Those wild cat rambles have done it. I’m up, all meds taken, sitting at my desk. Morrie is outside on the terrace, surveying the sunrise to no avail because it is obscured by trees and houses and somewhat behind us even if it wasn’t. I’m finally trying to eat the birthday cupcake John brought me yesterday. Sans the whipped cream topping, it is bland enough for my stomach to take. Imagine me scraping off the whipped cream! I like the dense texture of Mexican cakes. More like a muffin, actually.
Three hours at the doctor’s today, then returned home to a visit from John, my across the street neighbor, who brought me a birthday cupcake. Met Blue at Viva Mexico only to find neither of us have recovered from this curse. We shared a meal and brought most of it home. After eating even that small amount, I was so sick by time I got home. Fell into bed with a couple of kitties as company only to hear a very faint trill. Could it be the doorbell on the gate?
Called out and no one answered. Went back to bed only to hear strains of music. Opened the front door to find Pasiano and family—his wife Patty with the hugest bouquet of flowers and Pasiano strumming the guitar. Ishamel, their six year old son, was singing along as they all sang “Las Mananitas.” I’d bought Pasiano the guitar, made in the guitar town pictured in “Coco.” He had said he wanted to learn the guitar and I kept asking him how he was doing. Since the entire song was sung to him strumming the strings without any notes fingered at all, I take it that he hasn’t taken lessons yet, but such a sweet gesture, and they were all giggling and so pleased with themselves.
. This is my third serenading since I’ve been in Mexico. The first was on my sixtieth birthday, the second on my seventieth and the third, today on my 71st. Such a lovely custom. Awakened by Yolanda’s family with flowers and a gift, flowers and a serenade by Pasiano’s family at the end of day. Nice birthday.
Now, to bed for the rest of my birthday. Had lab tests today and hope to find out tomorrow just what this is. Thanks for all the good wishes. Sure do like all y’all!!!
What person doesn’t, as they approach and then enter the year in their life that marks the year a parent died, feel some trepidation? My father, my grandfather and even my husband died at the age of 70, and some little perversity of my mind has feared all year long that I would join them. All my life, I have avoided black cats who crossed my path and walking under ladders. When I spill salt, I throw a bit over my left shoulder, just in case. It is not that I believe, necessarily , in these superstitions, but nonetheless, I avoid them. So it is with dangers in my seventieth year. I stayed home more. Avoided crowds and travel. I wrote more. Got my house in order—to a degree. I lavished attention on my animals, hoping they would remember me fondly, found surrogate parents for all but the cats.
Poor cats. I think those cats, however, represented that sane part of me who knew I would survive this milestone. I would be here to care for them for a good many years. Perhaps twenty-one. Perhaps twenty-six. My mother died at the age of 91, my paternal grandmother at 96. Perhaps it would be their genetic makeup in me that would determine my lifespan. All ridiculous meanderings of a mind left too much in solitude, by choice. Today I turned 71, riddled by amoebas as I was last year in the week approaching my birthday, but battling back.
Last night one of my best and oldest friends called to talk me into my birthday. As we talked, Forgottenman sent a Happy Birthday message precisely at Midnight. I opened the cards sent by my sister. She said they were pre-birthday cards. I await the official one.
When my alarm went off at 8 this morning to awaken me for my morning dose of antibiotics, dogs and cats remained silent. A strange occurrence. Usually, at the first signs of my stirring, they set up their morning cacophony. This morning, however, all remained silent. It was fifteen minutes later, after I’d read Facebook greetings and checked blog statistics, that they set up a terrific clamor. I heard a gate creak open, although no one was scheduled for work this morning. A key turned in the front lock. My bedroom door opened. It was Yolanda and family: Juan Pablo, Oscar, and Yoli, with chihuahua Bryan in arms. Oscar carried flowers. Juan Pablo a gift. It was a surprise early-morning birthday visit before they all drove Yolanda to work in La Ribera. I made coffee, poured fruit juice for the kids and small shots of a special pistachio mescal for the adults. Not me, as I’m on antibiotics. We took photos, tried to introduce Bryan the dog to my dogs. Oscar cracked open the door to the doggie domain just a bit. My dogs, sniffing and curious, were friendly. Bryan, the runt, snarled to assert his authority, there in the arms of Oscar, his protector.
We took photos and they departed. The amoebas that seemed to be in abeyance yesterday have returned full-fold. The late afternoon lunch I had planned with friends, (a tentative appointment since they all, too, are suffering from amoebas) will probably not happen after all. My appointment with a doctor will. I’ll see her for relief from this yearly visitor that, when it departs, always leaves me with an increased enjoyment of life and health. A profound appreciation of just feeling normal.
As I looked for something to remove from my laptop so I could move the photos you’ll see below there to work with them, I found this poem written a few months ago. I’ve printed it before and then forgotten it, but reading it today as a stranger might, I realized that it encapsulates a lot of what I’ve been feeling this past year; so here it is again, read with a new appreciation of what it means.
Working my way to sandy bottom,
through murky waters growing clear.
Through all the things I daily think of
down to the plain facts that I fear.
Swimming down to sandy bottoms,
down to past truths and future fears.
The daily details float behind as
I face old matters in arrears.
If my whole life should tell a story,
how do the details all add up?
I’ve always thought time was a sieve, but
perhaps I’ll find it was a cup.
Working my way to sandy bottom,
the flotsam of my years floats near.
All the past terrors and past glories,
and future truths I’ve come to fear.
Working my way to sandy bottom,
no oxygen to draw my breath.
Working our ways to sandy bottom,
we spend our lives to buy our death.
All the glories and the triumphs.
All the failures and the fears.
All the trophies we’ve collected,
and all the tattered, used-up years.
Working our ways to sandy bottoms,
will there be gold grains in the sands?
Too late to spend discovered riches,
they slip like lives right through our hands.
Working our ways to sandy bottoms,
our lives lift up as we swim down,
As we leave the past behind us,
we find our future all around.
Click on first photo and then on right arrows to enlarge all.
When the candle in the middle of my birthday donut was lit, it lit seven more candles which opened into this lotus flower and played “Happy Birthday to You” over and over until the copper wire was cut. It was a gift from my friend Jane who had visited from the states a few months before but who couldn’t be here for my birthday. Now how’s that for a flower?????
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
For Cee’s Flower Prompt.
The intent of the prompt is to publish a photo of something that tops off an experience and makes it special. It doesn’t have to specifically be a cherry.
jdbphoto
These little guys were definitely the icing on the cake when they arrived to visit a few days after I celebrated my birthday in Sheridan, Wyoming. They came to visit their grandmother, one of my best and oldest friends, but because I live in Mexico and they don’t live in the town where I visit her and my sister most years, I’d never met them before. They came running in and said, “Our dad says you are his godmother. Does that mean you are our great godmother?” I said, “No, that makes me your ‘fairly’ godmother.” And it went on from there. They are adorable and smart as you can probably see from this photo. The one on the right was getting a buzz haircut from his dad when his dad decided it looked cool to leave a little ducktail in front, and I think he was right. It is adorable. At one point, the last day they were in Sheridan, we all went to the Holiday Inn for breakfast. There was a wishing pool and after the boys threw in their money, Ducktail came and reported he’d gotten his wish. He told us what it was and I said, “Well, that was my wish, too!” He looked at me quizzically and said, “Oh, did you wish that you were younger?” Ha. Think he missed the part about our wishes being the same.
This is what the icing on my birthday cake looked like:
The photo that is here rendered in frosting was of me blowing out the candles on my birthday cake at age three. jdbphoto
And here it is three days later. Yech! Glad I have aged a bit better. The cake has fewer wrinkles but at least I haven’t turned green and broken out in boils!! jdbphoto
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/cherry-on-top/
One of my two dearest friends once told me that the two of them thought I had always had an air of entitlement. This was a shock to me as from the inside out, I’ve always felt like I had to earn every bit of success or recognition I’ve ever received and that I’ve worked hard towards it. In trying to remember the exact conversation that led up to this statement, I have remembered that I had written an angry letter to my boyfriend who had totally overlooked my birthday, merely jotting his name down on a card someone else had provided for my birthday party. Luckily, I decided to read the letter to my friend before sending it to my boyfriend, and the statement above was her reaction to my complete disappointment in that. (No, I never did send the letter.)
Let me say first off that I harbor no resentment against my friend for her statement. I think it is the purpose of friends to occasionally bring these blunt truths and perceptions to light, and there was no malice in her statement––just a wish to furnish me with some insight into myself and to perhaps stay my action in sending the angry and heartbroken letter. She went on to say she’d never had a birthday party in her life. Now that got me to thinking, because I’m sure if I have ever been with her on her birthday, that I would have thrown some kind of a party, even if it was just for the two of us; but perhaps she meant as a child and if this is so––and if expecting some sort of celebration of one’s existence on earth means one projects an air of entitlement––then she is correct, because I am a great believer in celebrations for whomever and for whatever purpose.
Christmas is a big deal to me, even if it means making a crepe paper tree by twisting streamers from a central place on the ceiling overhead down to the various corners and edges of the tiny desk on an ocean liner–which I did when I happened to be on a boat mid-ocean one year for Christmas. Another time, when I was on another cruise with my sister and mother for Christmas, I even packed wrapped presents and a tiny foldable tree in my luggage.
I believe that there are enough days to “rue” in this life, so given any excuse to celebrate, I’m going to take it. On Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Valentines Day, May Day, Halloween, Easter, New years and Day of the Dead––I’m going to use it as a reason to do something creative and something celebratory. Yes, I admit, over the years I’ve forgotten a few birthdays of friends and relatives not physically present. One other year, everyone forgot mine–even my mother––but when you are with me on your birthday, believe me, we’re going to celebrate it!
Such events smooth out the choppy seas of life and give us something on which to pin our memories. Think back. How many of the best memories of your life involve celebrations of some sort? If I tried hard enough, I could probably remember more childhood events centering around holidays and celebrations than any other factor. I vividly remember the costume party my sister had when she turned 13 and the complete southern belle ruffled hoop-skirted costume (complete with picture hat) that Kitty Reynolds made for Cheryl Lillibridge to wear to it–out of crepe paper! My sister went in our older sister’s prom dress, complete with a wrist corsage and dance book (remember those–with a tiny pencil attached for the guys who wanted to dance with you to sign up for a certain place in line on your list?) I went as Alice in Wonderland, accompanied by my sister’s giant yellow “white” rabbit.
The only photo I have of the party shows me, as Alice in Wonderland, in the foreground, but you can see Cheryl in her remarkable southern belle costume in the background as well as Patti in the polka dot prom dress. Perhaps because we have recorded them with photos, we remember these events the best, but so what? if they weren’t memorable enough to take photos, there wouldn’t be any photos to help us remember. (Now that is a cyclical statement if I ever heard one.) And yes, Patti, I do remember that you are the one who reminded me that dress was made out of crepe paper when I mentioned it in a comment on Murdo Girl’s blog.)
At any rate, I was going to list a number of other examples of memories associated with Christmas and other holidays, but I think I’ve proven my point as clearly as I would have if I were to give twenty more examples, so I won’t. The point is that life is going to furnish us with countless choppy seas. In the past few months, this has been especially true with friends and friends of friends suffering terrible tragedies. In some cases, it has been almost too much to bear, but in the midst of all this sadness, we continue to plan these special life events: Easter egg hunts, reunions, summer camps for kids, special dinners with friends, birthday celebrations, writing retreats and trips to far-off places to visit friends we’ve been promising to take for years. Because life on its own doesn’t furnish us with very many smooth spaces, I think we need to furnish them for ourselves!
Recently I quoted this statement by Will Durant to a blogger friend in the comments section of his blog. It is probably one of the quotes I’ve requoted most in life, and forgive me if you’ve heard it before, but I’m gonna do it again:
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry.
The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.”
I think Mr. Durant will forgive me if I add one item to his riverbank list of activities. The word I would add is “celebrate.” It is one more everyday occurrence between people living their ordinary lives that helps to smooth out the bumps that the “big things” provide.
Billy Sorenson and I dressed up as characters from fiction for our town’s 50th anniversary parade. Why Robin Hood looks terrified of Little Bo Peep and why she looks like the cat who has swallowed the canary is lost in the annals of history. If my sisters hadn’t been fond of very large stuffed animals, I would have been limited in my costume props. The sheep was won for my sister Betty by her boyfriend who spent a lot of quarters and got a sore arm tossing balls to win her favor. The big rabbit in the first photo was my sister Patti’s.
P.S. Remember that little twig in the ground I was sitting next to as a two year old in “Dreams of Flying” ? It is the same tree pictured in the first picture above. It took seven years to grow even that big–which is how slowly trees grow in the dry climate of South Dakota, even though I’m sure my dad or mom probably watered it daily. It would have been that size in less than a year in Mexico.
Marjorie Pauline is my very dear friend, fellow writer, enthusiastic walker and dance partner. When I’m at the beach, she is the one who pulls me out to dance twice a week, and if she had her “druthers,” it would be three times. She has done the 500 mile Camino walk in Spain three times–including last year, when she did it to celebrate her 80th birthday, so her daily 5 to 10 mile walks on the beach when she is in La Manzanilla are nothing in comparison.
Above all, she is a social person, so it came as no surprise when we went to her favorite dancing spot, Palapa Joe’s, to celebrate her 81st birthday on February 12, that a margarita was put in her hand the minute she walked in the door, that her favorite band member greeted her as “Mom” and that people started coming to the table with cards and gifts. But when the band struck up a tune, all else faded away. “C’mon, let’s dance!” she demanded and away we went to dance every dance where she wasn’t recruited by one or another male friend.
Yes, the band sang “Happy Birthday,” the kitchen staff presented her with a Hostess Cupcake birthday cake and friends presented gag gifts. But the best part of the entire evening for the birthday girl was, as always, the dance!!!!
(Click on first picture to view a slideshow of all photos in enlarged format with captions.)
. . . very far from the tree.
My sister sent me this message and poem that my mom wrote for her egads–over 50 years ago!
Hi there–
I was looking in a box of letters & memorabilia (including my Salutatorian speech from high school, of all things) that Mother gave me years ago, and I found this poem she wrote for me on my birthday one year. It’s so great I have to share it.
A POEM
I’ve used my best china,
Which I’ll wash–I bet.
I made you a cake
Which you already “et”
I’ve washed your clothes
And made your bed,
But please let this all
Not go to your head
Today is your birthday
But tomorrow is not,
So you’ll do your own jobs
You little–darling girl.
P.S.
In regards to your room,
I had meant to do more,
But I took one look
And made for the door.
She was so clever; I wonder if I appreciated it then?
xxoo Patti
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 