Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Good Day's Grace

Well, here I am after my walk on my fifty-sixth birthday and here I was last night at the Opera House with my hat on my head and Judy trying to steady the one on hers.

Marcy took that picture with her phone and I took the one above with my Mac.
So. Here it is and I've gotten so many sweet e-mails and some calls and I keep tearing up. I do. I don't know why but it's just almost impossible for me to accept sweetness on my own behalf.
I shall ponder that one today and maybe by the time I'm ninety-six I shall have figured it out.

I was born in El Paso, Texas, my daddy in the service, my mother giving birth to me in a Quonset hut of a military hospital and I feel certain that it was as hot then and there as it is today here in North Florida. There was a virus going around or an infection, in that hospital (I wonder if there was even air-conditioning?) and they sent her home after one day and also, they were trying out a new spinal drug for childbirth but they didn't give it to her until seconds before I was born and that makes me so sad.
Well.

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon died fifteen days before I was born and I like to think that maybe one tiny molecule of her essence found its way to my corporal being on that hot day just over the border between Mexico and Texas. Who knows? Who knows what birth and death truly mean and from what place we come or to what place we go or how the energy of what we call a soul is formed and focused, or dispersed, either one?

I have no idea but I do know that I've been on the planet as it has made its way around the sun fifty-six times and the view looks good from here. I look at Owen as he has just turned ten months old and I can't believe all that he has accomplished in that amount of time and then I step back and think of the fact that I have come so far as to be able to watch him make these giant baby-steps, my own grandson, just as I made them myself so long ago.
It's all whirling, this life. The earth turns daily, it makes its way across its orbit and the entire solar system flings itself through space and we hold on for dear life.

Dear life. That is what it is.
Made all the dearer by the ones we love, the ones who love us.
How I wish I could share some of my cakes with you. I have two now. Both delicious. Both perfection.

I wish I had something cosmic and profound to say right now to end this but I don't. It's my birthday but just another day in this life. And in its own way, perfection, as all of them are, even the ones we would never want to live through again.
But this is a happy one and even if my eyes seem to continue to well up over and over, it is just heart-leak, as I say, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Cake spoils after a few days but life just seems to get sweeter.
Isn't that something?
Isn't it all something?

Amen, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon


24 comments:

  1. I am glad that you were born and still here. The world is better for it.

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  2. I can't imagine life without you. (That was a joke.) Happy birthday, mama!

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  3. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

    That cake is pretty and looks yummy. What Kathleen wrote about you today reminded me again of the ways you are like my grandmother. Especially the part about how you "don’t expect me to be anything then who I am. And that allows me to try and be the best that I am."

    That is exactly how I think my grandmother is, and as you know I think she is awesome!

    So that's my longwinded way of saying that you are awesome and beautiful and wise and sweet and I'm so glad to know you. Even if only in this weird digital way of knowing.

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  4. Happy Birthday Ms. Moon! I celebrate you today! For many of us out here in the universe you are a very wise woman who inspires and validates and leads the way...and I wish you a beautiful year!

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  5. Ah now. Cake stays with you - on your hips :D

    Happy birthday again. So glad you're here.

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  6. Syd- Oh. I hope so. Thank-you.

    DTG- Ha! Love you, baby.

    Stephanie- To be compared to your grandmother is a huge compliment. Thank-you, dear girl.

    Ms. Trouble- No kidding!

    roserain- I wish I WAS wise. But thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

    Jo- Sadly, too true. Thank-you, my Irish woman-friend.

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  7. Like you, I believe is looking back to see how far we've come and in looking forward to see where we can go. Glad you had lovely days of celebrating your life. You deserve it.

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  8. I think this is the happiest birthday I have seen you have -all four of them that we have known each other :) Or is it three? Or three hundred? Seems like it always was/will be. Does that make sense?

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  9. May all your birthdays be so full and sweet!

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  10. The cake photo cracks my ass up.

    Many many more, my dear!

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  11. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! :)
    Hope today, and the rest of your days, are wonderful!

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  12. Aahh, the Happy Days continue =o). May it continue thus! And especially today, as this is Sweet Heart Road Trip Day. Our hugs and kisses send you on your way.
    x0 N2

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  13. You are our gift Ms. Moon...what can we give you? I send a hug via this post to you...enjoy your day with tears and laughter....it all is good! :)

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  14. Happy natal day yet again!!!!!!

    If Carol & Co made that cake, I definitely want some!
    xoxo m

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  15. Happy Birthday, Ms Moon! :) That cake looks damn good!

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  16. And seconds later... Happy Birthday!
    Time sure goes fast in blogland. :-)

    What pretty writing on your cake.

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  17. aw. i loved this post, it was profound, you silly and made my heart ache a little.
    happy everything to you who bring such joy to others.

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  18. Happy happy happy birthday lovely Ms Moon

    Mia says happy birthday too!

    xoxoxo

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  19. Happy Birthday Ms. Moon!! I hope for nothing but the best for you. I love you and your posts. Thanks for sharing the cake with us!

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  20. Dear Ms Moon, I found your blog through Sarcastic Bastard. I loved reading that, it was beautifully written. I too love Frida Kahlo.

    I hope you had a wonderful Birthday. Christina xx

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  21. I've not been home, and I think I wished you a happy birthday already, but I can't find the post. So happy birthday a bit late!

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  22. glorious.

    for you, I might eat a sliver of cake. which I don't like
    because that is life.
    doing, because things matter more than we can imagine , right?

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.