birthday realized

My birthday realized was very well-celebrated yesterday and with friends the previous days.  Can I show you some pictures?

We did an easy ritual.  Prayer, brownie nut cake as is our tradition, flowers, gifts from friends, I opened the birthday mail, read aloud the poems written for me.  It was a brilliant love fest, though only Ming, Bunny, and I were in physical attendance.

We kept our day chill and restful.  I got up very early and pretty much finished a zine I’ve been working on, Love Is a Skill I Can Nurture.  When Ming woke up, I sang to him.  We took a short walk, and I danced.  We went to St George, Utah for an errand and delicious Indian food.  (We’re not at home–we’re at that cabin we like to retreat to.)

The ritual was the happy culmination of birthday realized.  So grateful for Ming’s kindness and help.

art

My good friend made me this art.  She used the font I created to embroider a Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective patch that is also a beautiful dumpster with crocheted flowers growing out of it, an art prostitute button, a doily her mama made, a stick from her yard.  I unfurled it and cried, overwhelmed with love, which was a cool moment because the children paused quietly, curiously honoring my tears.

Ming and I brought brownie cake I baked over to her house, and we celebrated in her backyard.  I love and respect these people.

Everyone’s cake piece got its own candle for a wish.

They made me a little zine library, and each made me a zine also.

The little one’s zine had no words, so he explained all the pictures to me, which was charming.

The visit was around an hour long, which is good for me, with so much love was packed into that time.  I feel grateful for these kind friends.

drum

Then the following day another good friend visited me.  She brought gifts and played her drum for me, which was fun, and I danced in the driveway.

The gifts were pumpkin bread, a poem she wrote for me, and two beautiful crystals.  When she drummed for me, I told her, “Wow, I’m a real hippie now.”  It felt good to dance unexpectedly and to her beats.  I’d like to do that more another day!

Feeling grateful for so much love in my life.  I made this collaged atc for my friend and gave it to her–I said the birds were me and her.  She asked which of us was which bird.  I said we were both both birds.

conclusion

It was fun to bake the cakes.  For years I used to bake very frequently and totally stopped.  So to bake two little cakes was fun, a relief to bake again, something so basic and familiar.

There were some strange coincidences, like two of the cards I received had flamingos depicted on them, and Ming mentioned flamingos in the morning unrelatedly.

I txted with many kind people, I got a little sunburn, and I feel very honored.

The other day Ming told me I’m confident, and I was really surprised.  I’d never been called confident before.  But I guess the faith I have now in myself and the universe amounts to confidence.  There’s something stable about me that’s hard to shake, and if people say nonsense about me, that used to crush and destroy me.  Now I just laugh.

Like Sarah at the end of the Labyrinth movie, when she tells David Bowie, “You have no power over me.”  It took quite some years, but I think it’s true.  I’ve been curious for a long long time.  But finally I am confident also.

mama

I did some crying missing my mom, and I felt sad moments, missing her as a living person.  But I know that the reason I can have good love in my life today is the kindness my mama gave to me as a baby and child and my whole life.  So even though she’s not with us in the flesh, she formed me in her body and gave me abilities that keep me alive.

So she is always with me, in that sense.  And you know I’m very good at inner life.  I live in my inner world, mostly.

Thank you for any prayers you can spare for a good new year, and welcome to autumn, hemisphere buddies.