The word “June” looks like flowers to me somehow. I also love the way it sounds. June evokes flowers, blue skies, fresh air, and kites, even though lately it’s been riddled with April-like rain for years here. June is fun, Gemini energy.
For me the first week of June is crammed with bittersweet significance. It kicks off with my own birthday on the 1st, and then my dear cousin Joanne’s birthday the day after, someone I used to live downstairs from. June 5th is triple loaded for it’s my son’s father’s birthday, a man I’ve known for about 5 years and haven’t seen in the last four, my paternal grandmother’s birthday, and the day my mother died. June 7th is my cousin Yvonne’s birthday, someone I’ve always considered to be my “long distance sister”, and the day my maternal grandmother died. Finally, my 20th high school reunion falls on June 6, this Saturday (no idea what to wear yet).
On my birthday I wake up feeling so goddamn special, it never fails, no matter what I’m going through in life. June 1 seeps into my mind, a happy, reflective thing, and I feel as if I’ve climbed another rung in the ladder of life, I got to reach the next number, the next number this year being 38. This year, thanks to my sister putting the upbeat, get-up-and-go “Spoon” song, You Got Yr Cherry Bomb on my phone, it was in my head as I woke up and it propelled me throughout the morning of getting the kids to school and on my way to work. I have no problem making it “all about me” on this day, if not externally then in my swelling head. The triumphant thought of, “Yayy, I got to revolve around the sun once more!” swirls inside me all day.
Inevitably throughout the year those feelings turn more into, oh nooo I am really up there, aren’t I and I start to long for the days of being younger. But I always do this, and it’s so stupid. I remember freaking out when I turned 20! No more teen years to live out! It didn’t help when my friend Liz teased me about it, her having months over me before she turned the same age.
There are things I wish I could do over in my life or re-live, but when I learned about the Brazilian term for nostalgia, saudade, as much as I thoroughly understood it, saudade is ultimately something I don’t want to be stuck in. I have friends who seem to glorify its heartache and a father who is content in his own time warp in terms of taste in movies and music. I love a lot of the old movies he’s gotten me into and I like older music, and not just in a distant, appreciative way but in an embarrassingly, out of touch, obnoxious, geeked out level. And I know I'm not alone in this or anything, but still.
I’m aware of the dangers of getting lost in yesterday and drowning in them so I try to tiptoe over those saudade puddles. Maybe that’s why I like my birthday so much at first because it's proof that I’m still moving ahead.
My children help me with this too, in a way. Eventually I have to get pulled back up onto the surface of today and get on with it because of them; the lunch boxes, appointments with the pediatrician, putting the toys away and getting them to do the same. And I get to look forward to the more beautiful things like the excitement they get when they lose their baby teeth, noticing them articulate their ideas more, their facial expressions developing, and being a part of their affection and understanding.
When I told my father and sister about my 20th high school reunion they both reacted with, What? That long? Yeah, that long. A second grade girl at the school I volunteer in thought I was turning 21, 23 the most, not 38. I’m telling you, our perceptions of time can be so terribly warped. You can press on and still appear to be staying in one place.
These June dates provoke so much in me and I know it’s fine to sit with that, and reflect on what they mean. But I can’t let it dictate my “everything”. They are after all, just dates on a calendar. I can honor my mother anytime, for example. I can also remember my ‘Grandma’ and ‘Mami Ana’ whenever I want to, or show some love to my fellow Gemini cousins. It’s all within reach and not bound to that one annual date. But this is a glimpse of my first week this month and what it means to me.
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