A Solstice Birthday. With titties.

Today I’m 43. I feel pretty good about that. Most days I feel like a little kid in an aging Grup suit, and I kind of dig that sensation. Since my last Solar Return, a lot has happened. I have traveled a lot. Learned so much. Performed in stages across the country. Made new friends, lost some friends, a few to friction, one to the shockingly early inevitability of death. Watched a relationship blossom and unravel. Celebrated my fifth year sober, which is, in many ways, an even more significant “birth” day.

photo by Charles Gatewood

I look forward to some truly amazing new adventures, and I look forward to the shit I cannot see coming.  I have some Things In The Works that I hope will be awesome. I have Things I Cannot See Coming thta will amaze, surprise, delight, and defeat me. Stuff that will propel me into a new sense of myself, a new place, shocking miracles and stunning heartbreaks. And I will survive them all.

I wanna thank my Mom for squeezing me out of her vagina in New York Hospital at 7:20 PM 43 years ago.  And i wanna thank all of you reading this for helping me get this far, and invite you to join me for the next coast around Sol.

Oh, and after the cut? There;’s Birthday Boobies so don’t open it at work if that might be a problem. But hey, I’m just a fat Black chick. You can always say its a National Geographic photo essay on…um….modern primitives.

Yeah!

by Charles Gatewood.