12:02 is just around the corner. Mom called earlier. A little misty. Said it’s been a good and big day for her. She’s been harking back 41 years to the time in her life that must have been one of the best. The coming of the child, the child they said would never come. I never doubted it…

She’s always told me of how she knew when she was pregnant. The very moment. The doctors said it wasn’t possible, she wasn’t going to bear children. She knew. The lotus blossom opened and the Voice told her. The same Voice that said around that same time, “Go to India.” And all of it happened. I happened. And sometime after that, when I was old enough to have my shots, she always explaines it, we were off to India. And I’ve accepted it and expected it this. You hear the voice, you know the important things, implicitly, you trust the big notions that swim all over you and you follow them to their logical and hopefully majestic and conclusions. The big, bold things must be done, and done effortlessly. That’s how it was taught to me and I’ve scarcely imagined it otherwise. I knew when I saw Ilse that we would make life together. There was no voice, rather it was like a pat on the shoulder, commending me for hearing the bells peel. Since that moment we’ve made miracle children, easily, and gone to India and then some. And we’ve made it all up as we’ve gone along, according to the dictates that seem fit, according to the hoyle apparent. According to the grand will of my wife and the dreamy conjuring of my mother and the earthen logic of my father that he tinges with an ample dose of fuck-it, use a credit card, and the voice of my children playing, as long as they are rapt, I am stated.

The wind and weather are big in bursts tonight. I have a view down on it all from the perch of our home, the Skyfarm long-view East by South East. From up here it’s like flying in a dream. The view is past tree branches, the upper ones, and the song is thrushing wind and the timpani of rain up the chimney. I directed the retrofitting of our chimney after the last rains had spilled down it and now I find that it’s become percussive. But dry, and the little fire that’s left in it pips in time to the rain off the Don Quixote I’ve made of our chimney with metal sheathing and drip holes.

These are just a few of the tricks that at 41 have been wrought by me. Happy Birthday, Meeno.