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.)