The celebration seemed as good an excuse as any to be less conservative in my behavior - and to wear a silly hat and wave a wand trimmed in pink mirabou feathers. The day started on a sour note, but ended beautifully. What more could one ask from a birthday?
In the clear light of the following morning, while brushing the sparklies from my hair, I was overcome by sensibility and rationality, far worse than any hangover I might have had in my life. Now I had to be a somber, example-setting role model again - okay, okay - try to be. My free-wheeling fun and silliness of the day before were becoming but a memory.
Albeit, a damned good one; to be brought out in the weeks and months ahead and savored; treasured, relived with wild abandon when life begins to get tedious again. I started to write that the next milestone birthday would be my 70th, but following my quarterly check-up with my doctor the day after 65, I think every birthday from here on in will be a milestone.
Any excuse to wear a silly hat, I always say.
12 comments:
Time to wear purple.
We need to wear more silly hats. HBD!!!
Well Happy Birthday, Martha. You've got a couple years to catch up to me, may they be good ones. Leave a bit of the sparkle in your hair; it's becoming.
Mike
I'm all for wearing a silly hat with or without a reason! I hope you had a nice birthday, Martha. You can't go wrong with sparklies in your hair. :-)
If you don't mind thinking of yourself as a barge let me take on the role of tugboat. In twenty-five days time it will be either my seventy-seventh or seventy-eighth (I've honestly forgotten which) but I like the idea of towing you along year by year, even though in dizzier times you've towed me along.
I could also send you despatches from this remote battle front but the info is predictable. The creaking physical structure creaks more and more but that's not the bit that interests me. I'm two-thirds the way through my third (proper) novel and the ideas continue to pop up unannounced. The last three thousand words have been devoted to a baby which I might have thought strange a year ago, imagining I'd be writing about bonking and other red-blooded men/women activities. But what matters is the writing and babies demand as much attention as car engines and plumbing. Looking for raw material my mind slides back fifty years and I see my elder daughter rolling her head from one side to another in her cot. The rolling slows down as she realises a blurred image has entered her field of vision, her eyes strain hard to focus, and then gravely she perceives it is me. It's happened to all parents and I'm lucky enough to find a need to duplicate that moment (and add to it if I can) and to slip it into a context.
But, as usual, I'm writing about me and not you. So let me switch. Remember Gorgon Times? You read bits of it and I particularly recall your response to the last chapter where those two very English people - Hatch and Clare - finally achieve rapprochement as they walk through London. Urgently you told me they should embrace when they first meet but I wasn't having any. I needed their English distancing. But I appreciated what you were saying, nevertheless, since our twin sets of feeling were representative of the two cultures we were born into. Had Hatch and Clare been American they would have embraced and you were right to play the American card. But if I turned you down then I was later to embrace you in my next novel, Risen on Wings, where your footsteps are to be found all over the place when Jana starts out looking for an efficiency in Tucson and ends up with a studio.
For reasons that would be tedious to explain Gorgon Times will shortly be published in a special deal with Amazon as a means of establishing a track record for selling Risen on Wings and, eventually, Blest Redeemer. When that happens I will send you a copy since I had, in all honesty, to mark those exchanged emails between us (on wider ranging subjects than efficiencies and studios) and this I have done.
Next time don't comb out all the sparkles.
Happy birthday Martha, you look marvellous!
You look fan-tas-tic! How'd you keep that hat on your head? I'm very glad to learn that you had a good birthday. There are a lot more days than there are years, so that's the way I think now -- one day at a time.
In January of this year the very nice optician who regularly checks my eyesight observed: you will be 80 next year. I denied it strongly knowing that my next birthday would be my 79th. Silly me. She was right. In 2012 I shall be 80. Yes, time's winged chariot creaks and groans as it moves on our heels. Like you I find that instead of being threatening it can make you enjoy and appreciate every day with greater intensity. Which is what you did on your birthday, and it was a tonic dear Crow to see you looking so blyth and debonaire. The hat you are wearing is I believe known over here as a fascinator. You look great and fascinating too. Happy birthday!
When I meet French people on Grande Randonneée walks and chat their parting shot is often "bonne continuation" which is a sentiment I wish for you wholeheartedly.
Hello, all:
Zhoen - Oh, yes! Especially purple undies.
Jim - Couldn't agree more, Jim. I used to make hats. I think I'll start making them again. Thank you.
Mike - Thank you, Mike. I once said to my first ex that I was born to sparkle. He snorted. One of many reasons he is an ex.
Daisy - Daughter and Grandson took me out to dinner, and we did, indeed, have a great time.
Lorenzo -Well, heartiest congrats on the Amazon deal! That is too cool for words. You should have a special hat for your celebration, too; perhaps a ten-gallon Stetson?
Lucy - Thank you, friend. I think it must be the hat!
Hello, Diane! The hat is attached to one of those narrow, plastic headbands that holds it in place. It does something to your psyche the instant you put it on - something wonderfully freeing. I think every woman should have one.
Plutarch - Thank you, Joe. I like the name of that hat! Over here, they are called cocktail hats. (I don't know why; I didn't have one.) I am hopeful I will get to celebrate 80 years. You'll be approaching 95 then. Now, that's cause to celebrate!
Sir Hugh - Thank you, Conrad. I hope the same for you, too, in all your endeavors.
You just reminded me of Ruth Gordon in 'Harold and Maude'. One can never be too old to be silly, creative, and in love with life. I do so quite regularly and I'm older than you :-)
Happy, Happy Birthday
from me and Crow!
Susan: Thank you and dear friend Crow for the kind b'day wishes.
I haven't seen Harold and Maude, but I've always liked Ruth Gordon, so I'll see if I can rent it somewhere.
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