not to sound like some spoiled wanker...different people like different things, and I love to travel...I was given a questionnaire once that asked me where my idea of Shangri La was, my ultimate place to live, and I had to answer "Anywhere but here...wherever 'here' is"....I scraped, begged and borrowed to see as much of the world as I could as often as I could, and I think I can say that every penny was well spent...but I really have had enough, for now, of planes and airports...this decade, I think, will be a time for seeing things at ground level. Stopping more frequently, and for longer. And now, I'm not only taking the time to smell the roses, for the first time I'm getting pretty good at growing them.

I finally have the motorcycle I've dreamed of since I was a kid...it was always more an idea than a detailed picture, but a motorbike that would, like a magic carpet or Forrest Gump's shoes, take me anywhere...I like travelling by train, by car, truck, horse and cart, and I've covered an awful lot of ground over the years by foot - but I've found that unusually interesting things do seem to happen when you head out on a motorcycle for the day...for me, it always seems like a step of faith right from the word go, of confidence in oneself, to head out on the road on such a flimsy, basic piece of machinery...you can't even sleep in them (or even under them in any sensible fashion) if they break down...and, of course, there is the ever present but rarely spoken about overwhelming likelihood of death if you are ever unfortunate enough to become separated from your machine under trying circumstances...I can't help but think that it breeds something of a devil-may-care attitude among motorcyclists, but I couldn't say for sure…

This year, 2010, also saw the decision to work on the house and property until it's as finished as we're prepared to make it, rather than me chase minimum wage work and then pay someone else three times as much to do all the reno work for me…and I would have to be facing starvation before I'd consider getting back on the hamster wheel and having another real job...it was becoming increasingly clear that the house was never going to be finished by working on it part-time on weekends, particularly given that the weather here doesn't lend itself well to outdoor activities for a goodly part of the year...and so, instructive and entertaining as they were, paying hobbies such as tending bar, flipping burgers and taking other people's motorcycles apart were put away and I have thrown myself at the garden like a bull at a locomotive...

I've had the notion for a very long time that if I were to find the right house and take the time to  work on it, fix and mend and trim and paint, there was a pretty good chance that what I'd add to the value of the property would be enough to compensate me for the time involved, and quite possibly more than I could make working for someone else…now, fortunately, I'm married to someone who agrees with me…

I used to hate gardening with a passion, especially as a renter, and it didn't improve much for the first several years after I bought my first home, way back in the late 80s...I can't help thinking that, again, the reason I enjoy it so much these days is because I don't have to...and, as time's passed, the blackberry bushes have been finally poisoned and machetted into a fragmented underground guerrilla force, lessons have been learned and relearned, the right tools and equipment slowly accumulated, and I have carte blanche to do pretty much exactly what I want to with the place, within a reasonable budget...fortunately, we had a huge variety of decent looking plants laying dormant under all that blackberry vine, and it seemed as if a succession of owners over a long time had pretty much planted whatever they thought was a good idea...none of it seemed to be where it wanted to be, it sure wasn't where I thought it should be, and so most of the work so far has been weeding, trimming, cutting back and transplanting, and there's also been a surprising number of rocks, on and beneath the surface...not completely unlike the rest of my life in some ways...I'm told they come from Montana, courtesy of a glacial event a few years back, and their smoothness does seem to reflect a long journey sans moss...it's become my habit to ring the base of every plant with the stones that were dug up when it was planted, and nice, now, to be able to sit on the front lawn or the back deck and not see only more work to do wherever you look...I've found that as long as you keep meandering in the right general direction, you eventually tend to get where you were supposed to be going, whether you wanted to or not...

It's funny what happens when you're left to your own devices for any real length of time...what defaults bob to the surface, what things we remember from the past, which are our reliefs and which our regrets...looking back, I seem to have been drawn to getting simple things done well, and doing as much as I can of things I like doing...it surprises me more than somewhat how often, in years past, I continued to do things I didn't really like much at all, and kept company with people I liked not really that much at all, and wondered why I was unhappy as often as I was...seems ridiculously simple when you actually write it down, but it clearly seemed the thing to do at the time...

This has, as it turns out, been a good year for simplifying...I read recently that if you find yourself frequently losing track of time, it's a sign that you're in synch with the rhythm of nature, and there seems to be some truth in that...since I've been able to stop worrying about alarm clocks, and spending long periods of time each day, regardless of the weather, walking around my garden, our garden, seeing what's come into bloom, where the rainwater is backing up, which plants are thriving where I've placed them and which are going to need moving again, and how many new blackberry shoots have sprung up...well, time just seems to get away from me...I'm a Northern Hemisphere kid by birth, and the longer I live here again, the more in tune I feel with the rhythm of the seasons, the ridiculously late-lit summer evenings, the rain and the eternal greenery...I am grateful that I got to grow up in Australia, and that I raised my own kids there...but, 'up here', there is something familiar at a very primitive level...

Last month also marked a year since I stopped smoking cigarettes after 35 years...that's given me a whole new outlook on life, primarily that it looks like I'll have one for quite a while longer than I had anticipated...you never know, I may yet live to see grandchildren...I'm reading again and, as you've noted, writing...all of a sudden, after decades of chasing my tail and wanting and doing and getting and listing and planning.....all of a sudden, it seems, life has slowed down...I sleep undisturbed all night, for the first time in years, and I wake up happy for the first time in longer.

My extensive t-shirt collection is, at last, to be made into a quilt...I'm still mustering at the moment, and hope to have a head count by the end of the week, but I'm thinking it will be at least 3 or 4 dozen accumulated over 30 years, mostly souvenirs of places I've been, some I've pretty much worn to death and some maybe a handful of times - sometimes I liked the shirt, just not on me...I wear very few of them much anymore, and when I do they often get stained or damaged, so it's time to swap them out for half a dozen plain Carhartt's heavy duty work t-shirts, and a couple of old favorites that I'd rather wear out than hang onto…they go with the canvas dungarees that I've bought to replace my jeans, with enough pockets to carry my specs case, wallet, bandana,  padlock, cell phone, Maglite torch and a partridge in a pear tree…

So, all in all, I'd have to say that this 51st year, and the start of my 52nd, are panning out pretty well so far...I'm well in practice for retirement to gradually become more full time, and have become reacquainted with living within my means...repairing clothes instead of replacing them, buying quality and making it last, using hand tools again in lieu of motor driven ones where it's practical, building and repairing things myself whenever I possibly can…it takes a little longer, but time is one thing I am close to having enough of if I play my cards right…turning up is a lot of it, turning up and doing a little more every day, and putting one foot in front of the other....it's funny how the older I get, the older my ideas get...

Drop in anytime…if the bike's in the garage, it means I'm in the garden...