birthday — Page 2

Good morning to all my Valentines! You are beloved. I hope you know so.

Yesterday was my birthday. I am officially 31. Let me tell you about it.

We had glorious plans to do a yurting trip again with our wild pack of friends but at the last minute, the trip was cancelled which made for an unplanned day here in town. I’ve been spoiled rotten with birthday backcountry ski trips the past few years so I was only a little sad about our canceled trip. I have much travel coming up in the next five weeks and I’ll put on a festive mood when I go to take those journeys.

I woke up early with a delicious cup of pear ginger white tea. The day was soft, bird belly grey, obtuse and wide open white on sagebrush, soft with the swoop of diffused light. I put on some clothing (my polka dotted cobalt blue dress with my favorite cropped coral wool cardigan), my favorite vintage cowboy boots and the birthday ring I made for myself the day before and we promptly left for breakfast with all our dear friends — breakfast out with friends is a birthday tradition of mine. I love breakfast from proper diners. There’s nothing like it! My friends were all of good cheer. There was plenty of laughing and the food and coffee were fine. Jade made me feather earrings. Now I’m more bird than girl.

Robert had a date with all his boyfriends on the racquetball court and while he was off playing, I pillaged the local art supply (it is going out of business, which makes me want to cry), found two cute tops at my favorite vintage shop, and picked up some sandpaper at Ace Hardware — I know, a random set of errands, but aren’t all errands rather random? Then I went home and painted for a couple of hours; I fell right into the slash and bend of color on canvas and it was very good.

When RW came home, we harnessed up the dogs and headed up the mountain for a ski. I had Tater Tot and Farley pull me as a double skijor team for the first time ever, it was terribly fast and wild and I thought I would go hoarse from encouraging them to go faster, faster, faster! What a marvel dog power is! Those pups gave me a very good birthday present indeed. We unhitched my double team and each skijored a dog to the top of the mountain where there is a lookout I like to go to and rest for a moment. We poured a cup of tea from the thermos I had in my pack, and enjoyed the wintry view of rolling mountains and timber lines.

Skiing down was fast and zany, as it always is. I took a short-cut on a hair pin turn because it was my birthday and I was feeling festive and crazy — I wound up doing a pancake belly flop into a snow bank which made me laugh hysterically for a full five minutes. It always feels so good to laugh until you are out of air and your entire face hurts and your abdominal muscles feel as though they’ve been doing crunches for ten hours straight. Robert, too, took his turn being pulled by a two dog team and marveled at the speed and power of sledding German Shorthaired Pointers. We’re so proud of the way they are able to do diverse work. We made it back to town and Rob departed for his cabinetry class for a few hours. I began a batch of whole wheat bread and when it was on its first rise, I popped out to the grocery store, which was utterly berserkers with crowds, to gather provisions for the week. When I arrived home, I made pizza dough as well as a batch of cherry chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, punched down and rolled out my bread loaves, and began cutting toppings for our pizzas. The kitchen was warm and bright. Once all my prep work was finished, I had a glorious one of these with extra hot water and positively delicious bath salts:

Robert came home and the pizza was eventually delicious. The bread I baked was perfect. I mean, perfect. For years I have baked extremely delicious bread but these two loaves are perfection — light and lofty on the interior with a gorgeous golden crusty outer layer that flakes away gently. I had a slice of it for breakfast this morning with butter and honey and as I bit into it I thought to myself, “This toast is miraculous. I may never bake bread this perfect ever again.” I savored every fresh crumb.

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Last night, when I was falling asleep, I remember thinking my birthday this year was perfectly ordinary in every way. Allow me to clarify, by ordinary, I mean, not particularly any different than any other day of my life, but I think my life is quite extraordinary and has been especially so lately. Perhaps it’s merely the optimist in me, shining light onto every matter, seeing the best of the situation on hand — but I really don’t think so. Something wonderful is happening to me, I don’t exactly know what, I know it has to do with love and the way I recieve the things around me and respond to them. It also has to do with how I am spending my days. Every day, for weeks now, I have managed to be outside, create freely from the heart, breathe the air on a mountain peak or two, eat delicious foods, read wonderful books and so on and so forth. I’ve been wild with joy in the studio again, at long last. I tell my friends all the time, but it bears repeating, this has been a really wonderful year for me. So, perhaps it is better to say that it was yet another extraordinary day in my life. Because it was. And I am blessed.

Last year, when I turned 30 years old, it was a milestone for me and I spent much time thinking about what it meant to be 30 and to be starting a new decade. There was trepedation in my heart. I felt old. My year of being 30 turned into such a gracious and spacious year for me, a year of quietude and deep rest. I changed so much, learned so much, lived so much. It felt like a holy little year, set aside, meant for me to become comfortable and ready for the rest of this decade. Now that 31 is here, life feels replete with motion, impetus, momentum. Sometimes all I can do is focus on the point directly at my feet as everything around me blends with speed into a glorious impressionistic blur.

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Thank you to everyone who has remembered my birthday this week, yesterday, today…your emails, Flickr comments, snail mail and packages filled my heart with joy and continue to do so.

I love to have you here, in my world.

I hold you in my heart.

Love,

Jillian

:::Post Scriptus:::

I failed to mention the gift Robert gave me for my birthday! He bought a pair of tickets to the Don Williams show at the performing arts center here in Pocatello in April! I am so excited! We love Don Williams! He’s a country music icon! Hearing him sing reminds us of when I was 19 and Rob was 21. We were living in New Zealand and used to drive the highways there while listening to Don Williams’ greatest hits (and Dido and Sublime and classic Michael Jackson). The windows were always rolled down in the car, the wind was always wild in our hair, we spent so much time in the ocean and in the backcountry hiking and fishing and camping and looking at glow worms under the Southern Cross…and I already loved that fellow of mine. Indeed. I did.

02.13.13