Remembering

I learned an important lesson this birthday about remembering.

There have been times when I've put off calling my friends or relatives on their birthdays until the last minute. Due to my unreasonable phone anxiety, combined with the fact that after a long separation, first phone calls, even birthday phone calls, can be awkward. All I want to say is Happy Birthday, but what it means is, you are my friend and I will always remember your birthday, because it is special to you, and you are special to me. Doesn't make for a very long conversation. There is sometimes so much to catch up on that one doesn't know what to ask. I don't know the characters in my friend's play anymore, though I long for their presence and their company, just to talk about nothing. In a world of email, the familiar scrawl of a friend's long-awaited letter is rare. Phone calls are few and far between. There is so much to catch up on, but it all seems unimportant, surface. All that is in my mind as I think about calling all day long, and then finally do, half hoping to talk to them, half hoping for an answering machine.

I really had a lovely birthday weekend. Friday night, Monty baked me a gorgeous coconut cake, and we had butter-soft filets-- preceded by the much anticipated weekly martini. Saturday, we had cake and bacon and eggs for breakfast. Man that cake was good. I walked the dog, read my book and had a facial. Just what I wanted to do, and at my own pace. Sunday, the actual day, we went to San Francisco, visited an orchid greenhouse, ate meaty crab melt sandwiches and had a few glasses of wine at the Ferry Plaza. Afterwards, we walked around a bit in the perfect sunshine by the ocean, and finished up with a brew and a sausage at the Toronado for old time's sake. My husband is awesome.

My phone was with me all day. No messages. Not one. Odd. My dad is usually the first one to call, because he's in a different time zone. I suspected he was responsible for the "missed call" on my phone, but since my phone often shows me yesterday's already answered missed call today, I can never be sure. I got home and checked my email and there was one from my grandparents with a link to a digital birthday card, which was very pretty. Nothing else.

Not getting anything-- a call, an email, a card-- from my mother was surprisingly hard. Saying my mother is not known for her promptness is a vast understatement. She usually leaves for a visit at about the time she said she expected to arrive. The more advance notice she has, the later she is. The longer the duration of the event itself, the later she is. The farther the destination is from home, the later she is. She does not discriminate on any grounds. She would be as late for the pope as she would be to a dentist appointment. So it's not unusual for birthday cards to arrive late.

Her lateness was part of the source for my philosophy that birthdays last from the first wish to the last. I can always count on her to stretch it out. My sister once sent me a birthday card completely out of season, knowing that with my mom's tardy contribution, my birthday would be almost three months long. That was when we were still speaking, of course. I haven't heard a word from her since my mother was ill over the summer and the two of us channelled our anxiety directly into stomping what was left of our sisterly relationship into the ground. I sent a card for her birthday, but I didn't call either.

Except for my beloved grandfather, no one I know has mastered the art of getting birthday cards to arrive EXACTLY on the day of the birthday, or the day before, if a weekend. My grandfather gets a lot of credit for always, always finding a card, the postage, and a check to boot, and getting to the post office in time to send the card. For forty years. Without fail. That also is another story.

As the day went on, and my cell phone didn't ring, I felt like I was crossing a line. Now comes the time when I join the ranks of adults with quiet, unremembered birthdays, who unfailingly remember to send cards to children, congratulate weddings, celebrate births, keep a Christmas list. I send cards for no reason sometimes because I find a funny card that reminds me of someone. (I realize that I was feeling sorry for myself here, and that I should get over it.) I returned a message on the home answering machine from my dad, but when I went to bed that night, it was with a pretty sad and lonely feeling.

I am often guilty of taking things too seriously. At the end of the day, there was a message from my dad on the home phone, which I returned. He and my stepmother sang their traditional Happy Birthday To You. The next morning, several emails from my mother came through, with the explanation that she'd somehow not sent the birthday message that she wrote on the birthday morning, though she thought she had. I was taken out to a long and delicious surprise lunch at work. At the end of the day, my phone elected to release to me a voice message from my mother from the previous evening that it had been saving for some reason, though I must have checked for messages 20 times. A card arrived from my grandparents. A call from my dear friend in Seattle. The following day, two cards arrived from my mother. Yesterday, one from my oldest friend in Atlanta.

I started this post two days ago, in the thick of feeling sorry for myself. I've gotten over that now, but I'm still contemplative about the deterioration of my relationship with my family. I haven't talked to my mother yet, but I will. I'm tempted to delete this whole post, but I think I'll leave it until I can think of a moral to the story.