Having my cake, and eating too much

Birthdays are a wonderful idea.  Everyone should have one.  (The Pleezer in me wants that to be true--no more aborted babies!)

I remember the day I was born.  Well, not actually, but the stories are told so often that I feel like I was there.  You would think that it was a royal birth.  (Hmmmm?)  I have felt like June 5 deserved a national holiday.  Because I was such a beautiful baby?  Because my grandmother pronounced me her favorite immediately?  Because there was always a cake for me on that day?

Probably not.  It is because I was born thinking the world revolved around me.  Thank goodness my parents did not think the same thing.  My delusion was private.  Delusions are best that way.

For many years I hated my birthday celebrations.  I think I was uncomfortable that my delusion might be true.  Or maybe uncomfortable that it wasn't.  I wanted the spotlight, but could not stand the brightness of it.   Many years I muddled through the day.  Still I was given the royal treatment, but I was more a royal pain in the ass-embly. 

But if I cannot accept the celebration of a birthday, and all the attention that comes with it, then I cannot fully live.  To live is to receive with gratitude--relationships, wealth, pain, sorrow, reality, even life itself.   Holding back from a complete embrace of life means that my delusion is alive and well:  It is all about ME.

Which brings me back to cake.  I had two pieces yesterday.  By all accounts--my tummy, my appetite for good things (tanked), my scales--it was too much. 

It isn't about the cake.  It is about the Baker.  And he throws a magnificent party.

Knots and forget-me-nots

For years I have kept jewelry in my change purse.  That is, jewelry that I take off when out and about and don't have a "proper" place to put it.  Never have I lost anything with that method of safe-keeping.  When I get home, I remove the ring or earrings or necklace and put it away where it belongs.  I did not do that this last time.  I forgot.  I remembered when my coins were falling out all over my purse because I had forgotten to zip the pocket.  Shining up at me was one diamond ear stud.  One.  Just one. 

Of course I emptied my purse.  Nothing.  Took everything out of my wallet.  Nothing.  Looked again and again at the coins in my coin purse.  Nothing.  All the while a knot developed in my stomach.

I get knots sometimes.  Usually when I am uncomfortable about a situation--speaking up in a crowd, facing an adversary, or failing at something.  Like when I fail to keep up with diamond earrings from my mother.  Knots don't let me forget.  I falter.  I fail.  I fear. 

It is deeply satisfying to untangle a knot.  We don't have much opportunity nowadays in this velcro world.  But there was a time when only a mother could remedy a knot in a shoelace or hair ribbon.  I suppose stomach knots are no different.  Wisdom herself speaks perspective and knots ravel.  This happened to me today.  I had one earring.  From my mother.  I lost the other one because of my failure.  But it was going to be fine.  This world is passing away, and that earring showed me that yet again.  I had one less tie to this condemned world.  Victory over a knot.

And there it was.  The lost earring.  Tucked into a fold outside my wallet.  It was barely visible.  But it shone nonetheless.  Of course it did.  And it does still.

 My pants are actually the latest fashion--Joe's Jeans knee length shorts.  I don't know what you call them--low rise, hip huggers, or muffin holders--but they are mostly comfortable.  My grandmother did not wear pants.  Ever. 

She spent a lot of time writing letters.  She used notepads.  Many, many notepads, because her letters were long and frequent, and she wrote a lot of people.   Her "Send" button was a postage stamp.

For a time she had a job as an elevator operator.  Elevators were controlled by levers rather than buttons, so a trained person would drive the elevator to the proper floor and stop at the right place for people to emerge.  I don't know how much training she had, but she definitely was replaced by technology.

How frightening it would be to become irrelevant.  Or useless.  Maybe that is why grandmothers that I know have smart phones, twitter accounts, and iPads.  And it is probably why I am wearing Joe's Jeans.  I just hope that hot pants don't come back in style.