Birthday boy

Villa Preia

I celebrate an impressive birthday this year.  I'm too shy to tell you which one, but it is divisible by both ten and four, but not by three.  My official birth date is in March.  I was born under the sign of Aries, and in the Chinese Year of the Dragon.  This combination is so auspicious that it's almost a miracle that I'm not now President of the United States.  At the very least.

The third century Christian writer Origen wrote that Christians not only should refrain from celebrating birthdays, but should look on such celebrations with disgust.  On the other hand, although a brilliant writer, Origen allegedly had himself surgically castrated in order that his respectability as a teacher of young people should never be questioned, and many of his writings were condemned as heretical.  More to my liking is the Persian birthday custom of joining with one's friends to consume an entire cow, horse, camel, or donkey.

In place of eating a horse, however, family and friends have decided to join me in Italy, the last half of May, to celebrate my longevity at a warmer time of year than the March of my actual birth date.  Maybe consume a lasagne or two.  We have rented for a week two large villas in the seaside town of Levanto, between Genoa and Pisa, and on the edge of the Cinque Terre.  We will keep one of the villas (see photo) for a second week.  I will be joined by 23 guests the first week, and 13 the second week.

Guests include my extended family -- which I've always considered an unusually small family, but which has ballooned with passing years -- and various friends.  Friends include my closest friend from Stanford undergraduate days, and my closest friend from University of Washington graduate and law school days, together with their respective wives.  Among the guests will be four kids, ranging in age from eight months to ten years.

The groups gathered each week are so heterogeneous in ages and interests that I've made it clear to everyone that how they spend their time in Italy is entirely up to them.  No one will be in "in charge" as social director, preparing games and adventures.  But Levanto has a large number of hiking trails extending not only through all five villages of the Cinque Terre, but to other towns and villages inland from the sea.  A significant number of my guests love to hike.  A significant number love to sit in small cafés, sipping coffee or wine, or eating meals, as they watch the crowds go by.  A significant number like sitting and walking on the sandy beach.  A significant number will be happy simply lying on one of the villas' many decks and balconies, staring out to sea.  I'm pleased that, considered as a Venn diagram, these sets of vacationers intersect to a large degree, and I'm pleased to be at the center of the intersection.

You will recall that Bilbo Baggins celebrated his eleventy-first birthday by a similar convocation of his much larger extended family.  In his welcoming speech, he proclaimed

I don't know half of you as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

shortly before slipping the One Ring on his finger and disappearing from sight and from the Shire.  It would be my greatest dream to make a similarly dramatic  speech and disappearance, but the words would be too confusing and ambiguous, as were Bilbo's.  And, of course, I do lack the ring. 

Following this two-week Saturnalia, my sister and I and a couple of other close relatives will recover our senses for a week at a small rustic house on the shore of Lake Como.  I plan to read, stare at the lake, stroll occasionally to the nearby village, and maybe explore lakefront towns by using the lake's extensive ferry system.

It should be, all together, a three-week observance that will take the edge off the horror of my advancing years.  I'm looking forward to it -- and to my co-celebrants -- eagerly.