this time around

I turned another year older yesterday.

If we weren’t in a pandemic right now, I’d have thrown myself a vintage-style birthday party and encouraged you all to dress in 1940’s style.

As it was, we are in a pandemic and my birthday fell on a Monday and much of the country, including where I live, was under threat of a huge snow and ice storm.

I thought about encouraging you to dress vintage and do the party virtually…but it just didn’t feel right under the circumstances.

As you probably know by now, I believe in celebrating one’s birthday to the fullest extent.

When I hear people grumble and complain that adults shouldn’t celebrate their birthdays, it makes me want to celebrate my birthday even more passionately.

Marking the day your soul came into a body onto this planet, acknowledging the years you have been here, the fact that you’re still here - this is good stuff!

Please, I beg of you, celebrate your birthday - your birth week, your birth month - as a way of showing gratitude for this gift of life, the wild, incredible journey and reminding yourself that you are, in fact, alive.

Celebrate because celebration is fun.

I began my birthday morning in a midcentury house dress drinking coffee, then got to work - because it was Monday.

I checked with our most reliable weather forecaster and he was saying worst case scenario. What had looked like it was going to be a lot of snow and turned into a lot of ice. That meant we would likely lose power later in the day.

Thankfully, we didn’t, but others did, including my friends in Texas!

As I write this, the winter weather is still doing its thing.

My heart was and is very much with everyone who doesn’t have shelter, who has to go out and work in this, who is suffering.

While I love the magical beauty of winter weather, I don’t forget that it is dangerous and causes great difficulty for many people.

Even though yesterday felt strange at best, I made myself a sugar and flour free cheesecake and blew out a candle.

I went to my Monday night class on Zoom.

..and that’s about it.

When I tell you that I miss my normal birthday activities which involve lattes in coffee houses, meals in restaurants, and shopping my favorite flea markets and antique malls, I’m not lying.

I miss it.

As for turning another year older, let’s not focus on the number. I mean, honestly. Who cares? I’m still alive and that’s what counts.

It looks like this whole week is going to be cold and snow.

This morning, when I took the boys out, we were swooped by a huge red tail hawk.

She was majestic and shook the ice covered magnolia, who began to sway and creak.

Right now, the ground is packed snow and ice but the snow that’s falling is fluffy, like a snow globe.

It’s Mardi Gras.

Some houses in my neighborhood celebrated with decorations.

My Valentine decorations are still up, frozen solid.

Tomorrow begins Lent, but I’m not giving anything up this year.

We’ve given up enough, I think.

What I am going to do is gently focus.

These next 40 days will be designed around meditation, movement, energy clearing, journaling, prayer, and clarity.

The hawk this morning reminded me of the important relationship between passion and clarity.

Standing in the ice and snow, I thought about how to anchor and open at the same time.

I thought about how creativity thrives in vulnerability, and vulnerability is only possible when there is clarity.

Clarity of vision, of purpose, of boundaries.

The next 40 days, for me, will be about explorations of truth and rest, nourishment, and listening - listening to you, listening to me, listening to God.

What needs to go? What needs to stay? What needs attention? What needs love? What wants to be born?

My intention is to show up for life as my whole self.

Because I do, truly believe, that we were each uniquely made, designed to live as ourselves, abundantly loved as ourselves, here in these bodies and on this planet to be ourselves.

As my whole self, I can best serve love.

As my whole self, I can best tend to others and the world.

So that’s going to be my Lent and that’s going to be my next turn around the sun.

I love you.

I’m grateful for you.

Thank you for dancing with me.