Any Day You Are Alive is a Good Day

I have a date of sorts for tomorrow night.  My "boyfriend" and I will hang out at his place and entertain ourselves.  We'll watch people celebrate on television and maybe drink champagne.

I've become a person who has lost the ability to appreciate designated special days.  Some of my best days have not been calendared.  For example, about six years ago I was driving on the 405 over the Sepulveda Pass and the sky was filled with Painted Ladies.  (They are a native butterfly, in some southland locations considered endangered--but I also believe they are raised by kindergardeners at many of Los Angeles's elementary schools.  This doesn't make sense, I know, but this being LALA land, anything is possible.)

There were so many butterflies in the air I had the sense that other drivers were slowing down as if they could avoid hitting them.  I swear my windshield stayed clean as I made my way into the San Fernando Valley.

I could pluck any number of special days spent with my sons.  Another car miracle:  We were talking about Elvis.  He's rarely a topic of conversation.  I don't know what we might have been saying. We were driving on a short stretch of Pico,  facing the Pacific--just a few blocks away from where the street hits the bike path.  I stopped at the light at Main.  It was one of those sunny, bright days, the temperature was in the 70s, the ocean twinkling at us.  There we were sitting in my red Corolla in our jeans and t's.  The kids had sodas in their hands.   A tune, not Elvis floated out of the car speakers.   A big red bus with a giant sign advertising an Elvis tele-biography  rolled into the intersection in front of us.  We laughed in amazement.  There is no designated day for strange and wonderful sightings.

My ex-husband asked for a divorce a month and a half before my fortieth birthday.  For his fortieth birthday I gave him a surprise party at an Italian Restaurant and his first son.  He'd been a deprived child and only had one birthday party as a kid.  For my fortieth I got my freedom without the balloons and cake.

That birthday (my fortieth) I celebrated by having dinner with a friend and my youngest son, who was two and a half at the time.  We had dinner at Newsroom--across the street from Ivy (we were avoiding the paparazzi.)   And we went to Century City to walk about.  In a toy store at the mall we bought my son puzzles.  I bought one with little knobs that toddlers can use to pull the pieces up while my friend bought a jigsaw with about twenty pieces--no knobs.  We bought ice cream at Ben and Jerry's and sat outside.  David took the puzzle out and dumped the pieces on the table and worked as we chatted.  At one point he raised his hands straight up in the in the air and yelled "Yay!" prompting smiles and laughs from people sitting nearby.  He'd done the puzzle.  It had two robots--like the two in Star Wars.  It had no knobs.

The kids are with me for Thanksgiving.  I don't really celebrate Christmas.  Some years I've gone rollerblading at the beach  (it is nearly always a beautiful clear day on Christmas.  This year it's in the 60s but most of the past seven years I could swear it's been in the 70s and clear enough to see Catalina from Santa Monica.)   A few Christmases I've done the movie thing.  Sometimes I'll dine with friends.  When I complained to my therapist about the divorce-present, he asked if there are really special days just because they are on a calendar.

Usually the kids are with me New Year's Eve.  We hang out--watch T.V., then run outside when the fireworks at the Marina start.  We try to see them over the rooftops of the houses on Grand Canal.  But the boys are at their dad's this year.  And my boyfriend and I will keep each other warm indoors at his place in the valley.

Any day you are alive can be a holiday!

Here's to another year!