happy birthday to me!

Apparently this year, my birthdays as per the English as well as the Tamil calendars fall on the same day. Today. I must ask Mum more about this but I think it has something to do with the 19-year cycle of the moon (of which I know next to nothing) and the fact that I complete two such lunar cycles today.

What an ordinary day in so many ways, and yet in one other sense, what an extraordinary day! There was cake and some snow. And then there was this book that I've been losing myself in, Karla McLaren's The Language of Emotions. Funnily I first read 19 pages in one sitting yesterday (when D was napping on me), and then another 19 pages today (again when D was napping on me). I'll admit I'm excited at all the manifestations of this prime number in my life on this day! (Also, D turns 29 months old today, yet another prime number, while not exactly 19, as close to it as any number can get.)

Chapter 2 begins with a wonderful poem and I think the verses will never stop tugging at my heartstrings.

Wild Girl

While I was up in the trees listening to the wind
I heard your mother wish she were childless.
While I was under the hedge listening to the cat
I heard my father long for someone, not his wife.
While I was flat-out on the lawn listening to the clouds
I heard the neighbours lose their hope.
Then, when I was racing on my bike, listening to my ears
I heard the church lie about all of it.
And you thought I wasn't paying attention.
Why is it that outsiders always have insight
But insiders rarely have outsight?

I have only one wish today. To care enough to learn how to shower unconditional love on myself, on the child I once was, on the person I am today, and on the dream of all that I can be tomorrow.