Birthday

Today I am sixty-eight years old, and this has been a perfect day.

In the morning I ambled with friends among shady hawthorns and waist-high false dandelions, under Douglas firs and cherry trees, alongside plantain leaves and wild ginger. I'm the tall one, and then Jude, Sue, and behind them, Leif with her camera. We walked, inhaled, admired, exhaled. It was uncomplicated and beautiful.

At mid-day we stopped at a deli, picked up some lunch, bottled waters, and dessert, and adjourned to a blanket in the grass. There we ate and talked and laughed: about intention, about what we enjoy in each other, about what we are learning, about the roles we want to play.

Home by 3 p.m., Leif left me this photograph of hers for me to process for my blip (I shot few pictures today and none worth saving). She went up to her place to rest and read, and I gathered my thoughts, collected birthday wishes on the computer, and came to this comment by Ceridwen, who gives words to my heart's conviction: we are here, she says, to

...bear witness for those who leave the world too soon.

Yes.

I think this evening I will go for a solitary walk, maybe take a few pictures and think some more about all there is to love.

Here are a few fragments of poetry by Jim Harrison & Ted Kooser, from their book, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003):

All I want to be
is a thousand blackbirds
bursting from a tree,
seeding the sky.

Lost: Ambition.
Found: A good book,
an old sweater,
loose shoes.

Today a pink rose in a vase
on the table.
Tomorrow, petals.