This Is What 39 Feels Like

Gloria Steinem, upon her annual visit to the Phil Donahue show, would always say her age. One year Phil said: "Wow, you don't look 50," and Gloria, without missing a beat, would open her arms wide and say: "This is what 50 looks like!"

You know you've found love when your loved one, for your 39th birthday, buys you an antique, swinging loveseat/porch-chair/wooden hammock from India so you can spend the mornings writing in your blog and drinking your coffee while staring out at the lake. Love is... someone who knows you. M always outdoes herself for my birthday. In price and inspiration. Like I did with my mother, M always knows exactly what to get for me. She also got me a ukelele, something I've wanted for years. Four years, actually. I was going, then, through a terrible time in my life - although, admittedly, not as terrible as the one I'm going through now regarding dealing with the death of my mother, but pretty bad - and the only thing that got me through it all, or got through to me during it, was playing my friend's ukelele. She'd gotten it for her birthday and never, ever played it. I went online and learned the basic chords and rules in about a minute, and soon was playing "Amazing Grace" like I'd been born to it.

A gift is something nice. You hold it, look at it, play with it, love it. But when a gift is this - a moment in time... it's something very special. M has a way of taking emotional snapshots, or making emotional snapshots, I should say. She creates moments inwhich her loved ones can exist in exactly the way that makes them feel the most comfortable. And in this case, she has done it for me. She has given me back what I lost when my mother died: a home.

You see, there's this thing I like to do, need to do, am compulsive about: morning. I need to get up before everyone else, have my smoothie and my coffee, write in my blog, read a bit, and look out the window. Mostly, that's a long and flowery way of saying I need special time to commune with my coffee, okay?????? And, no, I'm not addicted in the traditional sense. Er, well, actually, forget I said that - yes, I am AM addicted in the traditional sense. If traditional means can I go a day without coffee, then the answer is: no. I can't. Do I have more than one cup. No, I don't. I'm telling you all this to give you a bit of backstory, 'kay? You need to understand my religious feelings for coffee and the ritual of drinking it in a quiet environment in the morning. That's what M just gave me. A quiet place to enjoy my most precious time of day. Thank you so much, love...:)

The middle part of the rest of today will be spent working and putting back together all the things I took apart yesterday to cope with the possible evac. I have to act quickly, actually, as I have some editing to do of pieces that need to be up before the end of the day. but you don't need to know this. Okay. Thanks for reading this far. There's a lollipop in it for you when I see you next...;)

All my love,
Lex

PS. Although we can still hear helicopters swooping around, grabbing water from the lake, our fire is said to be "100% contained." It must just still be on the other side of the hill, blazing away. Think of what that means: the firefighters have been fighting it 'round the clock. Let's tip our hats to them, shall we? They just saved my life.