another birthday

I turned 62 this week and my (elder) cousin's birthday card reminded me of how time is measured in memories: she recalled us "girl cousins" standing in our Grandparent Dice's field of mustard, counting the box cars on the Illinois railroad as it sped by. In future years, I would look out those fields and see lines of houses encrouching on cow pastures. The last time I returned to Randall Road in Elgin, the farm was buried under a bypass and a strip mall fenced in the red maples my father had planted in the farm's front yard. Ah...time.

Yesterday I went to a quilt show in Oro Valley and took photos which I will be posting on my blog. Most of the fifty or so quilts were new but several dated back 100 years or more. I came home and looked at the quilt I have from my grandmother, wondering about the story behind it. I fear it is lost with her passing, and the passing of my mother and her sister. Maybe I once asked for the story and I, too, have forgotten it. Maybe it's time for me to make up a story to make a new memory.

I have a life to celebrate this week and I humbly (and not very gracefully) accept my aging self. Annual medical exams are in progress and each morning I wake up I know is a gift. Besides yesterday's quilt show, Mark and I went to the opening of a King Tut (replicas of artifacts) exhibit in downtown Tucson. It was really fun and the traveling curator, a retired Broadway writer, was a hoot to listen to and watch. He was as much of the show as the exhibit itself.

Today's gift--besides the songbirds outside and sunshine warming this first Sunday in March--I am going to a local production of "Anything Goes" with two friends. It's fun to watch young amateurs give their all to song and dance and even though my tap shoes sit forlonly in my closet (I did return to tap for my 55nd year), I am not throwing them away because I may use them again yet!!

While I continue with physical therapy (and standing two hours for the exhibit last night tested and exceeded my comfortable limit), I might be able to dance next year at my nephew's Bar Mitzvah; at least, that is my goal.

Another goal is to help the Susan Komen Race for the Cure meet it's goal. Right now, they are only 6% there with the race the end of this month. I donated to the national and, today, to the local race in memory of a dear friend, Lynn Slagle, who died of breast cancer two years ago. The curator last night said that, for Egyptians, if you say a dead person's name aloud, that person still lives. So I write, and say Lynn's name aloud. She was a fantastic work colleague and a brave person who loved her San Pedro River where her ashes were scattered. I encourage anyone who reads my blog to contribute what they can to their local Race for the Cure so that no woman has to wait (as a friend of mine did last year) for Komen funds to be restored so that she can have a mammogram.

Life is short no matter how many birthdays we have and, in between, we can dance literally or metaphorically. Another tidbit along those lines is to check out the 2010 movie, Alice in Wonderland. I watched it Friday night and it was terrific: sweet, creative and in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.

Find something to smile about today and live.