"Ordinary" no longer exists

Here's Sue, early this morning, standing on top of her roof against a clear blue high-summer sky, harvesting figs for breakfast.

Yesterday, to celebrate my 69th birthday, we spent the day at home doing "ordinary" things. She gave me a card with a poem she wrote and a watercolor she painted; we had lunch at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, took a stroll to the bookstore, dreaming about the trip we hope to make next year. We visited Sarah and drank glasses of ice water. Sarah had also made me a card, hers with Cavafy's poem, "Ithaka": "As you set out for Ithaka/ hope the voyage is a long one,/ full of adventure, full of discovery...."

Back at Sue's, a simple dinner of melon and cheese, and we settled in her back yard where one of us lay in the hammock while the other read aloud from Sherry Anderson's book, Ripening Time.

We talked about aging with grace and gratitude, about the adventure of it, the surprise of it, the danger. When we were young, we were wild, and we thought we knew adventure. But this time it really is life-and-death. Do we have a decade to go? Less? Will we make this one big trip? Will it be our last? We don't know. We've reached a time in life when it's a little foolish to plan ahead. It's all miraculous. Every day. That we should be here at all (so many our age are gone); that we should find each other and have the courage to fling ourselves into love; that we should have enough health and enough money to do a little something more with our lives. Miraculous. When it grew too dark to read outdoors, she stood one candle in a nest of tin foil, sang me the birthday song. I made a wish, blew out the candle. We had some ice cream.

She asked me if it was OK, having just this "ordinary" day for a birthday celebration. Was it enough?

"Ordinary?" I asked, laughing, and she began to laugh with me. "Ordinary? This great happiness? This unimaginable joy? This great golden ring we've caught, that we never thought we'd ever catch? Kindness and passion and tenderness? Ordinary?"

"Ordinary" no longer exists. Every moment is a miracle.