Malas traducciones

I was supposed to be born on a Tuesday. September 4th. Was made to be born on a Wednesday instead, over two weeks later. I’ve told the story before, I think. Breech baby, umbilical noose wrapped around my neck three times. Had I come feet first into the world, it would’ve been curtains right away. Baby’s first gallows. Unfortunately, my morbid little show was not to be. I was to be. Actually, again, I was made to be. A big inconvenience for me, truly.

I do love that origin story, though. Fits me like the latex gloves that came to get me on the morning of September 19th, 1984. It has been 40 years and it never gets old. Every now and again, when I hear about «healing one’s inner child», I still fantasize about honoring that spirited little fetus by hanging myself. But I don’t. I stay. Hands and feet inside the vehicle of life at all times, which stays running. Oh, but the shifting of gears. A troublesome rumble under my feet. The vibration of dislodged parts, barely doing what they’re meant to.

Who would I have been if I had turn into a headfirst position by week 36? I have never been headfirst about anything. Is this why? «I was born two weeks late, is that why I hesitate». I need to calculate. I need to know. Even when it’s impossible to. Doctors called it, I was never going to arrive on my own. I’d sooner die. I had to be pushed. Just not by my mom, that would’ve killed me.

Lately I’ve been thinking about all the times I could’ve died and didn’t. My quirky array of childhood illnesses and surgeries, that time I should’ve drowned at the beach but the wave carried me to shore instead (SKINNY), the time I nearly ended up painted on the road, red and chrome, by an asshole biker in New York. They did get my leg (with their shoe, I think?), but barely. That save was otherworldly. I even ran into David Duchovny immediately after. Crazy stuff.

I used to think all the times I skirted death had to mean something. As a kid I thought «God must have big plans for me. I must be special». I’m decidedly less religious nowadays, but deep down, kind of still feel the same. Like something must still be on its way, because this cannot be it. Do not tell me I was dragged into this mess, against my will, on a Wednesday morning in 1984 for this.