I'm 10 today

April 6, 2010

Chocolate croissant, flaky, a touch of cinnamon it sticks to my fingers and I have to lick them clean. I lick my fingers clean and then wipe them on my jeans, then wipe my lips with my forearm. I’m 10 today. And Mother finally let me have a birthday party. I’ve been to lots of birthday parties. The kids in my fancy pants private school are big on ‘em. Mom tends to forget about them until the last minute so she keeps a handy dandy supply of tiny flashlights that can be wrapped at the last minute before we dash into the car, the last to arrive. I’ve been to birthday parties at fancy restaurants, the family owned it. I’ve been to birthday parties where there were clowns, rented ponies, swimming in the pool. Usually the whole class is invited so there are fifteen of us which means lots of presents. There’s a perfect cake with fancy writing. There’s always a picture drawn in a different colored icing. If it’s a boy’s birthday, it’s a puppy or a soccer ball, if it’s a girl’s, flowers or dolls with lots of pink. I love getting a big piece, an outside piece so it has lots of icing cause the cake is usually tasteless. But the icing is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt and the fancy, stiff paper napkins that match the plates don’t do a good job of getting it off my fingers. I never wiped it on my good dress, though.

But Mother wouldn’t let me have a birthday party. For one, my birthday was in June, after school was out and school friends were not always about, I suppose. June is a real busy time at our house. The vegetable garden needs all kinds of attention, so does the flower gardens. Haying is about to start or has started already if the rain has let up. New calves have to be tagged, a kind of ear piercing and the cattle need to be moved a lot so they don’t over graze the pastures as the grasses start to come in. There’s way too much to do to have a party. My older brother and sisters had parties when they were little but their birthdays are in fall and winter and besides, when they were little, the farm was much smaller. But ten, turning ten is a big deal. Two digits. The beginnings of teenagerhood. Growing up in a big way, not a baby. So Mother decided a small party would do. She invited the two neighbor boys, Randy Zabaron and Jimmy Tenneson, the only two kids my age within three miles and the son of family friend, Douggie Kohn. My grandmother came and took our picture. There was the one of me sitting on Ann’s bed with my presents all around. I had on my Davy Crockett hat and my Davy Crocket T-shirt. I’m holding the picnic basket with the lid up so you can see the small plastic settings, the two cups and saucers and forks and spoons and knives. And there was the yellow 45 record of the Davy Crockett theme song, “Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.” There was some other stuff but I don’t remember what it was. I remember the smile though, and the way my shoulders were, strong and wide. I was so alive then.

Why tell you this, about that frozen moment in time? I sit here, an old woman now, at least in the eyes of that ten year old girl. Another birthday looms, a big birthday, 60. Clean digits; I like that. Born in 1950, 60 years old. I am not hoping for a Davy Crockett hat this time. So what am I hoping for? A knee that will continue to work without surgery. For my daughter to break free of her suffering, for my son to find the next, life giving step in his journey. Me, for me, I also want the next step, the next life giving step in my journey. It is the walk I take, this search, this journey. Maybe, just maybe, I do have something in common with Davy Crockett.