by
NARR: In our society, if you're going to be afraid of a number 13 is a pretty good choice. There's even psychological condition named after the fear -- triskydekaphobia. And it's especially pronounced when the 13th of the month falls on a friday. Like today. Which also happens to be my birthday.
I almost wasn't born on this blessed day. It was April 13, 1981 -- 11:59 PM. One minute before a perfectly normal day. After 36 hours of labor, my mother heaved one final push. The obstetrician caught me, stood up, looked at my parents and said: Do you wanna fudge the time a little? We could say that she was born at midnight on April the 14th. No one would know. My father thought that would be a fine idea. But my mother wouldn't budge. No child of hers would start out life under false pretenses.
So I've shared by birthday with friday the 13th three times before today. And sometimes that's been a hard fact to forget. My birthday celebrations have been sprinkled with an Earthquake, an outbreak of the chicken pox, a series of slash em up horror films and that delightful holiday Good Friday. Nothing goes down well with cake and ice cream like crucifixion.
But no April 13th has been more memorable than my 23rd birthday.
I was living in Cambodia at the time. The day started out beautifully. I rented dirt bikes with a group of friends and we rode out of the capital city. Our destination was the second highest peak in Cambodia - which is to say a relatively small hill four hours away. We blazed out of town toward a horizon of rice paddies and palm trees.
Two hours into our journey, I was still riding fast when my eyes glanced away from the road. It was one second - one brief moment. And when my eyes returned to the road - I saw two kids on the back of a moped rolling very slowly over a cavernous pothole.
I was almost on top of them. I dropped my bike and felt my body spin. I skidded around. I saw the emerald line of rice paddies flip and turn and finally halt in a vertical line across my visor. And all I could think was: Happy Birthday to me.
My birthday present that year included an injection of Lidocane, a line of stitches so jagged that the scar still looks like the mark of Zorro and a two hour trek on my broken down rental to the next town. The next morning, despite a very stiff back, I managed a ragged ride to the top of the mountain.
I got there.
And to me that's what it means to be born on the thirteenth.
There may be a lot of bumps - the trip may seem impossible, bloody -- even cursed. But you get there in the end. And the best part about is: I know luck had nothing to do with it.