November first, the beginning of NaBloPoMo. A very loaded day.
Today’s my mom’s birthday. The story I remember being told was that her teenage mother (my mom was an unplanned pregnancy) wasn’t due for another few weeks that Halloween in 1960. It was unusually cold that year, and when she waddled to the porch to give some trick-or-treaters candy, she slipped on a patch of ice. The next day, my mom was born.
She looked exactly like she does now. It’s uncanny. As a kid, I remember looking at my own baby pictures with no recognition. But my mom’s were different - I could clearly see her in that black and white infant face, looking authoritative even in diapers.
Today is also Cade’s birthday. It’s weird when someone goes from being a big part of your life to a part of your backstory. When it’s been less than a year after you’ve stopped dating someone like that, there’s this Emily Post kind of struggle. Am I obligated to point out via e-card that I remembered his birthday? What do I write in it now that I know so little about his life?
After I broke up with Sam, my college boyfriend of three years, I send birthday cards two years in a row. I couldn’t let February third pass without some kind of communication. He never expressed thanks or anything, but I know he got them. I didn’t send one last year, because the date passed before I realized what I’d done - I’d forgotten what used to be an important day.
It’s just like how you forget how badly you were hurt when you fall in love with someone else. (It may be fleeting however, that romantic dementia). There’s something liberating about it.
Chances are, though, I’ll never forget November first. It holds sunlight and reddish leaves and wet smells for me. It is so much birth.
That plant used to be so lively. Not that it isn’t making a come back, but it is still only one stalk.