40 Days of Birthday: Day Five

When Lennon went down for his two-hour nap today, I joined him. Too much champagne and rum soaked cake made for a questionable night’s sleep. I hit a slump, just five days in: I really just wanted to stay in and do nothing. I considered just taking a bath and calling it ‘special,’ but I decided to save that for a day when I am really desperate for ideas. I also knew I really should do something outside as Lennon’s doctor had prescribed a daily dose of fresh air for little boy’s bronchitis, and probably more than he would get with our typical walk to the market. After much soul searching via the interwebs, I remembered that I have a gift certificate for entrance to the top of the TV Tower! What a perfect thing to do: for me, for Lennon, for my 40 Days of Birthday!

After a forty-minute transit on the train, waiting in line to have our gift certificate processed, and a confusing, broken German conversation with the ticket clerk, I come to find out that one is not allowed to bring strollers up into the TV Tower. I am meant to leave my stroller under the staircase in the main lobby and carry my child as I enjoy the view at the top of the tower. Writing it now, it doesn’t sound so awful—aside from the fact that my stroller would likely have been thieved—Lennon could have crawled around the Tower observation room, making for an impossible photo opportunity. At the time, however, I showed the ticket clerk my frustration and asked that she please un-process my gift certificate so I may use it at another time. We exited through the gift shop buying nothing.

I fished for sympathy and I received it. My husband suggested that I take myself shopping in the Alexa Centre. Alexa is big, American, and a monument to capitalism. I’d bore you if I noted the irony of its proximity to the TV Tower, the GDR’s monument to the strength and innovation of communism. On the way there I bought a Wurst from this guy:

I was more interested in strolling the mall than shopping. Happiness Station provided the ice cream. Note: there has not been a weighty post in months. Let’s not talk about it.

Lennon began to fuss, and rightly so. Today had not gone as planned. Were it not for the incredible amount of people smoking cigarettes in Alexanderplatz, I would at least say my son got some fresh air. All was redeemed, however, when we came home to Shwarma, purchased by my husband. Baby boy went to bed without a peep. 

40 Days of Birthday: Day Four {Day I Was Born}

I don’t want to write tonight. I just want to soak in this day, these forty years, this champagne. I don’t want to write tonight, but I have to tell you about the most beautiful day I had.

It began with waking to a much healthier little boy. A cake would be baked.

I was given a present of homemade cherry chocolate biscotti by my friend Karen and her magic ways in the kitchen. I made my best effort at eating only two with my coffee this morning.

My husband and son presented me with the most coveted birthday gift: a luxurious linen apron I’d been dreaming about for months from Fog Linen Work.

I picked up some lunch at Rogaki, a famous fish market here in Berlin, which happens to be down the street from where we live. Warning: the ladies behind the counter can be salty if your German is shoddy.

I made my birthday cake. Recipe: Reine De Saba from Mastering The Art of French Cooking. Mrs. Child can be strict with you. She asks that you collect and measure all of your ingredients ahead of time. That’s the efficient, practical way to proceed, but I’m just too impatient. My hubris got the best of me, however, when I forgot the sugar for my egg whites, nearly half way through folding them into my batter, wondering why the hell they kept falling. Everything still tasted incredible, thanks to Julia, but next time I won’t be so smug.

 Lennon is now in bed. Champagne is nearly gone. I’m glad I’m forty. I’m glad I’m here, with these people, with this me. Maybe more glad than any other birthday. Maybe more glad still every year, from this point forward.

40 Days of Birthday: Day Three

“The beauty of the best-laid plans is that they are bound to be interrupted by even more delicious prospects.”

I’ll have to spin this one in the most existential way in order to make it delicious: my baby boy has a case of Bronchitis. After a near sleepless night, Lennon and I headed to the doctor’s office for the diagnosis. Navigating the U-Bahn and broken escalators while carrying a near thirty pound sick baby on my chest, lugging at least ten pounds from the Apotheke and Drogerie, including a nebulizer and big pack of diapers, left me defeated.

Lennon cries when he hears me using the immersion blender to make soup. The sound scares him. He has the same reaction to the sound of the nebulizer. I was able to distract him by reading The Cat in The Hat—the non-baby, non-board-book version, which is always so enticing with its rip-able pages. Finally, Lennon was able to fall into a deep sleep, the first for him in about a day.

Tomorrow is my actual birthday and I’m having doubts about baking a cake. Maybe there’s a little self-pity in the mix, but mostly, it all just doesn’t seem to matter when my baby boy is sick. I’ll hold onto the hope that the world may look more delicious after a good night sleep, for both of us. Until then, I’m grateful for a husband who comes home early, a son who’s getting better, and the pizzas in our freezer.

40 Days of Birthday: Day Two

The trade off was in my favor this morning: I left to sleep in while my husband played with Lennon. I did the same for him yesterday. The decadent part came when he also brewed my coffee and cooked the most delicious egg sandwich made with toasted, leftover baguette. Before heading out for the day, I cast my vote for U.S. President, Senator of California, and U.S. Representative for California, District 14 via my absentee ballot sent to me from San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer, Mark Church, participating in my country’s democracy from 9,000 kilometers away.

Our friends and neighbors, Aaron and his son Otis—just a few weeks younger than Lennon—were able to join us for the Kartoffelfest* this afternoon. Otis’s Mama, Kelly, was busy writing music for her new ensemble wherein she plays the flute—typical Mama stuff around these parts. In any event, it was nice for the boys to venture out on their own and for Mama Kelly to have time to work. I was the odd one out today, tagging along with the Papas and their sons. I did prove myself invaluable, however, having brought along a special Mama bag filled with extra drinks and snacks for babies—a detail sometimes overlooked by Papas when heading out on adventures.

The Kartoffelfest took place at a sweet organic farm, Domäne Dahlem, that always makes me forget we’re in Berlin. I procured a birthday bounty that included a robust potted Thyme, a loaf of fresh, organic bread, and two and a half kilograms of organic potatoes grown on the farm. Otis scored a lovely red, wooden car, handmade in Latvia, purchased for him by his Papa. While the babies snacked on Mama brought crackers and coconut water, the Papas and I drank organic Federweisser—a fermented grape juice—and ate organic Rostbratwurst. After a few hours, the wee babes began melting down so we counted our blessings and looked toward the exit—but not before sneaking in a tasty organic Pilsner, sealing our bliss.

*translation: Potato Festival

40 Days of Birthday: Day One

Today is not my birthday but I’m starting the celebration early. This afternoon, I put on my birthday crown and hopped on a train to Tempelhof Airport with my husband, son, and a stroller wearing a brand new tire. We were given a nearly private serenade as we rode—not sure anyone else was listening---by an older gentleman on guitar covering the 1986 Chris De Burgh hit, Lady in Red. Lennon was captivated and, for that, our Chanteur earned a two euro coin. The old-airport-turned-park was windy, but not especially cold: perfection for kites. While there were enormous, flashy, animal shaped kites being flown in a cordoned off field—to a particularly German soundtrack of electronic house music—my favorite of the day was small, kite-shaped, and child-made, seen carried from the mayhem by the same child’s mama.

This evening, I opened a birthday gift I’d commissioned a couple of months ago from La Capra Canta, an artisan based in Italy. When it came in the mail in early August, I inspected it and promptly returned it to its pretty packaging. Now that it’s mine, I may never take it off.

Turning 40

Of course, I’m not the first person to reach the age of 40 but I am someone who has been spoiled more than most on her birthdays. Thusly, I prefer to not let my birthday pass without recognition--like some other, more grounded souls can--and this milestone of a birthday is hardly an exception. You see, Folks: next week, I enter middle age---or truly what I hope is middle age, or the middle age(s), so as to not give myself such a specific stopping point---and the celebration has got to be big. I calculated that it was too much pressure to put on just one day and decided to spread my birthday out over several---40, to be exact. Starting a couple of days before my actual birthday, Amy Cole Farrell’s Forty Days of Birthday will begin. It will be part mini midlife crisis, part soulful journey. It will be a lot of work to maintain festivities for over a month, but I had a revelation earlier this year: I managed to keep myself alive for 40 years! A grand recognition should be made.

I’m not interested in scheduling the joy out of these 40 days, but I do have some ideas about stuff to do. I’ll still have to do things like raise my child, be a wife, clean house, and research my PhD, but beyond the daily of life, I’ll present myself with exceptional tasks each day. I would love suggestions.

Visit museums

Run

Spend an entire day speaking only German

Bake and decorate a cake

Sit in silence for 30 minutes

See movies

See live music

Drink champagne

Perform a premeditated, random act of kindness

Visit castles

Work in the studio

Dig for potatoes

Throw a dinner party

Teach a class

Crack the spine of Mastering the Art of French Cooking

See theatre

Take a dance lesson

Spend an entire day just playing with my son

Make myself a birthday crown

Fly a kite

The beauty of the best-laid plans is that they are bound to be interrupted by even more delicious prospects. Anything could happen in these 40 days. Sadly, I don’t wake up every morning with the same wonder and presence I hope to have during my Birth-Days. It won’t be without its challenges but maybe I’ll emerge transformed, with 40 priceless gifts.

Photo: Me, on my 35th Birthday, celebrated in 1 day.

Out of The Nest

I’m back.

I did write while I was away but was so overwhelmed with travel, moving house, and children’s birthday parties that nothing made it to my blog. I don’t want you to feel like we’re strangers now and I offer the peace pipe below as a small slice of my past couple of months. Please know that you were missed:

16 August 2012

My experience so far is that moving house is hard when you’re caring for a very small child. In fact this is my experience at this very moment, or up until five minutes ago when I put my small child to bed. Now I’m eating chocolate and trying to untangle my feelings through writing. The other option was drink an entire bottle of wine. I feel I’ve made the mature choice. If I’m to be truly authentic here, I should tell you that if I’m able to complete this post I’ll have the bottle of wine anyway.

My phone just ding-a-linged. A text from my husband who’s working late tonight. Not only is my phone in the bedroom with the small sleeping child, the text from my husband contains a request to do yet another thing before the end of the day.

Just uncorked the wine.

I need to take a photo of Lennon for his daily blog. I knew I needed to do this even before my husband texted, but today has been so joyless, I decided to not engage in the hopeful act of photography, out of sheer protest. Several camera perfect moments floated in front of me today and while I did feel a little guilty for not capturing them, I reminded myself that we’re in wartime: allen wrench calluses on my hands and piles of card board--I simply can’t be bothered. But now, my husband has taken time out of his twelve-hour workday to remind me to take a photo. It’s time for me to enter the calm eye of the storm, get a hold of my damn self, and snap a bloody picture already. I stumble over a poorly placed box full of heavy books to get to the camera and snap a sloppy photo of my sleeping child.

Back to the wine. Pouring myself another glass, in fact. These two glasses will probably mean that I’ll not sleep well enough tonight. They’ll likely ensure that I’ll have an annoyingly foggy headed day tomorrow, frustrated with my sleepiness, the mountain of boxes, and all that God forsaken fiberboard furniture I have to put together.

…………

But listen to this:

“The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride. To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” –Pema Chodron

…………

So much of the pain I’ve felt this week has come about because of rough spots and imperfections, annihilation of routines, disruption of peace. I almost started crying in IKEA Tuesday over counter tops. I’d like to be someone who views change and challenge with a spirit of adventure. In those moments, I want to think: “what can I learn here?” Currently, fuzzy brained panic is prevailing. There’s also the concern of being too fastidious in my pursuit of laidback-ness, where ‘allowing for messy’ becomes yet another thing with a deadline.

Just finished the chocolate. Sipping the wine.

I can feel myself tense as I hear the noises from the street. Our old apartment was in a Hof and though we had little sunlight, we had near to no noise. Here, I’m very aware that I live in an urban environment. Just had to put Lennon back to sleep. When I come back to my wine, a fly is perched on the edge of my glass.

Chaos. Mess. Drunken, messy chaos: I will try to enjoy you.

No. No try.

I will enjoy {whispered as she jumps from nest}  

Photo source found here.
Information on Pema Chodron found here.