Category Archives: Birthday

Birthday, Faith, Vote

Word of the Day

My resident Carolina wren woke me this morning at 4:45 which I must say is an absolutely perfect start to another year ’round the sun. Big day, September 27. While she practiced her scales I inventoried, drinking tea and watching the sun pink up an incredible day:

I have outlived my genetic statistics by 15 years.

I have lived to see my children form deep, wonderful relationships with partners.

I have lived to anticipate a grandchild in the new year.

I am seven years cancer-free from diagnosis.

I have friends and family that I can ask anything, anywhere, anytime and they the same of me.

I have healed over and over and over and that, my friends, should be a mantra: we heal.

There is cake and chocolate for lunch.

I will survive the election season.

After my mother was diagnosed and died at fifty-one there is not one day — not one — that I don’t appreciate, rain or shine, good or bad, upright or down for the count. Coping can be as simple as taking a breath. While I am discouraged about my writing (nine months of essay rejections so far) the book — breathe — is gaining momentum. I have been blessed to be able to travel to the center of my creative hive many times — bigger breath — and I have planted a tree in my garden, made endless jams for the winter darkness and plan to begin this new year with more travel and a baby shower and best of all tonight we gather for a dinner with my family.

Trust me that I do not take this lightly, this living. Grateful to all of you who give me feedback and read my words and make me tea. I am filled with gratitude.

I struggled to find a word today when I thought of writing an update blog — something that said everything about everything. And then, honestly, this happened.

I have so much faith: in my body, my care team, my family, my friends, my barista, my hands, you. Because what is the alternative? Mine is not an angry world. Vote.

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#septemberismymonth, Birthday, Spiders

September is my month.

In the morning the cottage doorway is draped with masterful spider webs, big as dreamcatchers, flecked with wings, leaves and sunlight. As the days grow shorter and the nights longer, spiders spin all night, increasing their web real estate to lure insects and mates in preparation for winter. This week I have opened the door numerous times forgetting to look up and taken quite a few face-first. On my early walk in the woods Saturday I broke through so many across the path that afterwards their glinting, gossamer threads were woven through my hair. I try not to think if or where those spiders have landed.

September has always been my month. I am renewed in cooler temperatures. I think of pencils. I make the first soups and gratin, thrilled to be able to turn on the oven more often. I read more (believe it or not). There are holidays ahead and pumpkin bread. A Barred Owl woke me this morning under a full Harvest moon.

It is also my birthday month. As a cancer patient in the middle of a ten-year watch I go a bit contemplative with each year around the sun; one more down, one more set of tests clear. 2022 was an important marker — five years — and this September I celebrate the gift of another favorite month. I also very deliberately do not think ahead; given this day is good. Given all of this month is even better.

This September I will split between my two favorite places and many favorite people. Cake is very optional because after a long post covid summer I still have no taste or smell. Instead, I may root for a berry cobbler and melty vanilla ice cream, a combination so dear to my heart I can absolutely convince myself I can taste the puddle of sweet and tart.

We weave our webs as we get older, catching the things we care for the most: friends and family, dogs, dinners around a table, armloads of late summer nasturtiums, starchy vibrant zinnias, fruit baked to perfection. Our family will weave a new member into our fold officially next spring, and we are so the better for her. There may be new puppies.

Just today, for instance: the sun, a giant Flicker at the feeder, an immense spiderweb hanging from the clothesline, a bowl of yellow tomatoes.

Spin, friends. Hold close what matters.

Birch grove at Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, WA. Some of you know what to do here when the day comes.

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