Tag Archives: birthday

Tripping Around the Sun

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Photo by Foden Nguyen on Pexels.com

I completed another trip around the sun yesterday. The best gift was falling into sleep slumber after my head hit the pillow. I had a few nodding off during the evening movie. Though it was an Oscar Winner, I couldn’t make much sense of it with my little naps here and there. Nothing makes sense to me nowadays. The world is not orderly without my mother as an anchor. Sometimes I feel I’m behaving madly and very badly. I hope my night of sleep have reset me to the best operational mode.

I am not one for birthdays or parties. I don’t like alot of fuss. I can’t explain that myself. Who doesn’t want the celebration of the self? I’m all for that but fuss and attention not so much. Maybe I never had much of that growing up. I’m not used to it. I was born in China. I remembered getting a boiled egg on a birthday. It symbolizes new life, renewal and good fortune. And a chicken drumstick symbolizes a blessing for prosperity and a promise that the person will never go hungry in the symbolizes a blessing for prosperity and a promise that the person will never go hungry in the future. I remember getting both on birthdays in China. No birthday cakes or gifts.

I left China at age 8. I don’t remember getting anything for birthdays in Canada. Our whole applecart was upset being in a new country and culture. I got invited to some birthday parties. Then there was Christmas and Easter. We didn’t celebrate like the rest of the town. We did get Christmas trees after awhile. My mother made us new clothes for the new year. We didn’t do birthday cakes or Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. I felt our foreigness and of looking in from the outside.

Now, I have grown out of all that. We don’t all have to do the same, dress the same, think the same, celebrate the same…Or maybe we do have to do the same and be the same. Look at what is happening south of the border, in Minneapolis. Listen to the witness describing the Alex Pretti killing. It’s like I’m watching a horrible movie. It is not a movie we can step out of. But I have to step out, shut out, and turn off the world now and then. It’s time for a birthday lunch. We’re doing Japanese.

WINDY GRATITUDE TUESDAY

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Tuesday started out bright and sunny, though a little cool.  I woke up feeling wonderful, grateful for a perfect day at work yesterday.  When was the last time I felt so great about work?

I have to savor and remember what it was that made me appreciate the day.  It helps to work with someone in your own generation, who has lived as long as you have.  Life experiences matter.  There is music and rhythm to the day when you can rel.ate and compliment each other.  But that is not saying that I don’t appreciate the younger generation.  I do, but it is different.  That is all, just as every individual and relationship is different.

And then there’s our patient, a young woman 0f 23, who has Down’s Syndrome.  She is her own person and has her own schedule.  The challenge is how to work with her so that we both have a win, win situation.  I learn that somethings are not as important as I once thought.  Just do your best.  Do things in a different way.  I learn from this young lady that it is very easy to be happy.  It is not a complicated process.  Just smile and be happy!   The things that made her smile and laugh are:

  1. Visiting with her family – playing cards with her dad
  2.  Justin Bieber.  She had a large poster of him on the wall beside her bed.
  3.  Her Justin Bieber pillow
  4.  Her Glee pillow
  5.  Music
  6. People

The day is getting grey and windy.  I fell my good feelings slipping, a familiar sense of someone walking across my grave.  I know that it is just a feeling so I hang on to the memory of good things.  Today is 911, but it is also my very good friend’s birthday.  So happy birthday, dear friend!  It is eleven years since 911.  It is also eleven years since my mother was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm.  I remember that I was watching on TV the news  of the Twin Towers in a waiting room at St. Paul’s Hospital.  My mother is healthy, vibrant and still going to the Casino today.

The wind is still howling.  The evening is here.  I am sitting here, tap, tapping on the keyboard.  I am adding my blessings.  I am grateful for my life.  I am happy.  I am sipping wine.