My birthday is here, it starts with my daughter being feverish with likely Influenza. So, we do not go to school and after moving her to isolation and tucking her in I go to sleep for a bit only to get into barrage of phone calls from overseas. My watsup. Is pinging and can hardly keep up with answering texts and calls.
Mornings are cold in winter LA. So I put on one of my slouchies to go for a walk with my dog. I feel utterly repulsed by it and at that moment I know that I don’t want to wear any of those things, like never ever again. Bile comes up in my throat when I look at my wigs and beanies.
The weather warms to high 70ies quickly. It is so different from my childhood and teenage years when my birthday was associated with frost, snow, and going out feeling more like cabbage – many different layers. Those January mornings in 6th grade – you go to the coat room and take off your hat, scarf, gloves, boots, coat, jacket and fleece underwear, put on shoes and all of a sudden there is one half of what had walked in five minutes ago. The snow has melted on the eyelashes and the tip of your nose finally starts tingling. Forty-six years later I am overheated in the tank top.
I stock up on CIVD/flu tests and tamiflu and come back… And then it begins. Within the next hour I get flowers, flowers and then some more flowers. All the flowers are pink roses. I get it they are symbolic. My mom and I get blisters on our hands cutting the tips for two hours. I keep lugging water and we run out of vases and flower food. Roses are everywhere. When the last bouquet is brought in my mom shakes and says if there is one more doorbell ringing associated with flowers she will birth me right back in. The flowers are gorgeous.
Finally, in the evening the moment I have been waiting for – my first hip hop class. Six moms at my daughter’s dance studio have signed up for it and it is finally happening. We dance. I feel high. This is a new beginning. I misstep half of the time and I know for certain that I am no Mr. Wiggles or Aliya Janell but it is an hour filled with laughter, moves and grooves and by the end I find myself sweating and happy. I choose to ignore my postop restrictions that are still in place, Oh, well. Is this my groove?
We can’t celebrate today and just as I have explained to my teenage friend, at my age birthday is about how many people remember that I am still alive, it’s talking to people from the past and from the present and with some of them there are only 2 conversations a year – my birthday and their birthday. With my daughter in isolation and my brother in the mask I opt to change the routine of birthday celebrations in the family – instead of toasts and wishes I choose to wish for each and every member of my family what I would like them to do and if they actually do it I will be happier. One can always hope.
And so, the 59th year of my life begins in a few minutes, hopefully more to my liking. Cheers, me!