Born

Being born is no choice on the part of the creature being birthed.  Tab A, slot B, gametes getting together – I saw the facts-of-life film strip flip from frame to frame in 1979.  Nine months later, in the case of humans, a new being endures a squished, screaming, shocking, naked arrival.  Once the cord is cut the journey begins.  We mark the day of our arrival, our birthday.

The first entry at dictionary.com defines born as “brought forth by birth.”

Today is my birthday.  In the early hours of an April morning in 1969 my own mother delivered me, her first baby, into the world.  I am blessed to have been born from two people who loved me and considered providing a home for me a priority.  Like all people on earth, I suspect we were not perfect.  But we three moved forward through my baby days with caring and attention to ourselves as a little family.  At least, that’s how I imagine it to be as I don’t really remember.  I slept through most of it.  But pictures look like that.  I was clean (meaning I got the baths I needed), chubby (meaning I got the food I needed), and cutely dressed (meaning I had grandmothers who could sew and dote on me).  In photographic moments I smiled and drooled and learned to walk and made messes and somehow meandered my way into adulthood in the watchful world of my family.

From today’s birthday perch in grown-up land, here’s what I know for sure.  We don’t pick where or when we are born.  We get no choice as to whom we are born but we changed their lives!  Cake and a pretty party dress are always fun for a birthday.  After 40, the sound of my age number is somewhat shocking and always seems worse than the body I’m actually living in.  Having my own kids makes me appreciate my own childhood and sometimes I feel I should call my parents to apologize for doing to them something my kids are doing to me that I am certain I perpetrated as well!  It feels warm and special to be wished, “Happy Birthday!”  Birthdays make you think about being born, being alive, being who you are in the spot you are and the places you have passed on the way.          

Each Day Somebody is Born

Celebrate the belly day that dawned, maybe full of cake

sticky, uncertain breath inhaled wonder of a windy wish

gifts, toys or hugs from boys file into future picture days

thousands of ways to receive time, tickling tiny toes, ten

counted over and over again, miracle matched by places

feet finally find standing tall and faces walking into years

knitting yarns and yielding yard sticks deep lined with pen

marking then how much we have, grown, gathered, sown

single day stopping spot where you want on your birthday

simply to continue, being born, hoping it all bakes sweet.