Another year older

Had a birthday yesterday, though it was a bit on the tough side. Just before falling asleep Thursday night, I began to notice the unmistakable signs of yet another Moscow cold coming on, and then Mila opted not to get a good night’s sleep. And since I'm still in a strange city, and since the sun hasn’t penetrated the wool-like layer of clouds that has covered the city for the past month, Friday was generally kind of a downer.

I couldn’t help but notice how depressing in general my birthday is. Among the famous deaths are George Washington (1799), Prince Albert (1861), Andrei Sakharov (1989), and my favorite then-living writer, WG Sebald (2001). It was the day a sea wall collapsed in the Netherlands causing the St. Lucia’s Flood (1287), which may have killed up to 80,000 people, and which permanently scaring Dutch national psyche. It was the day the Tsar’s iron heel came down on the Decembrist uprising, setting back the cause of moderate reform in the Russia (1825). But on the plus side, it was the day the Clash released their watershed album London Calling (1979), so it isn’t all bad.

Today, still getting over this cold. Among the unexpected things about getting older is that I keep forgetting how old I actually am, and only really get a sense of it when I notice more and more gray hair poking through. And I didn’t care nearly as much about the day as I did for Mila’s birthday in October.