On my tenth birthday, I had a costume party. I was a duchess, and we had home-made lemonade and frozen cherry pie. I was a skinny kid with a big imagination.

On my twentieth, in Paris, I drank and danced and danced and drank and watched the sun rise over the city, my head spinning. I was a punk ballerina.

On my thirtieth, Sam threw a dinner party for my girlfriends in San Francisco, roasted Brussel sprouts. I was a newlywed playing house.

On my fortieth, I gathered some of my favorite people at a California ranch. We rode horses and shot clay pigeons. I was a badass mother.

I’m turning fifty on the twenty-seventh.

This past summer a nice Southern girl who came to visit the garden where I worked answered my question with a “Yes Ma’am!”— I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her— “What do you mean by Ma’am? We could be sisters!”

Inside I still feel, at times, like a fledgling.
At other times, like a barn cat going on its fifth life.
Grey-haired, nimble, and strong.
A few scars.
Now here,
Now gone.

Self-contained,
But also
Tender
I find increased tolerance for my fellows’ inconsistencies
and my own imperfections,
Fewer expectations.

I have learned just a few things all of them the hard way:
That the crack between black and white is where all interesting things grow.
That grace is like a soap bubble, a milkweed seed, a smile on my favorite person’s face— Fleeting.

Certainty—
Fleeting.

Happiness—
Sadly fleeting.

Sadness—
Happily, also fleeting.

This sweet, hard life—
Definitely fleeting.

But the need, in each of us, to not only be loved
But also, somehow, known—
Never-ending.