SIX GENERATIONS OF FIRST BORN WOMEN: OCTOBER 25th

My birthday. The 40th year of my life. Picasso's birthday too, same day, different year. I look at the number and it seems impossible. How could I have gotten that old already? I used to think 40 was graveyard material. RG says I'm looking younger. He's not one to hand out compliments. He's usually very critical. Maybe it's the running that helped. I definitely feel good.

It might also be the sense that I have a choice in how I live the rest of my life, not feeling trapped or stuck. Whenever that happened, feeling trapped, I didn't suffer for long. Got my butt moving, even if I didn't know where I was going. Now I do know, in a much more conscious way, the alternatives. I know I have choices and my range of experience is broader.

My daughter called me last night from Amherst where she's visiting her new flame, Fernando. She wants to do something to celebrate my birthday. She must remember how her dad and I always made an extravaganza out of hers. We would bring in a whole cast of characters, turn the backyard into a carnival. Hundreds of balloons, clowns, her dad would be the biggest one, usually made himself the butt of all the jokes. Her dad loved setting the whole thing up. It was that joyful child in him that I had not appreciated as much as I should have.

Her dad gave me the biggest surprise birthday party I ever had. It was for my 30th. He involved the whole neighborhood and all our friends and I never suspected a thing. The kids were in on it and he managed to get them to keep a secret until the moment I came home from work and walked into that darkened living room and suddenly all the lights went on and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, people started coming out of the woodwork. The whole dining room table was set with a huge buffet. I was in a state of shock. It is an image and a moment in time that is burned into my brain forever. It is THE birthday party of my life. I'll never need to have another.