It’s a bit of a curse, this being born on New Year’s Eve. The typical birthday party, by obligation, rises to a higher level, or at least has the potential. At the big house on Holyoke, it became an annual event, the one time each year where the house got a deep cleaning, where special recipes were rolled out, and where invitations went out to a wide list of friends and family. The invitation itself was my main public creative outlet, it always involved a poem and some attempt to create a graphic vehicle for the poem. They went out in early December in lieu of any Christmas card or letter. I may still have a few of them somewhere.
The schedule was always the same, there were just two absolutes. The first was : potluck at six. You could come anytime, but if you wanted to have dinner with us, you came at six. There was tight competition around the potluck, all these great cooks trying to out do each other. I have yet to go to a party with a greater array of fabulous and diverse dishes. The other requirement was : The Wild Tchoupitoulas at midnight. Somehow Mardi Gras revelrey seemed the perfect topping to the passing of another year. The main floor of the house was set up where you could start in the kitchen, head into the dining room, through the living room, through the staircase landing and back into the kitchen. At the stroke of midnight, we would gather up all the percussion instruments we could find, real or improvised, blast out the first notes of “Brother John is Gone” and form a second line parade circling around and around through the house. Many years, the kids outnumbered the adults, and they would come out from their private kid stuff in the upstairs bedrooms and join as we built our own community out of tambourines, woodblocks, hand claps and crazy dance moves. All these years later, many of those bonds are still in place, and even the ones who have passed on, are forever a part of that big, raucous family.
Once I remarked to my brothers that the downside of having a fancy popular birthday and always throwing a big party, was that no one could ever throw me a surprise birthday party. Brother Mark, always one to prove the unprovable, and solve the unsolvable, decided that he would surprise me ON my birthday. Now, he had been ensconced in his very minimalist life in Taos, and later, New York City, and had never been to one of these parties. Brothers David and Paul had announced they were coming up from the City, and showed up just in time for the potluck, parading in the front door with much fanfare. Meanwhile, Mark, in cahoots with Rose on this deceit, snuck in the back door and assaulted me from behind with a huge hug. I have been waiting, ever since, for another one.
There is more to the story of those nights, I’ll save some of that for tomorrow. Now, I’m off to shovel the first decent snow of the last few years and get my walk in before the birthday dinner tonight with my sweetheart and Chef Rathbun, delayed a day because I was late making reservations. A new year has begun. In it I pledge to search for peace and compassion at every turn, at every unknown bend in the road.