Sharing Shakespeare's Birthday: A Five-Paragraph Essay

Have you ever tried to write on Shakespeare’s birthday? It sucks. Do not recommend it. I’ve tried for decades. If you're wondering how one becomes called to such a task (without ever asking for the assignment), here's what happens: The stars align by order of some complicated celestial coordinates. Dates are predetermined. Circumstances overlap, and suddenly I'm unable to escape the fate of having to write on William Shakespeare's birthday. In the beginning of this preordained kismet, I vowed to compose with religious ceremony. And for the first few years, on every April 23rd, I penned cards in due diligence. But sometime in the middle words dried up; I hadn’t enough to crack open the lid of a letter box. For years, I wrote nothing. I take responsibility for the absent, blank pages, but I am here to discuss how some of the blame also goes to William Shakespeare. Sharing with him is unfair. And so as my thesis states, it’s really, really hard to write on Shakespeare’s birthday.

First, it’s hard to write on Shakespeare’s birthday because there are no warnings as to what shows up each year. For instance, one year up pops a court-ordered jester, another year, a star-orchestrated drama, while the following might swoon into a dark muse or end up in a weeping monologue. Every birthday with Shakespeare brings gifts, but one can never predict where these little surprises will appear. Take for example, the supermarket. One April 23rd, I stood stationed under fluorescents, staring down an aisle of dessert cakes. The weight of a birthday card in my shopping basket. Muzak echoing. The choice of wrapped confectionery on display, the words needed to fill a greeting card, the empty reflection bouncing off polished linoleum seemed weary, flat, stale, unprofitable. Then, thought fired. No warning. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet after his own son died; Hamlet turns mad with grief. I purchased the card and confetti cake from a self-checkout line. The card remained blank that year. Cake uneaten. In proof, out of nowhere, a noble heart can pop up still, cracked and silent. No one warns about the weight of having to write on the original poet’s birthday.

Second, it is also hard to write on Shakespeare’s birthday because of increased feelings of inadequacy and isolation. For instance, everyone knows Shakespeare. He gets the attention. I’ll attempt to quote a card in ink while Willy’s over here leaping in tights, quilling usurped lineage, flower-plucked suicides, and dash’d out spots of blood in festooned discourse whilst elevating diction to echelons only comprehended by really intelligent people. How do I compete with him? On the years I do manage to write, a scrawled plaintive of longing spools onto a greeting card and then slips into a letter box stored at the back of a linen closet. No one reads it. After all, I am no poet. I’m merely someone who happens to possess a cosmic intersection with a birthday (and who, thus, has to write on it). I tell no one about the relationship. For one, it seems imprudent to insert my constellated connection with the greatest playwright of all time upon first making introductions. Moreover, there rarely seems a proper moment to steer conversation into an inside about how one arrives at sharing star-studded dates. So when “The Day” in April comes, no one knows about it, and no one inquires after. Some years, no words— written or spoken —rival the torment of April 23rd, so I fold a blank page and the anniversary slips by unnoticed. It’s not easy to write, alone, on a birthday linked with William Shakespeare.

Lastly, I’ve discovered folk button up real tight once they learn of my stellar-ruled connection to Ol’ Willy’s Big Day, which, in turn, makes it difficult to express authentic thoughts and emotions. I, too, think Shakespeare is complicated; I, too, can’t follow what the hell happens; I also hurt trying to translate his plays. But those who learn about my connection to April 23rd start curtsying around in hushed thee-thou consolations. I don’t get it. The birthday star, himself, whapped phallic and pitched sheath. He stained galled humor and snot-smeared calamity all over universal themes. But for some reason, when people draw our parallels, they dribble elegiac babble without eye contact around me. I’d rather someone throw an expletive. Bite a thumb. Bellow, “Birthdays with Shakespeare blow chunks!” Because they do. And while some may say sharing the special day with such an esteemed literary hero is honorable and should be cradled in gratitude and reverence, they are mistaken. Grossly misguided. Sure, The Barb can wax poetic about governed celestial bodies and predestined inter-stellar constellations, but it’s all composed in fiction. It’s make-believe. In colloquial terms: complete bullshit. The man wrote about cutting bodies up into little stars and hanging them throughout the sky, for the love of God. He makes mockery of the heavens. Because here’s what really happens when the stars cross in alignment. This is the connection: My son died on his very own birthday. April 23rd. Just like William Shakespeare.

There you have it. Or, rather, in conclusion, it is really, really hard to write on Shakespeare’s birthday. It is hard to be confronted, year after year, with the unchangeable reality of inescapable tragedy and have to scratch words against it. I promised pen to cardstock in memory of my son and I failed. For years, I wrote nothing. But I ascertain that William Shakespeare must also share the responsibility. I am unable to compete with his dramas and his sonnets or engage any longer with his indecipherable poetry. So I took stock from my high school English course and squeezed the agony of April 23rd into a five-paragraph essay. Only, instead of slipping scrawled notes into a box buried at the back of a closet, I’m posting it to a contest. From now on, I promise to make up for years not composed in writing. I vow to penn beneath the shadows of Shakespeare’s greatness, post to platforms despite the intimidation. I owe it to my child. Guess that’s it. Never was good with the conclusion.

Happy birthday, lil’ bird.

<3 mama