The sheets are gritty (even though it had only been a few days since their last wash).

It’s the scum and the crud from little kid feet and I can make all the rules about socks in bed and showers before sleep and sleeping in your own bed where no one minds the sandy sheets but it all falls on deaf ears because my bed still possesses a gravitational pull and as much as it causes me discomfort now, it will cause me equal (or more) discomfort when the pull weakens and the kids cuddle less.

I feel something rough against my toe.  I retrieve it with said toe as if I am fishing.  It’s the pink watch belonging to Piper Finn.

It’s Sunday morning and I know today is my birthday so I stretch myself out and lie in bed longer.  Still.  Quiet.

The dog joins me, dog chin resting on my left leg, directly within patting distance, like he’s memorized the length of my arm in relation to his dog head and I do what I know he wants – I scratch his ears and rub his head.

I sigh.

Not in sadness.  Not in contentment either.  Just sort of in the being alive way that one sighs before a day begins.

I’m aware of the day’s significance.  Aware of the weight I place internally on occasions such as birthdays.  Aware of the shape and the sphere of my life.

Forty-four has found me with less expectations.  

Less struggle against the man.

(But do not confuse that with resignation.)

A more focused energy.

(Because I know its source is actually finite, therefore I will protect it more.)

I had been celebrated well throughout the week and I knew today would be a quiet day.  A day of routine.  Birthday meals planned for another day actually – when Bergen would be home from his Trail Life adventure and London would have more time to perfect my requested sea salt caramel cake.  (What a treat to have baking children.)

I also knew any adventure I wanted (and I always want adventure) would need to be conjured up of my own magic.  

 

 

And so we got in the car.  And we headed north and did what I do when I need to feel in love with my days.

We drove to higher ground.

Packing a blanket and books.  First stopping for donuts and chocolate milk and cherries and blueberries and some lemonade because – birthday!

 

 

I found a rock with a view and my fellow travelers trekked across the rocks with me and we spread our blanket and pulled out our books and our donuts and they read Calvin and Hobbes and I stared at the valley.  We spit our cherry seeds, contest-like, and it was hot but it was my birthday and I thanked these kids for sitting on a blanket on a rock with me.  “Mom,” London laughed.  “You’re thanking us for eating the donuts you bought while sitting in a pretty place.  I think we should thank you.”

 

 

I could have sat there the whole day through.  Spitting cherry seeds and eating soft icing-covered donuts and sharing a jug of chocolate milk. It was birthday enough for me, right there.

 

 

We followed up the mountain viewing with a drive to one of my favorite pottery shops where I gazed longingly at the full priced pottery but made a purchase from the flawed shelf.

Heading back across the mountain we stopped at what is consistently my favorite local mountain view – Caesar’s Head.  I’ve stared at these mountains from this vantage point so frequently.  The hills and the rocks feel familiar.  I’ve driven here alone and with every out of town guest that comes my way.  I’ve stood in the rain and when clouds obscured any mountain sightings at all.  Morning and late afternoon.  Picnics and  two minute stops.  The Blue Ridge Escarpment.  (An unattractive word for a beautiful feature.)

 

 

A storm was coming in.  You could see the rain far over the ridges and you could feel the static standing our hair on edge.

For the second day in a row, I read a poem out loud.  (The same poem, actually.)

 

 

This time, at the mountain’s edge, overlooking the valley and feeling like we were on top of the world, I gathered my children and I read these words by Wendell Berry – loud enough for us to hear, just shy of loud enough to embarrass my children with my eccentricities.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Forty-four years.

I’m the slowest learner.  And I’m still not finished.

 

 

But I am learning that I want more days eating donuts on rocks and reading poems to my children (and myself).  I want more slow and more room for conversation and kinder self talk.   And just like some days I have to buy the donuts and find the pretty places and make my own birthday magic, I’m alright with that.  

I’ll buy the donuts.  Corral the kids.  Find the mountains.  Read the poems.

Make the magic.

 

 

 

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