Amy Lu's View

Right before my birthday, a friend and fellow Pigeons From Hell bandmate sent me an article called “The Birthday Paradox.”

I was immediately intrigued. I really like the word “paradox.” And it sounds like a Star Trek (TREK for the love of god and all that is holy not TRACK) episode.

Turns out the article was about math. Really not my wheelhouse (even though I don’t know what a wheelhouse is) and the point of the article seems to be that one’s birthday is not special or unique. Yeah, definitely not my lived experience.

However, I do feel birthdays are paradoxical events. A birthday is a time to celebrate your life and all your blessings and friends and experiences. And yet, every birthday brings you that much closer to your death. Every birthday is another number in the countdown to the end.

Then again, while I’m quite confident in my assessment of birthdays, maybe “paradox” doesn’t mean what I think it means. Perhaps I am like Alanis Morissette singing about irony.

Whether “paradox” is the correct word or not, I’m fascinated and moved and intriuged by how we inhabit in-between spaces. “Between a laugh and a tear” as John Cougar Mellencamp put it. Is it ambivalence? Ambiguity? When I was an undergraduate religious studies major I learned about the Hindu concept of the “coincidence of opposites.” My my mind was blown and that idea stays with me. Maybe life really isn’t just black or white or good or evil. Apparent opposites can exist at the same time, in the same person?

I often regret that I am not fully happy, even when things are awesome. Or that I laugh when things are crappy. While I do aspire to stop (at least occasionally) my ongoing inner narrator and live in the moment, I do find it liberating and meaningful to embrace this “yes, but” dimension of being human, or at least this Amy-human.

Chad and I recently re-discovered songs from the Sondheim masterpiece “Company,” mostly notably “Sorry/Grateful.” The title alone covers everything from our relationship to work to church to running.

Oh yes, one can definitely carry that too far. You don’t want to be sorry/grateful every time you go out to eat or go about most of your day. Then you’re just straight-up annoying/whiny with no subtle tension of meaning.

And, in case you’re wondering, my birthday celebration was amazing/amazing. Both my bands got to play a gig at the Eagles in South Minneapolis and so many of our friends showed up. Okay, it was amazing/exhausting/nerve-wracking/doubt-ridden and I’m sad I didn’t get to talk to my friends more, but isn’t that the defintion of awesome?