Birthday

 

Siri called my wife in the morning to tell her that it is Philip Harvey’s birthday today and she might want to send him a greeting. Thoughtful of Siri, though others might accuse Siri of micromanaging. Carol’s thoughts were ahead of her private intelligence assistant. She had already presented me with a brown bag shaped like a wine bottle, with a bottle of St Hugo’s inside, and an envelope with a card inside of two people, their hair all salt and no pepper, sipping red wine at a garden table. Phone call from Mother. Facebook friends sent birthday messages, intermingled with their range of opinions about the coronation, streamed on all channels the night before. Cantuar was lugubrious or commanding, his sermon was on point or unintelligible. The new king was melancholy or commanding, he smiled, or didn’t smile enough, the weight of the crown would demand two Panadol later, or a stiff whisky. I leant towards Bollinger. Some thought it a pantomime, or outdated, or commanding, their own special attitude, while it looked to me like a eucharist with other things going on including anointing and crowning. I decided to thank my social media friends by writing a thank you note on A4. Voilà! After a morning walk in sparkling streets between regular rainfalls, I read by the window, in no special order, Austin Farrer, Ludwig Bemelmans, and Marina Warner. By chance into the afternoon online I discovered that today is World Laughter Day. Who thinks these things up? Apparently its intention is to “raise awareness” about laughter, that laughter is a “simple tool for improving wellness.” Is the joke on me? Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you could end up like the new king. Is the world laughing with him, or at him? Both, to believe the various screens in our house. Bridie says helpfully, as long as you have the last laugh. Research says that this festival falls on the first Sunday of May, so the laughs are on me this year. Last weekend I spent the longest time in my adult life in my birthplace. Bendigo over four days took in the charms resulting from the goldrush and two of the four operas of the Ring, an achievement my father, a classical music buff, said could not be done in Australia; his granddaughter was working in Costumes. Change is all about us, as Farrer, Bemelmans, and Warner testify by their different means. Last year I spent the longest time in my adult life in hospital emergency. Favourite birthday cards from the ward are my meal orders for the day, the computer setting generating the message of the ages to all those blessed and fortunate enough to be being looked after on their own personal World Laughter Day by doctors, nurses, surgeons, specialists, caterers, cleaners, cardiologists, rheumatologists, and other experts at gists, each assisting in making sure we see out another year, or thirty.