25–26.07.26
I made it. By hook or by crook, I reached my sixth decade more-or-less unscathed. My knee may be crap, but the old mind is a steel fucking trap (even if the cheese in it has begun to go off). Sixty days ago, I set out to record what I was thinking about the hoarding of birthday candles, as well as the crazy time that we find ourselves mired in like Br’er Rabbit’s proverbial sticky pine tar poppet.
Although taking in all of this and digesting it in any sense was a little… ambitious, I did manage to put something down every third day on average. That seems like a good maintainable rhythm. There has been an overburden of stupid shit over the last two months that I didn’t feel was worth my time to consider. I mentioned nothing about the United States Secretary of Defense’s weird preoccupation with testosterone, and little of the “Is he? Isn’t he?” circus regarding Mitch McConnell’s corporeal viability.
Instead of fixating on TFG’s* daily grifts and chaotic shifts, I decided to undertake an online Master of Mystical Christianity course during this time, thinking “if you can’t join them, beat them at their own game,” I suppose. It has been an interesting process of meditating on what I really think of the last few thousand years of myth making and social control. Is there something in there worth saving? I think so. Joseph Campbell thought that the stories we tell about ourselves are essential to our human experience. I have always appreciated the mystery and pageantry of the Catholicism I grew up with, especially with the overlay of the Açoriano Portuguese traditions.
I spent a good portion of the week leading up to the Big Day, helping get the hall ready for our annual Holy Ghost Festival, the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo, culminating on serving soupas for 600 on my 60th. John Castanho, the B.D.E.S. president, proved that he doesn’t know me all that well by inviting the capacity crowd to sing Happy Birthday. It was a nice gesture, regardless. It was certainly an honor to spend the day with such good folks engaged in a positive celebration of where we all came from.
What’s next? I’m shooting for finishing my third novel, Kingdoms of the Radio, by the end of the year. Wish me luck.
*This Fucking Guy
Román Leão 
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