I am definitely not the first person to say that our stories continually change, because our perspective on everything is like a moving target. From one moment to the next, our mood changes and when you start piling years on top of years, guaranteed all our stories change.

I was born on May 29, 1945 and the month has always been a stop light in my history. Each time it approaches, I can’t seem to help myself by looking backward and forward, which is certainly compounded by being a Gemini, splitting me in half, not to be confused with schizophrenia, thank you. Long before I ever dared to write, I was told this split creates a special kind of internal dialogue, which lends itself to the craft. So, I talk to myself and please don’t tell anyone.

I have had way too many birthdays to suffer you and I through some kind of recounting and it would be monumentally boring. So, no, I am not going to recount my Bar Mitzvah and most all the others, which are blurred so badly by time that I don’t even care and why should you?

I have been filling pages for a little over seven years and have a handful of favorite stories about this time in my life and have purposely avoided going backward, primarily because I don’t care what I had to say then, because it is different today.

I spent my first 42 birthdays living in and around NYC. I wouldn’t be the first idiot to use his birthday as some sort of line in the sand. I made some really big decision and used 5-29-45 as a combination to unlock the door to the unknown. I’m not sure if anything in our lives is an accident, victimizing us to the haphazard nature of chance. I don’t think I ever felt comfortable being there, which also has a great deal to do with not feeling at ease in my own skin, something I have not really managed to shake after all this time, but I have gotten much better at it. I think after only days away from 74, I have just become more forgiving.

My life was pretty predictable, with a fear of the unknown keeping me in check. I spent my thirties in therapy and can offer mixed reviews, but what I was able to take with me, was invaluable. I remember deciding a hated my mother, which ultimately led me to love her more than I can ever say and we’ll get to her in a couple of paragraphs.

I spent 20 years in the broadcast advertising business in NYC. I got married and divorced and have two boys, who are no longer boys, not that they have changed genders, which wouldn’t matter to me anyway. They are now in their 40’s. I was positive the City was killing me and I couldn’t stay. My last day of work on my last of too many jobs was as close to my birthday as I could get. This was back in ’87. It was a huge move, which only made sense to me and no one else.

I gave away everything and moved to a small adobe home, off a dirt road, off a dirt road, south of Santa Fe, NM. My birthday was one of those lines in the sand and I crossed it back then when I just turned 42. I can’t talk about my boys and how that played out, because it is too personal and too painful.

I made a fabulous life for myself in New Mexico. In NYC, I worked at a TV network, four ad agencies, three cable networks and one distributor of TV shows. I put those numbers to shame out in the high desert country, determined to maintain my professional independence, a career vagabond of sorts. I was even a volunteer fireman! Man, I wish I could tell you some of the stories, but we are here to talk about May and not my incredible adventures. I was introduced to yoga and met the Buddha, which will be with me until there are no more Mays.

When I left New York, I somehow got into my head that my life was intended to be an adventure, a journey. Fear of the unknown, which I carried like a sack of stones on my back for so many years, was gone the moment I hit the highway west to Santa Fe. After 15 magical years out there, it felt like my work was done and it was time to walk the high wire without a net, one more time. Surprise, May was the month for the move and Kauai was to be my new home. We fell madly in love with each other on a brief visit several months before that.

It just so happens today is Mother’s Day and here is where I get to tell you briefly about Ida. I drove my red Toyota truck to Los Angeles, to be shipped here. I had a one way plane ticket and was spending the night in a flea bag hotel in downtown LA. The phone rang and it was my brother. He told me our mother had a massive stroke and he was on his way to NYC immediately. I panicked, afraid that if I didn’t put my feet on Kauai first, I might actually lose my mind. It’s funny, the older I got, the more I loved my mother, because I understood so much more than I did as a kid and young man, annoyed by her calls and seemingly inane conversation.

I did fly to Kauai and spent around two days there, getting what I needed, so I at least had a semblance of roots, before ultimately being orphaned and let me tell you, age don’t mean shit in that regard. My mother was an incredibly independent lady, having lost her husband when her sons were only 9 and 12. She had a house and no money in the bank. Somehow, this lady managed to pull it off and I don’t know how. She was 92 and we had talked about her wishes.

This was a proud lady, who wanted to live her life on her terms and the compromise of her independence was worse than death. We followed her wishes and my brother and I brought her back to her home, where she spent the last ten days of her life, preparing to leave and doing so with a kind of elegance that will always bring me to uncontrollable tears. She left on May 22nd and my brother and I were all she ever cared about.

I wanted to get back to my unknown home before my birthday and I just managed to do it. You know, I don’t remember what I did on May 29, 2003, but I was here and my life began again. 16 years later, here I am and every May I think about these things and more.