There can hardly be acts more self-pervading than the yearly ritualistic commemoration of one's birth. A day when fleets of confetti flutter just for you, when a knife is swung into the belly of a cake in your honour, when fancy purses are matched precisely to flashy dresses for festive rejoicement over the particular pleating of vein and muscle that is you. I have always enjoyed birthdays, mostly because my mother was the biggest birthday buff I have ever known. Because, for her, the new sound in the room that November 4th noon in 1980, that piercing scream that peeled the skin off her ears, was perhaps the most definitive calling she had ever heard in her life. With my birth on November 4th, my mother, Anita, was essentially born. She cradled that sound in her ears, her first instance of her first child, for the rest of her life. And every year on November 4th, she celebrated the becoming of her genes in her thin, bulging eyed baby, in this brand new sound in the world, with the loudest sound of merriment she could muster.
My mother knew how to throw a party. She planned properly, plod through yards of grocery lists, invitee lists, party food lists, party music lists, return gift lists and probed every shop in town for the most perfect birthday dress for me and my sister. She was a nimble crafter of crumbs. She would ask me what shape of cake I wanted and then proceed to carve out of the clinging crumbs of a regular round or square shaped cake the most exact replica possible of what I had indicated, layers of gooey butter icing and clusters of hard coated candy completing it suitably. My eyes would latch onto the sight of her plucking out the ears of Mickey Mouse or the wheels of a train carriage from much humbler shapes, knowing just where to look for them. She was an artist always, my mother, never a squire to routine or convention, a channel always for the most unruly waters. I remember her climbing upon chairs plastering vapid white walls with spirals of shiny colour and light. Balloons bawled from every corner, games were intricately planned for, for every age group. She was a formidable hostess, succumbing neither to exhaustion nor consuming conversation at any time during the party. There was enough for the children to do and the adults to eat. On that one day, my mother hauled from every breathing body in the room an acknowledgement, whether genuinely felt or not, of how special her daughter, a cauldron of the most likely substances in the world, was. On that one day, I was the king of the world.
It is therefore a particularly wanting day this November 4th, a cakeless, balloonless day hosted by nobody in particular. The lack of her is festering civilizations within me, tall buildings of dark-windowed emptiness. It is strange to not be able to hold your source on the commemoration of such sourcing, it is the strongest feeling of disjointing from the human race as is possible. And yet, I must survive it, and carry on with her birthday buffery. I must celebrate her donated skin, her over-stretched, twice-ageing skin, over my bones. She would have wanted that, to be in life an artist, in death a muse. And so I bake a cake today. For myself for the first time. A sugar-soaked paean to my mother and all her inspired efforts to make this day mine. It will be a heart shaped one, with yellow icing, her favorite color, and gems dotting the centre. And with friends, darling lovely friends, I will record into memory my first birthday party without my mother's careful, busy hands ensuring brim-fuls of cold orange juice in every cupped glass, her gleaning ears ever tracking my mouth for happy expressions of that brand new sound she heard for the first time on November 4th, 1980.
My mother knew how to throw a party. She planned properly, plod through yards of grocery lists, invitee lists, party food lists, party music lists, return gift lists and probed every shop in town for the most perfect birthday dress for me and my sister. She was a nimble crafter of crumbs. She would ask me what shape of cake I wanted and then proceed to carve out of the clinging crumbs of a regular round or square shaped cake the most exact replica possible of what I had indicated, layers of gooey butter icing and clusters of hard coated candy completing it suitably. My eyes would latch onto the sight of her plucking out the ears of Mickey Mouse or the wheels of a train carriage from much humbler shapes, knowing just where to look for them. She was an artist always, my mother, never a squire to routine or convention, a channel always for the most unruly waters. I remember her climbing upon chairs plastering vapid white walls with spirals of shiny colour and light. Balloons bawled from every corner, games were intricately planned for, for every age group. She was a formidable hostess, succumbing neither to exhaustion nor consuming conversation at any time during the party. There was enough for the children to do and the adults to eat. On that one day, my mother hauled from every breathing body in the room an acknowledgement, whether genuinely felt or not, of how special her daughter, a cauldron of the most likely substances in the world, was. On that one day, I was the king of the world.
It is therefore a particularly wanting day this November 4th, a cakeless, balloonless day hosted by nobody in particular. The lack of her is festering civilizations within me, tall buildings of dark-windowed emptiness. It is strange to not be able to hold your source on the commemoration of such sourcing, it is the strongest feeling of disjointing from the human race as is possible. And yet, I must survive it, and carry on with her birthday buffery. I must celebrate her donated skin, her over-stretched, twice-ageing skin, over my bones. She would have wanted that, to be in life an artist, in death a muse. And so I bake a cake today. For myself for the first time. A sugar-soaked paean to my mother and all her inspired efforts to make this day mine. It will be a heart shaped one, with yellow icing, her favorite color, and gems dotting the centre. And with friends, darling lovely friends, I will record into memory my first birthday party without my mother's careful, busy hands ensuring brim-fuls of cold orange juice in every cupped glass, her gleaning ears ever tracking my mouth for happy expressions of that brand new sound she heard for the first time on November 4th, 1980.
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