Every year we went through the same exchange. She'd tell me what happened 15…20…24 years ago today. She'd tell me how becoming a mother gave her life meaning…and finally that I was born on the "hottest damn day of the year." I'm not sure how that last bit first came out, but it became tradition. My mom's words—all of them—were something I looked forward to every August 31st. She made me feel celebrated in a way only a mother can.

I am 30 years old today, and I hear echos of her still.

So, 30. I really don't know where the last 10 years went, and I certainly don't know where the next 10 are going. I can tell you one thing for sure though: I am going to appreciate everything. If I learned one thing in my 20s, it was how to go on…how to find the lightness even when everything is heavy. There's always some good going on somewhere if you open your eyes to it.

Life is going to go the way life is going to go no matter how I react to it…I might as well be happy.

The never-ending saga of my back…



Yesterday morning I actually whimpered trying to get myself out of bed. I haven't done that since 2009. I had a big day to get through with back-to-back meetings that day, and I could not take the time to think about it. I subconsciously held onto the notion that it would be gone the next day when I woke up.

Not the case.

So, I headed to the doctor today. Since all of the medical files are digitized nowadays, the drama of the last five years erupted out of the screen. This was good, because to see someone today, I had to see someone I had never seen before. He seemed a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of medical notes and shook his head after a few minutes and examined my back.

"Does it hurt here?"
"How about here?"
"If I press right here, do you feel the urge to get up and do the hokey pokey?"

You know, the standard questions.

After he was done poking me, he chewed his bottom lip as he walked back to the mess of notes on the screen.

"I could send you for X-Rays, but you don't seem to be in the condition to stand very long." His reaction was a furrowed brow and more head shaking; he clicked through a few more screens of my digitized file. "I could order an MRI, but I see here that resting on your back is painful." He looked at me and frowned. "I'd send you the PT, but you already have the exercises." I could envision him going through all the protocol of what a doctor normally does with a patient presenting back pain, trying to find something that I haven't done before.

After spending a couple years with the pain clinic and the doctors who treat chronic pain every day of their lives, I am always surprised when I go to a normal clinic and a doctor tries to fix me. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be fixed! However, I know that's not realistic, and I need to accept that and be okay with it. Eventually, he came to that conclusion as well, and it seemed to defeat him, and that made me a little sad…I wanted to hug him and soothe, "It's not your fault, Doc!"

With a heaviness to his voice, he asked, "Do you tolerate high doses of medication well?" I nodded, and he prescribed a powerful, short-term medication for me. It reminds me briefly of my aunt Brenda who used to joke about all the amber bottles in the "drug drawer" for the three of us when I lived with them. Forget apps: there's a pill for that.

Mom would have been 54 today. I go through this every year, the "I can't believe it's been X years…" bit. It baffles me every year when I hit a date that forces me to look back…baffled because life went on after she died when I was certain that it couldn't possibly. This is now the sixth August 14th that I've greeted without her, but none have been as hard as that first one.

I only wrote to her for the first two because it tore me in two both times. Even reading them now, the rawness returns. Is it healthy to have such a trunk of vivid memory perfectly preserved? Probably not…but I'm very responsible when it comes to prying open the lid.

Ah, her smile. There are times I forget just how completely she could fill a moment with light. She enchanted everyone in her world with her humor, her compassion, and her love. She showered us with optimism, often leaving none for the quiet moments she kept to herself…particularly during those last years when Cancer came to live with us. People often didn't realize that she was sick…dying. Shouldn't a dying person be replete with sadness, after all? As Mom would probably say, that's a pretty ungrateful way to spend borrowed time.

She was two weeks into 24 when I was born…how young. How was she so wise and full of love to give already by 24? I was a self-consuming mess at 24! I suppose she was always on borrowed time, on loan to me from a generous benefactor. I'm very lucky that I could know her for the time that I did. Would I trade her and the short time I knew her for someone else who is still here? Not on your life.

Happy birthday, Mom. I miss you, and it still hurts that you're not here…but I promise that I won't let it leaden my days. That's a pretty ungrateful way to spend this beautiful life that you helped me see.

I just watched an obscure rock documentary from 1969, and it got to me.

The decade that most impassions me (besides the way this one is shaping up to be) is the 1960s. So many pivotal battles were fought during those years…battles that changed the face of our country and our definition of the human condition. This is also the decade that I feel produced the best music—but then, songwriters had plenty of charged fodder to write about, didn't they?

It also didn't hurt that in the 60s, the idea of a generation gap came to fruition. The chasm between parents and their children was wider and deeper than it had ever been before. Families warred from within, and the ideologies were polarizing. While a lot of things were being said, not a lot was being heard. Instead, the sides each spoke a little louder hoping that the other would magically realize that theirs was the only truth. In the midst of all that hot air, musicians became the voice of a generation. They penetrated the airwaves and made their way into homes across the country. Music became a courier.

I have loved Simon and Garfunkel almost as long as I've loved the Beatles. It took a little longer because, whereas my father was a diehard Beatles fan from the moment they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, no one saturated my every waking moment with S&G: I had to stumble upon them on my own. Yes, I was a third grader listening to I Am a Rock. (My mother used to tell me that I was born old.)

But even as a child who really did not understand the strife of that decade, I felt their songs were something more than a catchy tune. They seemed so beautiful, so sad, and so haunting.



They still sing to me more like poetry than popular music. As you've probably guessed by now, the subject of the rock documentary Songs of America was none other than the group who created folk rock: Simon and Garfunkel. It's not polished at all. A lot of the camera work is shaky. The film is a mishmash of footage from 1960s unrest, live concerts, recording sessions, and candid conversations between the two musicians. The roughness makes this glimpse into the past seem raw and very honest.

The film was quite controversial when it aired in 1969. It almost didn't air at all when network executives saw the opening montage (set to Bridge Over Troubled Waters) with images of JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr: it raised their hackles that no strong republicans were featured. Angered that the executives tried to make their documentary out to be a political agenda, they heatedly pointed out that the three men were featured not because of their ties to the Democratic Party, but because they were change agents who were assassinated. The documentary did air, but only once. It is being released with the 40th anniversary of the Bridge Over Troubled Waters album.

For me, one of the most arresting parts of the piece is one of the conversation segments where Art is talking to Paul about the Vietnam War. I have it mostly verbatim (except for some of the stumbling) below in italics. Between the inflection in his voice and the directness of his eyes (which you can see even though he's talking to Paul off to the side and not looking right at the camera), I could completely empathize with this feelings of senselessness.

"It’s very easy to lose sight of what it means for a bullet to come into another person’s insides, and for a man to be killed by somebody else’s gun. For a man to be out in a—he’s home, he’s in Iowa one day, and the next day he’s in a state that he’s supposed to feel this is worth it...for me to be in this bush now, trying to kill that guy and be in a position where this guy could kill me…I’m supposed to feel that this all makes sense to me and it’s worth it. I’m fighting for something that’s worth it being in this state. It’s (shakes his head) crap."

I have seen a lot of footage from the 60s, and nothing has grabbed me like that moment. I usually see marches, protests, and open conflicts between sides. Nothing has affected me as strongly as those softly spoken words that were bleeding with palpable sincerity. I suppose this may be why I love all of S&G's music: the calmest delivery fortifies the message.

Very cool documentary.

I have been bothered since learning that Borders was closing its doors for good.

Magic lives in bookstores. I have a particular fondness for Borders because I have many precious memories of otherwise gray afternoons spent reading there, gourmet coffees and syrups perfuming the air. Hundreds of people could have fit in the store, but the almost reverent stillness would continue.



So many treasures lined the oak shelves—many diamonds in the rough. I liked finding those. I haven't been on a proper treasure hunt in years.

Once school started, the idea of reading for myself would have produced maniacal, wild-eyed laughter. Reading dry textbooks sucks the life out of me. I know that a proper student should puff their chest and exalt in the knowledge garnered. Not me. I'd much rather extract meaning from the obscure: it's just who I am. I am bored by anything that spells everything out. Sadly, my last book purchase at Borders was last December when I bought a GMAT study guide.

I am only recently recovering the bits of myself I had to give up when I traded my free time for a education (or at least one on paper). You want proof? Click on the archives page. My classes began in September of 2007…pay attention to the telling drop off in monthly counts.

Meanwhile, I killed Borders. You killed Borders, too. We let life get in the way and steal the joy of that bookstore magic. Throw e-readers into the mix, and this is but the beginning of a foregone conclusion. Even though I take blame for contributing to this, I am unaccountably sad. Losing our bookstores isn't about losing the product—books can be sold through many mediums—losing our bookstores represents losing a very precious experience.

We are slowly forfeiting our option to browse, and we're giving up the right to not know what we want.

So why am I ambivalent when this soliloquy is decidedly lopsided? I am conflicted because I wholeheartedly endorse innovation. I support any medium or device that facilitates bringing literature into someone's life. The problem is, I want it all…and I don't think that's possible anymore.