just another day?

Its my birthday today. For years now, I have not celebrated my birthday. In the first few years of this practice, I experience relief, at not anticipating and then making a big deal out of my birthday. I did not have to live up to another big day. In the last few years, I have missed something about not celebrating my birthday. I still don't want a huha around my birthday but I want to take a moment on this day to pause and consider life. 

Here are a few new ways in which I have started to reconsider my birthday:

Its my mother's "birth day" too!: Three years ago, I started a practice .. a practice that came so spontaneously that it felt just right and has stuck ever since. I came to recognize that on the day I was born, my mother was born too, as a mother. This hit me hard the first year after my son was born. His birth has been pivotal in transforming my life and way of looking at the world. I feel like I have changed and continue to change in some important ways because of his presence in my life. I imagine this is how my mother feels. So, on my birthday, I celebrate my mother. Given the distance between us, I do this by writing her a long letter, which she reads and responds to. Then we talk about it on the phone.

Gratitude: I have a blessed, happy life. I have much to be thankful for and I am getting better in expressing my gratitude. On my birthday, I turn to pay special attention to that which is so integral to my existence that I cannot seem to separate it from myself. Here are some acts of gratitude I happened to commit today --

• I cooked my partner his favorite meal -- I cook for him but really I cook more for my son. Today's meal was made especially for him. 
• I put aside my play plans for my son and just spent time with him. I had a great plan for us but what seemed right was to put it aside and stay at home. This resulted in the most magical session of crafting vegetables and fruits out of clay that we then baked. Then, my son took a 2.5 hour nap!
• I saw the doctor: I have been sick off and on for 2 months now. I am finally taking steps to get to the bottom of what is going on with me.
• I plan to make chai and distribute it to the folks that go around Green lake. I have wanted to do this forever. I have no clue why I have not done it yet. I guess I needed the excuse of doing it on my birthday. So, I am finally going to do it. I was going to do it today but I bowed to my body and gave it some rest. This will happen tomorrow. I was motivated to do this by a story I read on Help Others.

The dessert dinner: When I was 14 years old, my father turned to me one day and said, "how would you like to eat at a buffet of desserts for your entire dinner?". I looked at him incredulously and voted him best dad of the year, instantly! This one-of-a-kind buffet is held everyday at a 5 star hotel in Bombay. While my dad offered to take me, believe it or not, I declined the offer, thinking it would be just too decadent to spend all that money only on dessert. But the dream of eating an entire dinner from a selection of desserts has never left me. What would make the meal even sweeter is sharing it with some of my favorite girlfriends. So, I am hosting a dinner of desserts and dreams next week. We'll eat a 3-course meal of desserts and talk about our dreams.

As the years roll, I'll be curious to see how my thinking about my birthday evolves. In the meantime, I am accepting that my birthday is "not just another day". I hope it will become so but today it is not and I am accepting that.

Comments

[Michael Murray]

happy birthday anoo!