A Two-Cake Quarantine Birthday

Closing in on 300 days in quarantine. Where have I been in those 300 days? The grocery store once, sometime in March. I remember looking at people, holding my breath, with no idea what to expect. Target, twice I think, don’t remember why we went inside instead of doing curbside. A couple of trips to the dermatologist to make sure I don’t have melanoma again – that seemed important. One run into a Walgreen’s to return a FedEx package that couldn’t get picked up and wouldn’t fit into the outdoor box. A few returns at the UPS store, where you literally place the box on the counter, in and out. Chalupa to the vet several times for routine stuff, but they also have an outdoor drop off. My parents’ porch. My sister’s deck. It’s a boring paragraph because you could say it’s a boring existence.

But I don’t think staying alive is boring at all.

I figure everyone who has stayed alive since this thing started will end up with at least one pandemic birthday, and mine just happened this week. In fact, I have an overwhelming urge to get up for a slice of leftover birthday cake from the fridge right now. Be right back.

OK, that’s much better.

So, about the cake. It is a raspberry chocolate cake from the bakery at Atkins Farms Market. Pearl ordered it and Aviva went to pick it up yesterday. Except for one thing… Aviva texted me from the parking lot, saying she had talked to four different people and had been waiting for something like 40 minutes after calling to say she was there. They insisted there was no cake order for Aviva, but scrambled and graciously obliged, figuring somehow the order had gotten mixed up.

Well, mixed up it was. She finally got home with the cake, poor girl has had a migraine practically nonstop for days/weeks/months and looked like she might burst into tears. Meanwhile, Pearl – who had not joined her for the cake outing because we’d scheduled a last-minute Zoom appointment with his doctor to look at a rash on his face and assess whether he needed a Covid test (which he did) – heard that she was back from Atkins.

“Atkins?” he said. “No, the cake was from Henion!” Turned out, he and his sister had crossed wires in something of a comedy of errors. I called Atkins to explain what had happened, apologize, put in a good word for the wonderful person who had helped Aviva, and offer to pay for the cake (which they had given to her for free even though the whole thing turned out to be our mistake, not theirs).

This morning, after going to the hospital drive-through Covid testing site with Pearl, we stopped by Henion, a small bakery here in town, and picked up a second chocolate cake, with “Happy birthday Mama” piped on top. So now we have a ridiculous amount of cake, and somehow the whole thing feels like a fitting start to my new year of life.

Aviva had declared she’d make a pizza for my birthday dinner, from a recipe I’d emailed her a few weeks ago that I thought she and her girlfriend might enjoy trying out. We’d gotten groceries delivered earlier in the week, including a ball of dough.

“How are you supposed to do this?” she asked, as she attempted to stretch the dough into a rectangular shape. “Here, let me try,” I said, giving a feeble attempt but insisting I could do it. Finally, she called me on my neurotic need to provide dinner for us and shoo’d me into the living room. (This was the second time in a week, by the way, that she basically kicked me out of the kitchen for my own good. The first was Sunday night, after I’d made homemade ramen. The sink was full to the brim, and Pearl, sitting at the table, spilled a full container of protein powder. I had put a good amount of time into making dinner after something of a stressful day, but said I’d help clean up. She basically wouldn’t let me, and within a few minutes, I heard the kids in here with music on, cleaning, getting along, and thought, oh. How lovely. Good call, kid.)

Anyway, I called in from the living room, “How’s it going?” She ignored me. “Are you ignoring me?” I called again. “You have to learn how to surrender,” she called back. Damn if that wasn’t a birthday present, along with the material gifts I received.

First thing in the morning, I had come into the kitchen before anyone else was up. “W E <3 Y O U M A M A” appeared on individual notecards in rainbow colors on the wall above the table. Pearl had put it up after I’d gone to bed the night before. The coffee was ready. Mani got up and gave me a birthday hug and kiss, and we wished each other happy anniversary. (Our first night together, the one we jokingly call the one-night stand that never ended, was in Phoenix on my birthday in 2012.) She gave me a pair of really nice joggers, made of organic cotton and ethically produced (our new criteria for clothing whenever possible). I finished my coffee and went for a little run in the snow.

When I came inside, V was in the kitchen – is there a household in the world where most everything doesn’t happen in the kitchen? I sat down to stretch on the floor. I didn’t have any coaching sessions till 11:00am, and we ended up talking for a solid hour, about life, and the world, the past and the future. It felt like the closest thing to going out to breakfast possible, special in its unusualness since I usually shower, eat, and launch into work stuff straight away in the mornings.

The middle of the day was filled with well wishes from friends far and wide via email, text, and social media. Also, migraines (V), Covid scares (Pearl), a little rest with Mani. There were notes singing my praises that I'll save for days when I need reminding, and gifts from friends who totally have my number, like this one.

The pizza was SO good. Pearl sat as far across the kitchen from me and Aviva as possible, next to an open window, since he is supposed to stay masked in the house around us until we get his Covid test result. The three of us hung out in the kitchen while Pearl did dishes, instead of dispersing to our respective spaces as we often do, while the kids sang “Driver’s License” for me and brought me up to date on what is apparently the number one hit in the world at the moment. (I had no idea, but I can claim being 47 as the reason.) Then we ate cake, and each of the kids gave me a card with words that made me cry a little.

The three of us hung out in the kitchen while Pearl did dishes, instead of dispersing to our respective spaces as we often do, while the kids sang “Driver’s License” for me and brought me up to date on what is apparently the number one hit in the world at the moment. (I had no idea, but I can claim being 47 as the reason.) Then we ate cake, and each of the kids gave me a card with words that made me cry a little.

Lucky, lucky, lucky, alive.

Not without stress, not without strain. We are living through a pandemic after all, and it is stressful and straining, in ongoing ways no matter which thread you pull on. But there are friends. There are conversations. There is a fridge full of food, a warm bed, a loving partner who feels like they were made for me alone. There is Chalupa, who doesn’t hold a grudge even when she’s mad about not getting any chocolate cake. (We keep telling her, chocolate is toxic for dogs, but she thinks we are lying.)

There is the heartbreaking fact that not every mom gets to be here to watch her kids grow, to rub a daughter’s head when she’s in pain or to talk with her adolescent son about the value of having the hard stuff out in the open. There is the redemption of lacing up ice skates on a cold, sunny afternoon in a tucked away spot you have all to yourselves. There are the weekly calls with my mom, gathering her memories, and how even though we don’t know what the outcome will be, hearing more of her stories is lending new dimension and shape to my own. There is my dad, choosing books of poems for me as gifts, as he has since I was a child, and my sisters who got here before me.

In her memoir, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Katrina Kenison writes,

“…there is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.”

My birthday present was having a birthday, letting "small" moments of connection and joy really soak in – and losing the air quotes. I can sometimes move too quickly or stay too busy; dropping into that consciousness always feels like a return of sorts. The past year has held experiences of reactivity and anger as well as honesty and reconciliation. It has held anxiety, stress, and overwhelm along with surrender, acceptance, and ease. I'm growing more secure in boundaries as an expression of respect for myself and others, and seeing how much more of me is available when I'm clear about what is and isn't acceptable. In the end, all of it is so connected, and I'm grateful to get to start a new year of living, loving, learning, and simply being.

I will end this by saying that I am ambivalent about what I've written here, not because of anything it reveals but because I wish my writing felt more inspired. Alas, this is where I'm at and it's literally all I've got, so it will have to do.

As Mani just said, "Who can be inspired right now anyway?"

Thanks for all of the birthday love. It wouldn't have been the same without you.