34

Published on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 in Conversing With the Rain and Scraping the Bowl. 36 Comments

This year, I got a birthday walk.

In past years, I’ve had a dinner or even a little party. But this year, I got a walk.

It was a good walk. Cute Husband and I found some beach, a sun set, even a warm breeze. We walked hand in hand and talked about all the beaches we had walked together — an astonishing number of them in our 15 years as friends and then partners.

We walked because no one feels much like celebrating. There are now abnormalities in Eden’s bloodwork, and despite our best selves, we’re scared.

I am astonished by the number of people who have made it a point to remind me that today is the day of my birth, that my daughters are valuable, yes, but I am here, too, a person in my own standing, who watched her own first sunrise over the city of Boston 34 years ago.

Not the least of these people is the Doodle.

“It’s my Muver’s birthday,” she told anyone who would listen. “For real! It is!”

“Happy birthday!” they all said. I laughed. Tucked into my arm, sucking her paci, Eden seemed to be laughing, too.

I planted flowers. I lost my temper more than once, felt bad about it, made pancakes for dinner. They gave me a cake, and a charger for my iPod and I got flowers from Emily.

And now we are walking, and remembering the beach in Virginia, and how the dog chased the crabs that scampered across it. And the beach in North Carolina where the wild horses ran, and the one in St. Croix where Mare got her first dip as a tiny baby.

“I woke up this morning,” I said, “and couldn’t believe I am 34.”

It’s not that I feel old. It’s not that I feel young. It’s that there is so much more than I dreamed of.

“Do you know when you make a batter, and you pour it into the pan, and the bowl seems empty, but it isn’t? If you scrape, it’s a surprise how much is in there. So much more than it looks. That’s how I feel. Like I am discovering how much more there is in things than it seems. Like making dinner and planting flowers and being called ‘Muver.’ — There’s so much more there than I ever realized. But it’s finite. When it’s gone, it’s really gone.”

This last is more of a birthday downer than I meant it to be. I am tired, the worry has taken its toll.

We sit for a while before doing what we do — turning for home, to make lunches, do laundry, plan for another day.

“She really looks good,” we say to each other. “Really good.” Cute Husband falls asleep with her wrapped in his arms, her little fuzzy head against his nose.

And I consider how all I want in the world is in this tiny house and how very very much that is.

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