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:

The Play of Tight Places

Sam Shepard and Patti Smith in Cowboy Mouth, 1971 (Photo by Gerard Malagna)

Okay, I'm really bummed I can't use the photos I took directly before and after the 2012 East Village production of Sam Shepard and Patti Smith's Cowboy Mouth I returned from a couple of hours ago.   It was an apartment room, the walls painted glossy black.  In the center a bed, ringed with books, a typewriter, drums a guitar.  A slovenly boho paradise.  The audience members were part of the space.  The wine that was offered the audience members before the play was integrated into the show.  

The play is all about boredom, agitation, claustrophobia, guilt, yearning, and rock and roll.   (In this way, it reminded me of life in my own New York apartment.)  Heroes--the patron saints of the play--who were mentioned included Patti's usual faves:  Villon, Dylan and Jagger.  There was a time in America, I suppose, when rock stars the poets who act like them took on the aspects of saints and saviors--at least that's what the play would have me believe.

The best part of tonight's performance was the context.  That the action was happening in a real apartment with windows that opened onto a real street and let in breezes and noise.   The audience members were interlopers.  

I don't knowwhy, thinking about it on this night of the Tony Awards, this play couldn't be similarly staged in any city or small town.  

By the way, to increase the agitation in here, my kids have taken to jump roping in the only place available for any kind of egress.  I swear this play is my life.

Looking forward to:  Seeing an old friend from Utah this week.  Tomorrow's guest blog post!

Inspiration:  Morning pages, even though I don't have the book yet.  Anything I should know until I get it?

The 2012 production was not in the room pictured here