This morning I woke up and I was 58 years old. 

I love my birthday, I always love my birthday, but this year I feel a little tongue-tied about it. I never complain about my age; I'm just so glad to be alive. Still, sometimes I am in the mood for a retrospective, and that is not how I'm feeling this morning. I could emote about turning 60 in two years, I could recall childhood birthday anxieties about being spanked, I could say something elegiac about autumn. Maybe I'll do some or all of that before this post ends, but for the moment I don't feel the urge to do much more than be.

There is a stack of little wrapped gifts in the dining room, sent by my mother. There are bright cards on the mantle. 

My day will be quiet. I finished the editing project, so will do some class prep and then plant garlic, maybe go to the plant nursery to look at flower bulbs, definitely buy ingredients to make a lemon layer cake with mascarpone frosting.

I want a day when I am flotsam and jetsam, quietly bumping up against this and that. I want a day when working for other people isn't my primary activity.

I will listen to a little playoff baseball and mix up my cake. I will dig in the dirt. I will read a book and drink tea. I will fiddle with some poems. I will let the day be itself.