happy (soggy) birthday to me

December 7th 2010: Probably the wettest birthday I’ve ever had. I haul myself out of bed at 6 a.m. and go off to sweat and pedal and push myself at the gym. I think of my young mother, all those years ago, labouring to bring me into the world, her first-born. 

On the treadmill I jog to Dusty Springfield iPod, and gaze out the window, across  the rain-beaten main street of this little country town where I have lived for  a bit over a year. There is a truck delivering bread to the health food shop. I have snippets of history here now - I can see “Imelda’s Shoes”, where I bought F’s last pair of runners, and the stationary shop next door where a man from my writing group works

Jog jog jog, my sneakers squeak on the moving rubber. The treadmill is idiotic, I am going nowhere fast, but it’s strangely satisfying. After I’ve done all the hard things at gym  comes the reward: I lie on the vibrating bed and get shaken up for five minutes of bliss before stumbling out into the wet wet morning. As I leave, G who works there always points  his index finger at me and says “Take It Easy” 

As I drive home I hear on the radio that the man who created Mr Squiggle died yesterday. Ah, how innocent the world once was, how low-tech.  

After the Morning off-to-school Rush, and before the marimba group arrives, I find Mr Squiggle on Youtube. Must be forty years since I last saw him.  He’s so polite, so diffident, so articulate. He uses words like ‘intricate’ and ‘calamitous’

Later in the day I spend a couple of hours feeling grumpy and resentful and miserable about some boring old stories of mine that recur from time to time. I try to ‘just observe’ my mind as it rattles off down it’s it’s all-too-familiar tracks. I tromp down to the shed with my umbrella and work on the mosaic project - a couple of terracotta pots for the new outdoor area. Grumpy, grumpy. I cut bits of tile up, stick them on to the pot. Cut, stick, cut, stick.

I’m still angst-ridden an hour or so later as I wander back up from the shed, hunched under the umbrella, picking my pathetic way across the squelching swamp which is our lawn. 

D. is lolling in the doorway of the studio, watching, and smiling fondly at me. He  bursts into song: ‘Happy Birthday To You’ in his sweet tenor voice, while I stand there in the downpour and try to let myself lighten up and savour the moment. Lucky D doesn’t know the unkind thoughts that have been churning through my mind. We laugh. It’s a high point of the day, a gift. 

Actually, it’s been a pretty good day, apart from that bleak two hour period of internal alligator-wrestling. Earlier, the marimba gang arrived with assorted cakes, cards and morning tea birthday treats. And late this afternoon while I was lying on my bed reading before going out for dinner, F wandered into my room in one of his sociable moods and tickled my feet and lounged about on the  bed chatting about his day at school. We prattled on like a pair of happy budgies. My delightful son. 

Then dinner at a Thai restaurant with D, F and our friend Katie. She gives me a book which I have admired many times at her place, called Art In Nature. Magical images by Nils-Udo. I’m so touched by this gift.

Back to our place for cups of tea. A fabulous chocolate cake appears, cooked by Kate. The rain is pounding on the roof as F lights candles, and gives me a drawing he has done, and insists that the four of us hold hands. They all sing me Happy Birthday. I feel blessed. 

These gorgeous images are from Nils-Udo: Art In Nature