December 1, 2019

World AIDS Day. Number 31

And so, my journey into gratitude and humble thankfulness begins.  My intent is to write something, anything, the smallest of thoughts or ideas, that will prompt my mind to run towards the good, the helpful, the lighter side of this dark world in which we find ourselves today.

Today, 31 years after the founding of World AIDS Day, I am more than anything struck with how shockingly joyous I really am to be alive, upright, mostly in great health and attitude still, after way more than the 31 years of World AIDS Days.  I began my personal journey with HIV somewhere in the depths of the 1970’s so yes, I am one of the fortunate ones.  This brings to mind an anthem of the 60’s by Creedence Clearwater Revival: 

Fortunate Son

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don’t they help themselves, no
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no fortunate one, no

But yet I am.  I AM the fortunate son; the son who was born on the cusp of the next generation of people who were formed in those turbulent times, the 60’s, who had the largesse to take chances, come out, be something and someone more radically different than anyone in any generation before had been.

And I am someone who was exposed to and took as his own a virus so unique, so toxic, so iconic, that history is still grappling to find the proper pantheon within which it should reside.  And I am that Fortunate Son who, through a genetic roll of the dice and some hard-fought medical sleuthing of my own, managed to stay alive until the medicines that are making HIV a life sentence rather than a death sentence, could be invented.

Snow on the mountains today viewed from the relative warmth of the desert floor; always a visual delight.

A tie-dying party in the back garden; yet more visual and auditory delights as friends gather and celebrate nothing more than a Sunday morning.

Friends and Chosen Family will make the rest of the commercial disaster that is the darkness of December worth the slog through until the New Year.  

Quiet, joyful, delight.