See Above/See Below

1.   Tights sighting today.  See above.  They were on an older woman, too, which made me happy, as we move into the second half of summer vacation.

2.  I re-celebrated my birthday last night on The High Line.  See below.  I've decided you can keep celebrating your birthday day after day until you get it right.

3.  Is there anything better than a post about tights and cupcakes, Lara?  I'm sure there is, but I haven't thought of it yet.

raise me a dais of silk and down

i would be bringing you this if i could, julie.

here's a poem in honor of julie turley's birthday.

rosetti knows how to lay it on thick, and that's what i wish for julie's next year:  layers of silk & down, carvings of peacocks and feathered nests, golden grapes and thickly fruited trees--all things good and beautiful.

unthinkable abundance.

& i know she's not looking for the kind of love rosetti talks about here, but i wish that she will find that love of her inner artist she's been searching for.

i'm lucky to have her as a friend and a co-blogger, and i laugh and cry every time i read one of her soulful stories.  take some time to read what she's written this week in a fount of creativity.

A Birthday

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My heart is like a singing bird

                  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

                  Is come, my love is come to me

Pasts That I Know

The days leading up to my birthday have been rather difficult and cantankerous.  My kids seem to be arguing more vociferously than usual.  There have been too many dumb shows streaming from Netflix, not enough deep, rewarding activities happening.  Things are planned then cancelled.   I'm not sure what that would be--maybe an entire film instead?  At this point, I'll take it.

So my birthday is tomorrow and it seems as if I'm getting older at an alarming rate.  This wouldn't be so bad, I think, if I didn't feel like the tight space I started the year with is still largely intact, and I'm not quite sure what to do with that.

So what am I doing?  I'm writing about a past--not mine--but creating a past for characters based on pasts that I know.  Above you see a house that lives on Douglas Street in Salt Lake City.  I'm pretty sure I lived in this house when I was a graduate student at the University of Utah in the very early '90s.   The story I wrote today is set in the house, in the basement.    Writing these stories every day have been the best thing I've been doing every day for this past week.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  Lara, there is still no cake.

What About My Birthday?

Well, my responsibilities as a parent and the threat of severe weather plus tornadoes has kind of put a damper on my birthday week.  Yes, you read that right--birthday WEEK!  I still haven't attended a yoga class this week.  I had to work the morning of the free meditation class, and the movie/plus music I had planned to attend tonight in the park got cancelled (see first sentence above).

Summer birthdays are always a little problematic.  When I was a kid, it meant I didn't get recognized on  a school day.  It often meant I was visiting my grandmother in Utah on my birthday (which actually meant an awesome cake from Roe's Bake Shoppe in Payson); it meant friends at home were often on vacation.

The most beautiful cakes in the world.  Look at those daffodils!

I'm a Leo (like Mick Jagger--whose 69th bday is today--and Madonna!) so I've always wanted to celebrate it in a big way, and well into adulthood and now into my Gen X middle age, I've tried to mark it in ways that felt meaningful and significant. I actually learned this from my friend Jan S.  Back in 1989, she threw a small party for herself and served two kinds of homemade cakes:  one of them a cheesecake.  This was a revelation to me, and incredibly touching.  I remember her saying, "I realized that no one cared about my birthday as much as I do, so if I wanted a party, I had to throw one for myself."

Some birthdays are better than others.  Last year's was not so good.  I ended up doing something I thought would be easier for the kids, when all I really wanted to do was go to the movies and watch the Bill Cunningham documentary.  I did, however, go to the Momofuku Noodle Bar last year which was super fun, and we ended up getting caught in a downpour on our way home.  Sometimes my children are cranky on my birthday and are not feeling generous.  A few years ago, they were horrified that I insisted on riding the carousel in Bryant Park with them on my birthday.  Sometimes it's hard to share my birthday with my family who never--there's no way they can--feel as profoundly about my birthday as I do.

My best birthday was a surprise birthday party held in Salt Lake City on my 42nd birthday.  Lara was there.  It still ranks as one of the best nights of my life.

So, as this year's birthday looms, I'm not sure what to do for it.  I'm sad that I'm so far away from my friends in the west, people who have been long meaningful for me.  Sigh.

What did you do on your birthday this year?  What will you do?

Anyway, here's today's birthday boy, Mick.  This video's from my favorite Rolling Stone era:  early '70s Exile on Main Street:
  And Lara, I forgot to acknowledge another July birthday sister this month. My screwed-up, tight place girl, Courtney turned 48 on July 9: