I’m a very sentimental old cuss. Other people have fond memories; I have flashing neon red-letter Special Events. And when it’s an actual anniversary or birthday, I’ve been known to pull out all the stops, adorn myself with sequins, and shout “Hallelujah!” from the rooftops.
This year, I celebrated my birthday by shouting, not from the rooftops, but from the observation deck of the Kyoto Tower in Japan. (Figuratively speaking.)
Last year, when I turned 60, I went to the Beaverton Farmer’s Market with my friend Marty in the morning. Then I spent the afternoon with Rick, and we went out to dinner where he’d arranged for a decadent chocolate cake to complete our meal. It was a truly wonderful day.
But Rick died in April, and I actually dreaded thinking about turning the next calendar page without him. Like I said, I’m very sentimental.
I couldn’t do a thing to block the hard tug on my heartstrings but I “soldiered on,” not to compete with the past, but to make new memories to add to the previous ones made on this date.
So Miriam and I started our sunny Sunday morning in the Tower, as soon as they opened, before too many other people arrived. As it turned out, there was a placard advertising the 50th anniversary of the Tower itself, and I posed next to the sign proclaiming “Happy Birthday!”
Later, we hiked to two other nearby shrines we’d spotted from the Tower, then took a pre-scheduled 4-hour afternoon walking tour (uphill both ways) to several other interesting places of cultural import.
For dinner, I had exactly what I wanted: Tempura prawns and a tempura pork cutlet. Then instead of birthday cake, we took our day full circle, and went back to the mall beneath the Tower to a Baskin and Robbins where I had a “Thank You 4”—a cup with four small scoops of ice cream.
I chose pineapple/coconut, strawberry cheesecake, Matcha tea and Oreo cookie, and coffee with coffee chips. It was about as far from last year’s chocolate fudge cake as I could get, yet I still teared up as I savored the flavors, thinking of the ghosts of birthdays past.
Sentimental old cusses are like that.