Queen for a Day
It’s September 5th in
New Zealand (still the 4th in the States). My birthday. I thought I
might brush this one off. I’ve been grumpy. It’s been six weeks since the
Husband got laid off. Neither of us knows what’s next, so we’re living in limbo
with my knee-jerk panic and sense of frustration we haven’t figured this out –
yesterday.
Earlier this week, I told
Facebook: forget my birthday. Changed the setting so no one can attach
September 5th to me. Except my family and close friends, including
my running mates, who know this day is mine. But why should legions of people
online, many of whom I don’t know personally, know it’s my birthday? Who needs
well wishes from around the world? Apparently, me.
I had a change of heart last night
and whispered to Fb: “Go ahead, tell my friends about the birthday. Google was
going to let the cat out of the bag, anyway.”
I set my alarm for 5:30 this
morning. I hit snooze once, popping up at 5:40. I check my phone and see an
email alert from my friend, Leanne, whose birthday is close to mine (tomorrow?
Gosh, I’m horrible remembering birthdays!). My fellow Virgo is one of the most
thoughtful people I know (she’s also a talented TV reporter in LA: http://abc7.com/about/newsteam/leanne-suter/
)
My day’s already off to a good
start, since I’m thinking of Suter (we all called each other by surnames at the
TV station where we met in Grand Rapids, Michigan). I check her anonymous
Facebook profile to see if I can suss out her birthday. The only picture she’s
tagged in shows a Superman doll sitting in Sean’s hospital room, plus pictures
of Fiona and Finley I’d taped to the wall. Leanne and her then-husband had sent
Superman to help Sean heal.
I slip into the next room – a
spare bedroom/office, where I press my phone’s meditation app, which is set to
chime after seven minutes. It’s about all my monkey mind can handle. During
these seven minutes, I listen to the ocean outside the windows, think about
what I want my birthday to mean and say nice things to myself. I’m a
slightly-less-geeky version of the SNL character Stuart Smalley, who says, “I’m
good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” Unlike Stuart, I
do not practice before a mirror.
Gray wisps of cotton wool feather
the skies over the Mount beach as I pound the sand for a five- kilometre run.
My left knee’s still a grumpy old man – he feels about 84-years-old, while the
rest of me feels 24. I’d be in better shape now – at 44 – than I was twenty
years ago, if it weren’t for the achy, possibly torn bits of tendon scratching
about the inside of my knee. No sunrise run up the Mount this year.
There’s no sun, anyway. Day breaks
without the orange fire ball rising from the Pacific. Seagulls skitter at the
shoreline and squawk overhead. None of them bombard my head. This is a good
sign. I pass a man walking two German shorthair pointers. Another sign. They
remind me of my dogs, Greta and Baron, growing up. One dog ran away and the
other was hit by a car.
After the run, I’m clambering up
the narrow wooden spiral staircase from the garage when the kids yell, “Don’t
come up! Close your eyes!”
I drop the empty recycling bin and
do as instructed. “Here, put this in front of your face,” says Fiona, holding a
newspaper. She walks me to the dining room table and says, “Okay, open your
eyes.”
“Surprise!” shouts Finley, Fiona
and Pete. The kids motion to the table, while my husband places strips of
uncooked bacon into a large pan with surgical precision.
Cards, flowers, a bottle of
bubbly, two small boxes of chocolates and a bag with Fiona’s writing sit atop
the dining table. My eyes well. Such care and planning to have it all here at
seven a.m. I take turns giving my family sweaty hugs. I open the card from Pete
first. Inside is a voucher for a white water rafting trip. He listened when I
told him, “No electronics. Nothing useful.” Just an experience with him.
Finley’s card includes a coupon
for laundry soap, candy, four dollars in change and a 20-dollar bill, which I
return to him.
Fiona’s present is a red plush
doll made of felt whose stitching is starting to unravel between the legs. “I
made it in my spare time,” she says. “I even brought it to school.”
I shower and get dressed while
listening to my favorite radio show, "This American Life." The episode called “Back
to School” http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/474/back-to-school
talks about how children learn. And how they don’t learn if they grow up with
chaos and stress at home. I think about my kids’ early years and develop a new
theory: maybe the kids have attached so well to Pete (despite what Fiona says,
she adores him) because they felt so much love from Sean. Their father gave
them security from birth. Their stepfather will provide stability throughout
their lives.
Pete serves me a microwaved egg on
toast with coffee and bacon. It tastes like a weekend morning. Like love.
After breakfast, the kids decorate
cupcakes for a school celebration. Apparently, today is also the birthday of
their mascot, Mountie. Fiona and Finley spread the cupcakes with green icing
which they layer with sprinkles, M&M’s and lollipops. I drive them to
school. The last glimpse of my small fries is Fiona ahead, Finley walking
behind, carrying an ice cream container of cupcakes, wearing a black cowboy
hat. They fought about who would wear the black hat.
What else do I want to do on my
day? Write. This blog is an indulgence, one I don’t allow myself as much as I’d
like. I’m in the middle of listening to a podcast called, “Our Friend David,” http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/472/our-friend-david
which I pause. It’s impossible to
concentrate on my own pithy prose while listening to a genius like (the late)
David Rakoff who wrote about chicken poop as “olfactory insult.” I’m sad he
died of cancer in 2012 at age 47. Just as I was sad to learn Joan Rivers died today
at age 81.
Rakoff and Rivers endure not in
heartbeats and breaths but in words. Which is part of this birthday writing
exercise. Long after my ashes have blown off the Mount, disappeared over Spokane Falls or dissipated into Lake Erie, my words will remain – for everyone
who chooses to read or ignore them. Happy birthday to me – cheers to what we
keep: love of words. Words. And love.
*Note: I downloaded the This American Life app
from iTunes for $2.99 and got the whole podcast library.
Dawn,
ReplyDeleteThis is Anngele, it's been quite sometime, but I try to keep up with your travels/goings on, as often as possible. I'm the mother of your daughters birthday/hospital buddy, Aurora and Fiona were born within mins of eachother at the same hospital, we've talked on this before. I think our doctors were fighting over the OR even? Lol Anyways, I'd no clue you were a fellow Virgo, let alone pretty darn well close to ten years exactly my senior, hey it's a compliment, so stop! Lol My bday is Sept 18th, so Happy Birthday!! I admire your writing, I too am a fellow blogger and lover of words, writing. I'm also a monkey, like our crazy daughters (somtimes she's so much like me it drives me bonky!) Anyways, so much of this post hit close to home again, wanted to let you know someone heard it, and enjoyed it. Keep up the writing, these make me smile and inspire my own writing.
Ann
My sister love swimming.
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