Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Far To Go

Today is Wednesday. It is a rainy day in October, but above all, it is my birthday.
I am thirty-eight today.
I have a lot to do today; a lot of Wednesday things to do. This is how I love to spend my birthday. I love to walk around with the private knowledge that it is the anniversary of my birth and do things that I would do on any other day.

I putter and bake myself a birthday cake. My house smells like a bakery - warm and sweet with a side of coffee. I will share this cake this evening with two friends who also share my birthday. Happiness in triplicate, with cake. I putter and I clean and I take stock. I am here and I am healthy. I am happy and I am content. Those are two different things, and when they collide, there is magic.

There has always been magic. I have not always seen it so clearly. I see it today and that is enough. I saw it yesterday and some more yesterdays that I have forgotten to count. I hope I will still see it tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow for me. Life is long and it is short and it passes so slowly some days and then years slip away. I cannot get a grip on the slipperiness of time; so I stand here now, in the rain on my day and call it mine. I will taste it and smell it and wonder about it and I will be thankful for it. I will blow out the candles this evening and my only wish, as it has been for years, is that I live right now and find love in it.

The autumn wind chills and whips the leaves into a wet frenzy around me. I think of the frenzies of my life that come and go and remind myself to relinquish the illusion of control. I cannot any more stem the tides of good and bad that come in my life than hold the wind in my hands. I am free now to examine the purplish green leaves as they flutter past. I am free now to appreciate the warmth of my kitchen after the soaking, bone-chilling outside. I am free now to smell the wood smoke in the air and think of apples. I am not a victim of circumstance, but an active and acquiescent participant. I have lived enough of this life to know that things do change, that I can change if I want to, but I don't always need to. I look back down those thirty-eight years from now and see the pieces that have built this strange and wonderful life and I love them all.

Today is Wednesday, but I was born on a Thursday. Thursday's child has far to go. That's what the old rhyme tells me. I remember it every year and hold it close like the numbers 10 and 24, and the new number, 38. It reminds me how far I've come. It reminds me I've always got more to go. Today as I stand here with the rain and the warm cake and the day of mundane things to do in an extraordinary world, I remember to keep walking, one step and then another, taking the time to look around, switching directions when I need to. Nothing is assured, never perfect or painless. I don't want these things. I am Thursday's child and I'm busy wandering. I have far to go.

24 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday ;-)

    I love this post, the gentle nature, the passing of time. The way you have learnt to appreciate life.

    Live life, love life!

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  2. I am so glad you were born 38 years ago - - we are all richer for it.

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  3. Knowing its your birthday cheered me up! I just got finished talking to my Washington son, and he had his birthday far far away there recently, alone. Oh, I just glanced sideways at your 'About Me' and saw all your M words, (smile). You have a wonderful day!

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    1. I am going to make myself a German Chocolate cake soon, maybe today. I saw the box and frosting in the cabinet yesterday or the day before.

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    2. Thank you! I love German Chocolate cake, but alas... my husband is allergic to coconut, so I haven't made it in years and years.

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  4. I love to spend my birthday in exactly that way, as private and silently sweet as it can be. And I'm glad you are braving 38 just a few months ahead of me. It makes me feel safer to know you went first.

    "I have lived enough of this life to know that things do change, that I can change if I want to, but I don't always need to."

    THAT. I should just stick that in a between two covers and burn the rest of my book. It's all there is to know.

    Happy birthday.

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    1. I will try to do 38 justice. It seems a bit of an impossible number.

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  5. I'm a Friday's child who is "loving and giving!" HA! They totally botched that one. Nice to know they got yours right. Perfectly written, as always. Jerk. (Again, so much for that "loving and giving" thing).

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  6. Happy Birthday TangledLou. Please let me wish you a wonderful new year ahead full of living. Really living. You get to define what that means.

    Confession: I never really liked that poem .. because I'm a Wednesday's child. *sigh*

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    1. My jBird was almost a Wednesday's child. I always wondered how they felt about that bit of unfortunate poetry. It's not binding, you know. ;) You are the case in point!

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  7. Happy Birthday! 1974 was a very good year! I was born on a Sunday, all though to hear my Mom tell of her labor, I took my sweet time doing it, and seemed to be headed towards a Monday birth. But being Sunday, I'm bonny and blithe and good and gay, so it worked out just fine.

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  8. You share your day with my first born, my daughter. She is struggling this year with her number, though, as she was born 2 years before you.
    Happy Birthday. It is a very good day to have one.

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    1. 40 is somehow so much different than 38. I am prepping myself for that now so it won't be as hard when I get there. Happy birthday to your daughter! And thank you for the birthday wishes.

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    2. My baby sister turned 40 this year--which obviously makes me feel so much older than turning 40 myself. I try not to mind though. I'm of the "consider the alternatives" school of thought. My dad's long-time girlfriend is completely baffled by this--she is routinely devastated by each new arbitrary bump in age. It's sad and a little hilarious at the same time.

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  9. Happy birthday, ya dirty old man. ;-)

    xoxo

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  10. Hope you enjoyed your day! (Even if you didn't I'm sure you took notes, which is really a sort of enjoyment in any case, huh?)

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