The Birthday Post

Today I am turning 66 years old. It’s not a big deal except I never thought I’d live this long! I must say, I’ve always loved my birthday.

One of the stories my mother told me frequently, one of the rare stories she told me where I somehow made her laugh, was once when I was playing alone in the basement (as per usual) she came downstairs and said, “I have a surprise for you! Today your father is staying home from work!” and apparently, I said, obviously disappointed, “I thought you were going to tell me it was my birthday.”

I don’t know quite what to make of that story except that it proves that from an early age (post talking and pre memory) I loved my birthday.

But not parties. I hate parties. Even now I hate all birthday parties.

It’s like inviting strangers over to trample all over your flower beds, or in my case one year, draw pubic hair and nipples on all your Barbies. I didn’t have a lot of friends but I usually had one friend and they hated birthday parties as much as I did (hence the friendship).

So now I have grandkids who have parents who throw MASSIVE PARTIES for them sometimes in LOUD ARCADES. Honestly, at times CHEMO THERAPY felt like a more bearable assault on my senses. But I learned early that face painting at these events helped me focus and could allow me to be “at the party” without dealing with the chaos all around.

It’s partly how I became “Rio The Clown”.

My daughter texts me, “You don’t have to come if you don’t want,” meaning to my Granddaughter’s party.

For my birthday we are going to a nice restaurant for lunch, on the lakefront, a part of my new city that I haven’t been able to get to on my own as there is no bus. I am excited.

This morning I am doing one of the things I love to do, write, and better yet, I’m not alone as I am running the clock for a Breakfast Sprint with the SFF group of Toronto with one of its members (and my friend)! Yay!

One of my other favourite things to do is a day long zen practice and for many years I had the pleasure and joy of having a practice interview with my then teacher, Shikai Zuiko Sensei. She died during the pandemic. We were no longer teacher and student but the last time I saw her, after the first few moments of sitting across from her, it was as it always was, sitting on the zafu across from her, a remarkable gift.

I remember every birthday she’d remind me, “Thank your mother because she did all the work on the day you were born”.

And it will be something I do today. I will thank my mother.

I know all these things I write here may seem to be more permanent and real because they are written down. I am not talking about the “truth” though I have tried to be clear and honest always, maybe writing a memoir can’t help but be a bit of conceit, after all, I am still barely an adult. But none of what I write can compare to how real this moment is. Always renewing itself, always reborn as this moment.

I have my hands on the keyboard. Wrists rest on the ergonomic supports. Index fingers reassuringly register the bumps on the F key and the J keys. All the other fingers fall on their “home keys”. A map of the keyboard arises in my mind, but it isn’t a visual map, it is a spatial map, a proximity and associative map.

If my hands believed they held a world, who would be the letter Q?

And did you get that? I managed to fit in a Star Trek the Next Generation reference!

Happy Birthday Me!

(Thanks mom for birthing me.)

The Clear Button

a short story

As soon as she woke her first thought was always which button to push.

She liked The Blue Button because that would dispense the blue pill which gave her a blue-sky way of looking at things. She’d settle back into her soft chair and imagine all the possibilities. That was good for half a day.

She liked the Green Button too because that pill made her feel fresh and she could run around and clean: Get all the food waste in the green bin, dishes in the dishwasher, laundry sorted, what needed to be presoaked, soaking. While the machines were going, she could shine the shiny surfaces, re-organize her drawers and then, once the laundry was done, iron smooth everything that could be ironed. She had a really good time. The green pill gave her a feeling of accomplishment that would last for two days.

The Black Button dispensed the black pill which made her sleep a deep, solid sleep that she knew she really, really, really, times ten to the power ten, needed. And sometimes that was good for a week.

She liked all the buttons. She liked all the pills.

She especially liked the Purple Button saved for special occasions and weekends because it dispensed the purple pill that made her see gods and goddesses and flowers taller than tall buildings and giant butterflies and herself as the beautiful creature that was made of pure love—The Pink Button, that dispensed the pink, silly-laughing pill for long chats with friends—the Checkered Button was for the checkered pill that made her smart so she could fix things and sell them on-line when she needed extra credit for shopping—she liked The Red Button because of the red pill, but she was shy so it was discretely hidden under her bed.

But then there was The Clear Button. She had never pushed it. She wasn’t sure why except it seemed more dangerous than anything she could ever do in her entire life, even more dangerous than going a whole day without pushing any buttons at all.

She thought, perhaps, maybe, she’d seen someone do this—push the clear button, but it was hard for her to think about because, whoever they were, they were gone. Simply vanished. As if some gigantic hand just swooped in and removed them.

No. She would not push the clear button.

She would push the Green Button.

After taking the green pill she re-potted her potted plants and she went on line and ordered more. Then she ordered a yoga matt, signed up for some on-line classes in meditation, donated to a charity and as soon as everything was delivered (rush) arranged all her new plants and the numerous bronze statues of various deities in front of the clear button until you could no longer see it. She felt a great sense of spiritual calm and accomplishment that lasted for two days. On the third day she pushed the black button.

A week later she woke and before getting out of bed, she thought about the clear button. She wished she could remember who it was that she had known who pushed it. It was like an itch in her brain. There was no pill to take care of the feeling. No button to push.

She sat up, swatting away the enormous fronds of greenery. She crawled under the low hanging foliage and arrived at the alter of the numerous deities and knocked them aside and found the clear button and pushed it.

And nothing happened.

There was no clear pill.

She just sat there.