Our Children’s Birthdays

 

Many years ago, my mother, herself in her sixties, had a friend who was in her thirties. Her friend, of Japanese descent, told my mother that she celebrates her own birthday by giving flowers to her mother, because her mother was the one who gave birth to her on that date.

 

I asked my mother if she was telling me this because she thought it was something I (cough-cough) should do as well. My mother laughed. “Oh, no. We don’t do this,” she said. “Maybe it’s a Japanese thing?”

 

Years later, I became a mother myself. Every one of my children’s birthdays meant more to me than my own. Unlike them, I have a memory (a visceral one at that) of the original day, the day they were born. I remember it minute by minute. Both my kids' birthdays were the most monumental days in my life.

 

We don’t do the flowers thing, as my mother said. But I now get the wisdom of this tradition. Whether it was idiosyncratic or a cultural thing, it evokes a sense of awe.

Why Blog?

Fair question, that^.

This is my four-hundred-and fortieth post.

Despite the shrinking blogosphere, and the fact that (other than make-up and erotica themed blogs) blogs don’t sell what we make, I have continued my weekly Tuesday morning posts.

Why?

Because I still like doing it. I hope to always do things in life with this guiding light. Sure, sometimes we have to do somethings we don’t like.

Did I write “sometimes?” ^

I meant you could count on having to do things you don’t like but must do anyway. That’s a given.

But may the day never come when I stop doing something I like because it isn’t awash in likes from others.

Turns out, I like meeting you who visit here. Hope you come again.

My Favorite Meal

Do you have a favorite meal? Mine is, hands down, breakfast.

Breakfast means, literally, break the fast. You’ve not eaten since maybe eight the night before.*
*(Unless you are the midnight by-the-fridge sort, which is an image I’ve only experienced watching movies/sitcoms. In real life, middle of the night is a time when the last thing I want to do is stand by an open refrigerator or even think about food.)

So now it’s eight in the morning. You’ve “fasted” for twelve hours, and you should be ravenous.

For me, this is the mystery of breakfast: I’m not hungry in the least. I don’t know why, I just don’t get that peckish sensation that precedes lunch or dinner. This makes breakfast a meal of complete non-urgent food choice.  
A long time ago I vowed to never eat something I don’t enjoy, (with the exception of social circumstances when someone else is in charge and I want to be polite) so breakfast is pure pleasure food.

It so happens that American food conventions also include my favorites as breakfast food. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, hot cereal, and...
coffee, blessed coffee.

I liken it to reading for pleasure. Not assigned books (whether for school, work, or a book club) or books that are “good for you,” as in must-read-because-it-won-the-Pulitzer-prize. But pure pleasure reading.
At the same time I abandoned “good for you” breakfasts, (bye-bye bran flakes and cold milk) I also vowed to never finish a book that didn’t resonate.

Life is too short.

            

So eat when you don’t have to, and read when you don’t have to. Life will be good.