Birthday Bean

June 25 is the best birthday in the year. Every six months, you get presents.

December 25 probably isn’t the worst birthday, either. Almost any day in December will do there. Close enough to Christmas and you get lost in the holiday hoopla – not to mention the blended birthday/Christmas prezzies that magically match the number of your siblings’ Christmas gifts. Since you can’t actually pick your birthday, if you’re due in December, it’s better to show up before the Christmas crazies get out of hand.

That’s what my buddy Nicole did. Forty (yes, 40) years ago, she interrupted her family’s regularly scheduled holiday to make her appearance. It was a good day for the world. Better than Christmas, though a mere few knew it at the time.

Nicole was in her mid-twenties when we hooked up at Trust The Process. Since then, she’s been a distant constant in my life, teaching me about poetry and music, love and loss, strength and vulnerability, perseverance and forgiveness, creativity, imagination and propinquity. She’s made me laugh and she’s made me cry, putting me in touch with my reluctant heart while thinking naught of giving her own. We have shared ourselves in handwritten card tag, email and online, in cross-country birthday boxes, and through our mutual hero, the Bass God himself. She’s a joy, a wonder, a falling star and a soaring lyric. I have yet to hug her, yet I know the warmth in her embrace. I admire her dedication to art, to her friends and her family. She’s optimistic, hopeful, courageous, generous and everything else that a light being brings to this existence. In short, she’s a marvel.

Today might be her birthday, but to me she is the gift.

 

Happy birthday, my sweet red hot cinnamon jellybean. With love,