I Am Seventy And Very Happy To Be

I have had the best, best, best birthday so far. Quite possibly the best of my life with the possible exception of my thirtieth birthday which was stellar in so many ways, including being proposed to by Glen Moon who gave me a beautiful emerald cut diamond ring and my very best friends in the world were there and well...that might have to have been my favorite but this one is coming in at a very close second. 
My very best friends are fewer in number now but even more precious in these later days. And another emerald cut diamond was involved last night but more about that later.

I was so happy to see Lon and Lis. They got here and we hugged and hugged and Lis set to making up the hors d'oeuvres (thank goodness for google because I could not spell that without help if you threatened me with arrest) because she is so very good at that. She brought cheeses and fancy crackers and cherry paste (oh, yum!) and raspberries, and I provided fish dip and what I insisted on calling "indigenous " crackers to go with my indigenous fish dip. Saltines and Ritz. 

And we noshed while Mr. Moon got out the martini shaker and made us all lovely drinks wherein we toasted to being together again and to my birthday and to long-time friendship. 

Before long, Lis and I were out on the back porch chattering like Wilma and Betty, catching up, and the men were in the kitchen, chatting away like Fred and Barney, I guess, catching up too. 
There is nothing in this world like being with old friends, falling directly back into the place you were the last time you saw each other, no matter how long it's been. 

And after another martini it was time to make supper. I'd already made a mango salsa and a loaf of sourdough and had field peas and rice that I'd started earlier staying warm on the stove. I sliced the very last of our tomatoes which I had been saving in the refrigerator just for this occasion and salted them and let them sit in a colander for a few minutes and made a salad with them and some romaine, onion, garlic, olive oil, vinegar. Then I cooked the triple-tail. I lightly coated it in flour with seasonings and panfried it in a little butter and olive oil. It was a very fine Florida supper with food from the ground and the sea. 

Lis brought me a baby cake that she'd baked just that morning. Lemon and buttermilk cake and oh my god. Candles were lit and they sang to me so beautifully, as only Lon and Lis can do. 

Be still my heart. 

And while Lis cut the cake, Glen gave me a beautiful little scarlet box and I was afraid to open it because getting gifts is so hard for me but when I opened it, I cried. 
My original engagement ring with the emerald cut diamond has not been worn in many years because the diamond fell out and I was never able to find it although we searched so very diligently. It was the night that Bruce Springsteen played in Tallahassee in 1984, I think, and that same night, our beloved cat Jagger disappeared, never to be seen again. To ease our sorrow over Jagger and to try and make the loss of the stone more bearable, we created a family myth that Jagger had stolen the diamond and moved to Mexico where he was happily living with a harem of Senorita gatas mas hermosa on a white beach on the Caribbean where the fish were always fresh and plentiful. 
Sigh. 

Since then, Glen has gifted me with many beautiful pieces of jewelry but this ring, the one he gave me last night, is so stunning. I truly do not know how I should feel about it. As I told my friend Mary Lane when she called me for our annual birthday call, I look at my old hands, my crooked little finger, my swollen knuckles and that beautiful ring on my finger and, well- One of these things is not like the other.

But you know what? These old hands have lived a very full life for seventy years. They have served me so very well. Why should it only be a young hand, a hand that has not touched her baby's head as it was being born, who has not planted seeds in a garden, who has never wrung out a cloth diaper, who has never kneaded a loaf of bread or rubbed the back of a child in distress or pulled a weed or held the hand of a dying friend that deserves such ornamentation? 

Y'all- I think seventy is going to be good for me. 

Here's where we had breakfast today. 

It was so good and so fun that we have all decided that this will be our new birthday breakfast ritual. Our server's name was Ms. Tiny and she was. I would have arm-wrestled her for her dimples. 
My first meal at the age of seventy:

Go ahead. Judge me. I'm seventy years old and I do not care. 

Owen called me a little while ago and we had a terrific conversation. He told me he loves me. I told him I love him. "You're my boy," I said to him. "I know," he said. 

I am the luckiest woman in the entire world. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

P.S. Ms. Boud (Liz). I have been wearing my pearls for three days because of your influence. These are tiny pearls, naturally occurring, which my great grandmother, the original Mary Gibson, passed on to me. I may keep wearing them for the rest of my life. Why not?