🎂 On my Birthday 🎂
An Ode to the All
It is my birthday. 40 years ago (I am turning 39), I entered this world, with all its pomp and magnitude, beauty and horror, wonder and curious. 40some years ago, I formed into a being, all the atoms and stars and celestial pieces coalescing into my mother’s womb, to bring me forth, to bring me here.
How miraculous. How strange.
Birthday - I just bought myself flowers. Tulips - I love them. I have a fondness for bodega flowers, living where I do. I assume they are not sustainable - I know. I try not to make a habit of it, but on this day: tulips, bodega flowers, proudly stating to the Bodega Man, it’s my birthday! In a small, charming voice he responded, happy birthday, as he handed me the tulips. As I walked back in the lovely spring air.
A friend texted me this morning - it’s 80 degrees for you today. Thank the weather gods, I replied.
Bless these gentle feeling days.
Birthday. Beautiful, bittersweet. I can’t celebrate this day without making aware - my father’s continuing decline. Hospice, the walk forward, the walk to wherever we go. I don’t know how much longer we have. I do my best to keep breathing, anyway. Every moment, one of miracle. Every moment, something to cherish. He and my mother called me to wish me birthday this morning. I recorded him singing in farsi, tavalod, tavalod, tavalodet mobarak. I knew I would continue to cherish this. Even as my heart breaks: can I find light? Can I find light.
Birthday - tonight, I will gather with friends for a dinner - all I wanted on this day, really. Last year, I had large party, declarations, becomings. This year feels quieter. This year feels -
I just got back from a training, my second weekend of Somatic Experiencing. How grateful I am for this training (though I questioned, until the last minute, attending, given the circumstances of my life), which deepens me, expands me, roots me further down. There, some classmates asked me, how do you feel about 39?
I paused.
Good, I said, speaking of how my 30s have felt a decade of gathering, of coming into, and how now, standing as I am on the edge of them, I feel rooted, and resourced, and centered in the vast of Self.
And —
And I spoke honestly, earnestly, about the tenderness of this moment. The portal, the future of loss. How that is also happening.
How we can, ah yes. Hold both.
Birthday. As I embark on this new year, this new cycle, my wishes feel simple, yet wide. I want, I wish, I intend - to keep rooting. I want, I wish, I intend - to expand out from where I am. I want, I wish, I intend - to live my dharma, fully and thoroughly, knowing it is true to who I am.
Above all, I wish to be this being I am, in full splendor, in all her moments: in all the beauty, and in all the joy, and in all the challenge, and in all the all. May I occupy this life thoroughly. May I walk with that truth. May I.
Birthday. Thank you for being here. Thank the ancestors for another day on this green globe. Thank you, as always, for helping me see the light.
Go deeper,
» Inner Child Art Nyte: This Thursday, May 7, NYC