Today was mine.

So, early morning, I thought, "What do I want to do with this?" I could bake bread, spend all day spinning, write something, play the dulcimer, weave that scarf out of those old silk shirts, or any one of a dozen other things. I could make the day count so I could look back and say "I did... this". But I didn't narrow the playing field.

So, I mostly wandered around. I did manage to spin a bit and I baked biscuits instead of light bread. I rewrote, rather than wrote and I played AT the dulcimer. I talked on the phone to both sisters, one daughter, and my mother-in-law (twice -- she didn't remember it was my birthday -- we both do that -- forget each other's birthday --on hers, June 11, I call and ask what she's canning and wait to hear her not mention that I forgot).

I worked on astrology a bit and straightened a bit of the house. Basically, I didn't do anything today. I took a long time not doing these things. I moseyed a lot.

Birthdays are a moment. You're supposed to grab them. Sometimes I do. I had it figured to do a life reading this morning -- still figure I'll get that done before I go to bed. I lit candles in the kitchen and on the altar, thanked my Whoevers for having given me a pretty good life when all is said and done. And told my folks thanks, also.

I was the ninth kid they brought in, and if they didn't sigh and say "well, hell," when they knew they were, once more, going to be parents, then I'd have to worry about their mental  health. But I know once I got here, they loved me enough to give me the moon and stars if they'd known how. Dad likely said, "Oh, well, will you look at that -- a kid." And Mom gave me every bit of her love, same as she did the other eight.

The years between brand new baby and age 18 were longer years than the ones that came after. The ones that came after...went. I had three daughters, never once thought, "well, hell" cause I knew I was going to have three, looked for the third one when there was only two -- and missed her. They were babies and then they were kids and then they are still kids, but older -- and that all happened in a cats blink. No, faster. Cats blink slowly. It happened in the blink of a lightningbug.

But my early years went on and on. I thought they were forever. People would ask what do you want to be when you grow up and I couldn't figure out the question. What did they mean by that? I made up answers. In school, when the question went around the room and all the girls answered either, "Nurse" or "Mother", I said Archeologist. I didn't really want to be one, but it was a good word. I liked saying it. I think of that now as I'm digging the ruins up there on the hill. What I really wanted to be was "Mother". Or not that. "Friend to small people who were very smart and who I'd hang around with while they grew because I was their mom." That would have been the answer. If I had been that verbal.

Birthdays when I was a kid -- we didn't do the whole cake and song thing.  I remember the year I turned six. I remember Mom baking a cake sometime around the middle of the month. She said it was for me (15th), John (29th), George (21st) and Jesus (25th). we were living in the white house inide the city limits that year. I remember the kitchen, the blue windows that time of evening, the cake baked in a breadpan, the icing that tasted like sugar and lard.

On the night before my 8th birthday, we lived in the house out of the city limits, the house I called home forever after. Mom said, "Wouldn't you like to help me with the housework?" Mom always asked -- she didn't tell. It meant the same thing. No way were any of us going to say, "No, I would not." She said, "Would you like to run down and do those supper dishes?" She asked me twice. I remember her tone of voice the second time. "Don't you think you should want to?"

And of course I did. I went downstairs to do the dishes, but they were already done. There was a loosely wrapped gift on the table and it had my name on it. I squealed. And heard Mom laugh. When she laughed, it wasn't exactly out loud. But it was completely a laugh.

My gift was a book. It had little boy David on the front and he had his slingshot back, aiming for the giant. I slept with the book. I wouldn't let go of it. I brought it to the breakfast table.  Dad said, "Hah, I bet you just think that David is a good looking boy." And he was pretty much right. I did. But mostly, I didn't want to put it down because it was a book. We didn't have many of those. We had Sakajawea, and we had a book about Nepoleon and we had Dad's paperbacks of cowboys and Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and we had a comic book or two and one book of Shakespeare. And Grimms Fairy Tales.  And the Bible, of course. And once, for a brief time, a visitor brought a one volume encyclopedia which I tried to memorize before it left. But this was my book. That I got when I was eight.