54

I am fifty-four today.

It’s funny, but I am writing this in the Helsinki airport in Finland, the day before my birthday. I’m just passing through, but my third flight of three got cancelled and they threw me on a later one. This resulted in me spending about eight hours in this relatively tiny airport. And what’s funny is that the view outside probably looks a lot like the view in North Dakota where I was born. It’s not as cold; maybe hovering around zero celsius. But the sun set at like 3:40 PM and there’s this eternal gray, with mounds of plowed white tucked away in the corners. It’s a very monochromatic landscape, and looks like the same sort of man-made island of aviation technology plopped in a frigid corner of nowhere, just like Grand Forks AFB. Only difference here is that the tundra’s hosting a bunch of Finnair Airbus planes, and not B-52 nuclear bombers.

54 is a nice, solid, even number. The only mathematical oddity I can think of is that it’s three times eighteen. I very clearly remember when I turned 18; I probably have written about it too many times here. It really throws me to think I’m three times as old as that. When I was 18, I was three times older than I was six. I don’t remember my sixth birthday, but I do remember being that age, and it was lifetimes before I was 18. I sometimes feel like I was an adult when I was 18 and it wasn’t that long ago. But so much has happened in the last 36 years, that obviously isn’t true.

* * *

Many people share my birthday, but the one I loved the most was David Lynch. He was exactly 25 years older than me. And I say “was” because he’s now gone. I don’t get that bent up about celebrity deaths, but this is one that really hit me. I’d always hoped to meet him someday to tell him about how we were in the same secret society. I admit I got into Lynch’s work late, and seeing Eraserhead in college was one of the first stars that moved into alignment for me to start writing Rumored to Exist in 1995. And Twin Peaks was required viewing in college, but the lushness of that world didn’t fully impact me until I moved to Washington and saw Mount Si in the fog and the endless evergreens and felt like I’d crossed over into the scene in his mind. Huge loss, but it’s also a weird one in that I feel like he’ll never be gone and he’s off in the black lodge and will mysteriously show up in 25 years.

* * *

There is so much loss and sadness going on. Maybe it is always going on and it’s confirmation bias or whatever. But I was in JFK airport last night, scrolling through the end of TikTok, and it was so profoundly sad. I never created there, but had a burner account I used to scroll videos after work to calm down and reset my brain. And there were so many people who found community there, found support or solace, and it all completely ended over what is basically a stupid political stunt. Maybe it will come back, but it has me thinking a lot about community and friendship and support, and in many ways I am completely isolated and need to work on this. But how?

And the thought on everyone’s mind is how the regime change happening today will cause more great loss. I don’t write about politics, but I don’t think it’s going to go well. There is a reason I left the country yesterday, and it isn’t because I support any part of this. I can’t change minds and I can’t change policy. All I can do is keep working, keep supporting the people who work for me, and hope the economy isn’t completely destroyed by the time I need to stop.

* * *

I think last year, I talked about how I was just spinning my wheels in year 52 and needed to spend year 53 writing. Good news is that I did this. I published one book and got two others closer to done. All I want to do in my 54th year is keep doing this, so I will.