Happy birthday

I know and love quite a few people who are gemini by birth, as determined by astrology and sun signs. I find it true more than less, since it is at least an interesting frame through which to interpret the world. The people I know who were born from late May to late June dance to the rhythm of the twins, changeable, intense and humorous. Today marks the birthday of a cousin, Jenny, and a friend, Germaine, who has reached sister status. To celebrate Brad's birthday two weeks ago, we barbecued, drank tequila and ate the german chocolate cake that I mixed from scratch and baked in the toaster oven in the Airstream.

The tradition of honoring a birthday fascinates me. I opt for the month-long celebration, and this period includes the month preceding and after. I have had incredible birthdays - four years ago Brad gifted me an ultralight flight over the Taos Gorge, through which the Rio Grande wanders deep below the mesa - and horrendous September 6s - my 22nd confined to the close quarters of Greyhound from Los Angeles to Seattle.

I know what appeals to me, besides the opportunity, the excuse, to have fun with friends and to eat cake and ice cream. The candles, especially the beeswax ones I hoard, brighten the day, too. It's the opportunity to revel in one's self, a shout out that you have made it this far, with the potential you will be around after another revolution of the earth around the sun. The older you become, the more successful in your mission to collect years, so when I turn 40 in a few more, I am going to feel flasher than a rockstar.

There's another aspect of birthdays that hides under the surface of things. A birthday is a sort of "x marks the spot," a treasure map to tell you where you have come from and where you want to head. A New Year's party, for you, a day to step away from the past and its stories, into the limelight of the now. The transition from the age you were yesterday to now creates a liminal zone, a shift that energizes your life with potential. Like the earth after lightening strikes, or the water below the falls, or the seed as it splits open, you become charged. Who you were and who you are becoming in this new self as you are free to decide split apart, an isolated bit of fission which could alter the course of your life.

We often forget that this ability to change direction exists within us in every moment. It's not just with the addition of a year to our present age, or when the ball drops in Times Square, that we may choose another perspective, story or attitude. I change my mind from want/hope/dream to be a writer to a person who in being herself, writes. So, happy birthday to me. I look like a writer and I write like one, too.

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