39 years old today

Boom! Boom! BOOM!

And thus with the help of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, I begin the last year of 'youth' before the big four oh finally pries my fingers from their failing hold on childhood, the twentieth century and all the memories there of. Thirty eight proved to be a horrible age, as the first year anniversary of my mothers death on monday will testify. It was not all bad though. Freja turned three (they say human beings are never cuter than when they are three) and Mette is pregnant again (only 2½ months to go now). By rights I should post something written by my most illustrious ancestor, Fanny Mendelessohn (sister to Felix and a composer in her own right) from whom my maternal granmother's family is descended (or so I was led to believe), for yesterday was Fanny Mendelssohn's birthday. She was born on November 14th, 1805, at the height of the war which Tchaikovsky's overture would later commemorate so magnificently. She would be 203 years old today. May she rest in eternal peace and harmony.

I shall endeavour to look forwards with bright eyes and a bushy tail, for as I always say to my friend Mehmet, you have to enjoy life whilst you've got it! Mehmet agrees with this as he is a philosophical and good natured man and even if we have very little in common but for our mutual friendliness we can readily agree on such fundamentals. If only all people could be as open hearted as Mehmet, perhaps the world would be a friendlier, though potentially duller, place. Freja likes Mehmet too, though mostly because he always gives her a bit of chocolate when she comes into the shop.

Its on a day like this, looking back, feeling nostalgic with the sun making the dust motes dance in front of the window, that I get to sentimental ponderings upon the nature of friendship, life and death. We're all going to die as a matter of course, and love and friendship are almost the only things that make life worth living. I say almost because as the dust motes illustrate, beauty is its own reward and the passing beauty of bright sunlight through an unwashed window is evocative of our own lives as it brings back so many memories from the decades past. How wonderful it is that something as mundane as dust can be so beautiful when illuminated by the sun?

We beings of light and dust, so wound up with our trivial hubris, our ideologies and politics. How easy it is to lose sight of what is most important. Thankfully I have friends and family and I know who I am and where I belong. Each meeting with my family confirms the love that binds me to this life. Each meeting with my friends likewise. Thursday evenings for example, when Oleg and the others come over and we play role playing games, table top skirmish battles or just watch a film. So small and trivial a thing it seems and yet so important that its gives context to every day life. Conversation, eating together, talking and laughing, what Danes call 'hygge', and Americans call... 'hanging'(?), possibly not quite the same thing, though both similar and of equal importance.

Is there anything of more importance than love? I can't think of anything. At least not from my mortal perspective (and I don't have an immortal perspective). Tonight Mette and I will go and see a film in the cinema together (Quantum of Solace). Its been so long since we went to the cinema together and I shall enjoy the pleasure all the greater for its rarity. There was once a time when the two of us were alone in the UK, and we went to the cinema every friday night. Can you imagine what a pleasure that was? I find it hard to even remember the full happiness of that time, so obscured by time and my present happiness it has become. We were like two souls alone together in a strange and indifferent place, finding happiness against adversity from each others company. Sometimes I long for that again but it can never be. Like childhood, the age of youth has passed and now is the age of parenthood. May it last long and bring an equal measure of pleasure.

By the way, if any one wants to hear a longer, better version of the 1812 overture, go here and enjoy. Part two is here.