buy the time …

Trees fell, the wind howled and just short of being in the tropics, upon the isle of Man-na-hat-ta fell a monsoon.  Let’s just say gale can really blow.  Amongst the weekend deluge of rain and roughage marked the breaking of water early mourning on March 14, 1981.  My mother was in labor for a relatively short time especially when compared to my brother’s attempted escape from vaginal eviction.  My father said I came out quickly, “You were ready to see the world.”  (Either that or I was getting a shoulder cramp.)  This weekend was very fun and not at all like the big bad number I was afraid of consuming me at midnight.  In fact, the weekend was beautifully calm, minus the apocalyptic weather.

I came at my birthday swinging, literally.  Saturday mourning I went to the Women’s World of Boxing.  There is something so cathartic about punching something over and over again.  I always thought boxing was a brutal sport but you experience this calmness after.  Maybe boxing is Mike Tyson’s rock garden.  When at the punching bag, the ladies always talk about who they picture as they jab.  I looked at the bag and saw no one.  I’m not jilted by past relationships, I have a confidant who champions my daily nonsense, my parents are wonderfully supportive, and I have an eclectic group of friends who have become a secondary family to me.  During shadowboxing I found my rival.  In front of the mirror I would box myself, see the enemy that I had made.  The answer throwing punches back at me, I was getting in my own way.  We all beat ourselves down but the strikes fall on the spirit leaving bruises on the guts of passion.

Later on that evening I met with a group of friends who managed to hitch a ride with the arch to share a drink and watch a world champion fighter from the Philippines break another record.  The fighter, Manny Pacquiao, the PacMan, is barely 145 pounds, short and Asian.  This description would remind most people of the computer engineering major who couldn’t drink to well in college.  But Manny is a fighting machine once underestimated because of his lack of training and body mass.  He had to work his way up to under a buck fifty.  He’s not just a fighter to most Filipinos; he is also a karaoke super-star, a politician and a symbol.  A symbol that with passion anything is possible: once a poor scrappy boy in the barrios now a Boxing World Champion to a presidential hopeful.   There is no room for self-doubt in his schedule.

As I pummeled away the demons of disbelief I found hope again.  I could see the changing winds blow open a new surge of courage.  In the past week I got an additional job that will help pay for a future move and a new laptop.  I also received a compliment from a well-respected playwright on my new theatrical literary venture.  Twenty-nine is looking fine.  I look forward to the future and leave apprehension with twenty-eight so the only place to go is up.

Thank you so much for all the kind birthday well wishes and may we all go ARRIBA, ARRIBA (UP, UP)!