The Day I Turned 74

Woke up on April 18th
at about 9:04.
It was my birthday.
Number 74.
Stepped my big old feet
down upon the floor,
reached down to pick up
a paper clip or something
that caught my eye
next to my bedroom door
and all of a sudden I felt
a wee tug of my sacroiliac
and then my back
seemed like it was being attacked
by an alligator
in a biting contest, Jack!
I hit the deck
like a concrete filled sack,
writhing on the carpet,
moaning in tongues,
and somehow I struggled
and stood up
like a boxer trying to beat the count
and when I looked in the mirror I found out
I was shaped like a seven
and I thanked heaven
it wasn’t an eight or a three
and then I took me
down the stairs,
fully aware
that if the seven happened to be
top heavy
that could be the end of me.
It was like trying to lean forward
and lean backward
at the same time –
hokey pokey like skills, to which,
I had never paid much mind
in my previous 73 years.
But I managed to
somewhat get myself together
and walk to Grant’s Deli
for a coffee with cream
as per my daily routine.
On this trek
my back played with my posture
like a hyper kid toying with an erector set.
After a couple of feeble
wobbly strides
I morphed into a crooked small case “r”
and when I stepped off the curb,
trying to wave at a neighbor who
drove by in a car
there was a pull
where my back
meets my left side
and an electric-like current
shot through my right side
and my lower body
did a left face
and my upper body
did a right face
and all of me yearned
to do an about face
and the pain just wouldn’t quit
and a car was coming
and I thought for a moment
it might feel nice to get hit
but some adrenalin
kicked in
and I got out of the way
as the driver texted away
and I made my way
into the store that day
looking like a tornado
had gotten a hold of my torso
and I walked home
holding my cup of Joe
like I was soliciting alms –
with burning palms
as I had forgotten to
wrap the container
with one of those heat shielding cardboard things.
I felt like Daffy Duck
having a bad dream.

Later, with my knees up
I lay on my living room floor
and then I forced myself up
and out the door
to do the things
that I live for:
met with Seema Sueko,
executive artistic director
of the Mo’olelo
Performing Arts Company
about tying it closer
to the diversity
within the San Diego community,
a goal she approaches diligently
with tenacity,
fully devoted to concepts like
liberty
and equality,
always pursuing such
interestingly,
lyrically,
cleverly,
theatrically,
ever so capably,
effectively,
and kinesthetically;

Later in the day,
I made my way
to a board of education
candidates forum
to see what they might have to say
about Uncle Sam
having his way
with our students,
our children, at their schools every day
trying to entice them
into the military
like a hunter spreading honey
leading to a bear trap;
they answered with
something about
having to have parents
involved with matters like that
but nothing about
if they would be willing to do that
and I decided to leave it at that
and headed to Chiquita’s
to bring the day to an end
with a whiskey sour
and a dinner with Maria,
my dear Chicana friend.

In the late hours
I laid in my bed and thought back on the day
and the nice time I had
celebrating my birthday with my kids on Monday
as we couldn’t all do it on the actual day.
And I thought of my Nancy whose birthday was just two days away.
With a few tears in my eyes
I wished so much that she was alive.
Oh, she would have been such
a sexy 65
but at the same time
I felt so grateful that I was alive,
back spasms and all,
and I drifted off into a dream
and slept with ease,
and after rising the next day
quite gingerly,
realizing that no pain was descending upon me,
forcing me to my knees,
I decided that being 74 years old
is going to be a breeze.