On my 9th birthday I lived with my father and stepmother. I didn't have a party or a cake or presents. Instead we sat around the kitchen table and dipped graham crackers into glasses of milk. I was lonely and missed my mother. At bedtime my father came to tuck me in. He did a "voila" and suddenly he was holding the 1940s Brownie Box camera he'd used in our cross country hitch hiking trip when I was 4. And now the camera was mine. Suddenly the day was transformed and I felt treasured.When I turned 17, at the same house, no one remembered it was my birthday. I was a pre-hippy, thought birthdays were bourgeois but secretly I treasured myself all day and went to bed thinking, "Wow, this was a trip!"
On my 21st birthday I drank scotch in a bar in the heart of ELA and with every drink I thought how much scotch must taste like gasoline. I kept drinking anyway. It was my birthday after all.
And when I turned 50, I rode my bicycle through ice plant in Pacific Grove and accidentally bumped into Al Gore who was campaigning for vice president. I wanted to shout, "Today I am 50!"
