XLII: But I’m not wishing Richard Armitage all the answers just yet!

It’s Servetus’ annual charity appeal for Richard Armitage’s birthday!

For every comment from a unique IP / commentator left on this post from 48 hours after the time it appears, I will donate £1 to ChildLine via Richard Armitage’s JustGiving pages.

If you are a lurker: here’s an additional incentive! If you delurk for the first time for this post, I will donate an additional 50p for a total of £1.50 for your comment!

[Comments can be about anything. No content requirements or minimum word threshold.]

And don’t wait on me: donate yourself to any of the charities he recommends, right here!

***

I know this birthday wish is a little lame. For all that, just as heartily felt! Lucas North / John Bateman (Richard Armitage) and Maya Lahan (Leila Rouass) in Spooks 9.3. My cap.

***

Dear Mr. Armitage,

Happy birthday — yet again. Some things you’ve said suggest you don’t celebrate and in 2011, I guess, you slept through the day! Since I always wish you exactly what you want for your birthday, I hope that if you’re studiously ignoring your birthday, no one or nothing reminds you of it. (Including this post.) Keep reading at your own risk!

I’m always writing your birthday post at the last second. In fact, I’ve been trying for three years to write a sonnet about your acting for your birthday. I have six lines. (Two more than last year. Sonnets are slow things.) This year I wanted to do a fan vid and managed to complete about 90 seconds of it. You really deserve better from me; then again, your birthday does fall in the third week of August.

So this is as off the cuff as it usually is.

You had such an amazing year, professionally. The summary of what you did — and all the press it generated, which I enjoyed like crazy — since your last birthday is astounding. I wonder what was most exciting for you — the stuns on the Hobbit set? thoughts about new career directions? bringing The Hobbit home to London and meeting Prince William and taking your parents along? Giving your nephew the Thorin legos? The relocation to New York? Something personal and private? Climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Something not on this list?

What a year! I hope you had time to enjoy all of these happenings and the many memories you created for yourself and others.

Tonight, as the afternoon was tilting toward evening, I was driving past the Armitage exit and thinking about life, the universe, and everything — and you, of course. I was thinking about how different and, frankly, unimaginable, the last three and a half years would have been without the encounter with your work and everything it’s inspired: growth, thoughts, emotions, and in particular friendships. Someday I’ll actually send you a letter that I write, and I’ll say some of what I thought this afternoon — that you helped me, that you helped me talk to people who were in turn helped — and who then turned back to help me in some way. That your work inspires an ongoing synergism of creativity, love, friendship and support that keeps us all going, somehow, even at terrible times — and that I can’t imagine the last few years without you and the friends grouped around you, anymore.

My other main thought, about life, the universe, and everything, is nothing new, and it’s conditioned, admittedly, by what I’ve been doing lately: as old and experienced as we feel sometimes, we’re really still so young. We have so much in front of us, so much to learn and experience and grow with, so many new people to meet and landscapes to see, so many worlds to explore.

As even Douglas Adams knew and joked about, 42 was a red herring. We don’t yet know all the answers. That would be boring. There’s still so much left for us to learn. At 40, you said you were middle-aged. (Yes, I know you said that mostly for the benefit of reporters.) But you (and I) are now in position to celebrate our best years — smarter, more experienced, more mature, but still with the energy and the capacity for all kinds of new things to come.

And there are so many questions left to answer! In fact, the questions — experiencing them, asking them, trying out solutions, discarding what we know and trying all over again — that may be the most thrilling, promising part!

I’m excited about all these questions and opportunities for you and in the last few years, my excitement for you has taught me to be excited about them for me. What I’ve hoped for you has, in turn, taught me not to fear.

I wish I could give you something really neat. Although I have no idea what you’d do on your perfect birthday, this is how I’m dreaming you’re spending it — after sleeping in and perhaps reading or jogging in the morning, fielding dozens of calls and texts from friends and family, I’m seeing you enjoying a wonderful day spent relaxing on the coast and then a dinner grilled and eaten by the light of torches — or perhaps dancing at a hot Latin club in New York City with friends, drinking the intense, fruity  cocktails that go with those dances, giggling and toasting and staying up till you can’t lift a foot anymore, and remembering just how young you really are and how many things there are to be excited about. If there’s someone special for you right now, I hope you’re spending the day together and happy.

May the next year of your life bring you many new artistic and personal challenges — love, health, beauty, prosperity — and anything else that’s lacking.

But above all, may this year bring you many wonderful, intriguing questions — so that you can continue to search for pieces to the answers in ways that fascinate and inspire you. You may be 42 — but it’s the year to throw 42 away.

So once again, happy birthday! I hope you have the most wonderful day.

As always,

Servetus

***

Check out the birthday card for Richard Armitage at RichardArmitageNet.com, with the amazing summary of everything he did this year!

Birthday greetings for Richard Armitage are rolling in from the bloggers. In addition to the items reblogged below, here are the ones I’ve seen so far, as I post this:

• Armitage Agonistes
• White Rose Writings (with new fanvid)
• Confessions of a Watcher (the Man returns)
• Crystal Chandlyre
• Swooning Maruca
• Love, Sex, and Other Dirty Words
• Gisborne’s Boy
• Jonia’s Cut
• Crispin’s Eclipse
• zRYSIOwana ja
• Grendel’s Mum
• Well, There You Go!
• The Armitage Effect

And don’t forget to check out the Richard Armitage tumblr stream here. I’m seeing lots of neat graphics already!

***

Don’t miss King Richard Armitage Week 2013 at KRA! There’s a quiz, and you can win a prize!

***

Previous Armitage Days marked at “me + richard armitage”:

• Happy Birthday, Mr. Armitage! (2010).
• Armitage XL (2011).
• XLI: Richard Armitage by the numbers (2012).

~ by Servetus on August 22, 2013.