a birthday. a good one.

one year "happy birthday" is sung in whisper-quiet coos, and the next year it is "mama." last year's two-weeks-new dove on this year's hip. always, always on my hip. i had hoped for snow but sunny-and-sixty surprised us and made our bones sing. puffed sleeves in, let's call it, degas blue. writing. wandering. lost-count-of café au laits. roses the color of pointe shoes. a bookshop ramble. a tangle of streets. a book of poetry. a café in the morning. like being in paris. chocolate cake. looking up from pages in the warm bath to notice the sound: darling, dimpled husband baking said chocolate cake. his eyes glittering as my hands roamed the wrapping of the oblong and glorious box. love notes from ones-i-love. from my parents: a date circled on the calendar for an afternoon at the ballet. my father's memories of thirty one years back, in his own voice. (how we are, all of us, time travelers.) the view: my boys across the table, my kingdom, my whole life. stardust, and what it's all added up to: a baby (this baby, his baby) in my arms, the three of us, together. the song my life is spinning: gratitude. let's call it: heaven. here. the prayer offered on the wings of every heartbeat, every footstep, every exhale: thank you. (what a life is ours.)