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I've been moving my office, most of it finished, but the bits and pieces on various bookshelves and in chests of drawers yet to be dealt with. Yesterday I came across the box of thank-you notes I'd printed in gratitude for my fiftieth birthday party. The top part was printed, and at the bottom I would write something personal about each of the attendees, and if possible enclose a photo of them at the party. I've been looking at and photographing the autumn leaves lately, and it seemed appropriate to put this note in hear. Obviously, my delight in the little things around us didn't start recently: "If I were still three years old, I would remember is as well. Squatting, I see my own baby knees, and the scooping of light yellow skirt between them, but I am looking past them to the stream rippling before me, and the small, flat stones that pebble its bed. One by one, I pick up those glistening stones and examine them. This one is shinier than the rest, that one a brighter hue, and another has veins of color running across its surface. I hold each to the light, turning them to catch all the colors and patterns. There is wonder because they are new to ME.I'm a bit older now, and many things that used to hold wonder have faded into ordinariness. Sunday night, I lay sleepless, my entire being vibrating with wonder, and picked up vignettes of a party without equal in my life. "Party." What a ridiculously mundane label for the concentrated gift of love I felt. Parties are ordinary. Some are more exciting and pleasant than others, but they don't instill joy, they don't bring tears to your eyes for days after, and they don't become instant icons to the endless wonder of family and friends. I know I will forever be reaching into my memory, turning and holding to the light the people and experience of an incredible afternoon in January, forever finding new colors and patterns in them, and always, always, always grateful to have known so many WONDERful people." I guess I have to say something about the party! It was a surprise, and though I suspected "something was up" it never once occurred to me that there would be anything more than dinner with some or all of RC's and my kids. What RC had done, though, was surreptiously invite our entire circle of friends and relatives, and rent out banquet space in a near-by restaurant. He even managed to keep me in the dark when a couple of the guests misread or misheard the directions and showed up at our house! (I couldn't figure out why my friendly and hospitable man wasn't opening the door completely, and what he was talking about to whoever was out there. Don't remember what he said, but he managed to redirect them. He took me to dinner. The pretext was that Mike, Laurie's boyfriend at the time, had come across a gift certificate for dinner that he'd mislaid. We walked into a crowded area (RC had actually reserved the entire bar area), and at the back of the room I saw our son, Jon. Then I saw someone else. And another friend. Another relative. Within seconds I was laughing and crying at the same time as the realization hit me that everybody in the entire bar was a dear friend or relative. On the platform where a band would normally perform, there stood one chair and a small table with a rose in a bud vase. After the half hour or so that it took for me to greet and hug everyone, RC led me there, and seated me, and then the show began. RC had instructed the guests to come prepared with a song, or a reading, or poem, or story, and nearly everyone had done it. One person after another joined me on the stage. There were new words to old tunes (I remember Dick and Meg's about getting letters from AARP now, and all the other oddities that come with "old age".) Shakespeare Martyr Complex, a theatre troupe we're involved with, gave a staged reading from CATS. Children I nannied for were there with their parents, and the children stood together and shyly sang, "A--You're adorable. B--You're so beautiful. C--You're a cutie I adore," a song I had often sung to them. They made it all the way through the alphabet, too. Robert, sitting at a table against the wall, would occasionally sing out in his deep bass bellow. The one I remember is, "Why was she born so beautiful?
Why was she born at all?
She's nobody use to anyone.
She's nobody use at all!" RC was last. He took the rose from the vase and gave it to me, singing with tears in his eyes,
Oh, My love is like a red, red, rose
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my love is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve you still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry. Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand miles!" RC barely made it through the song. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house, actually. There was a buffet. I remember eating a bite or two of it, but I didn't know it even existed until the party was almost over, and not until we were gathering up our things, our coats, and the gifts and cards, did anyone remember the cake! There was a cake! We'd never cut it. No one had put the candles on and lit them, or sung Happy Birthday! I'd never even seen it. The waitresses and waiters, along with the few of us who were left, lighted the candles and smilingly sang to me and I blew them out. What a wonderful night. What a wonderful night.
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