Confession: I’m a birthday brat. When I was a kid, I’d start brainstorming party themes and ideas with my mom beginning in August…for my February birthday! You’d think that would have changed as I got older, but it absolutely did not. The last couple of years my mom’s commented in September or October, “I’m surprised you haven’t brought up your birthday yet..” With so much going on this year, I’ve declared birthday week instead of birthday month.

I will turn 32 on Wednesday (yes, on the holiday), and we started my birthday week by attending an author reading last night. (AM I A NERD?) Clint Smith’s “Above Ground” is an absolutely stunning poetry collection. The first poem, as he said last night, is kinda like his thesis of the book –

The redwoods are on fire in California. A flood submerges a neighborhood that sat quiet on the coast for three centuries. A child takes their first steps and tumbles into a father’s arms. Two people in New Orleans fall in love under an oak tree whose branches bend like sorrow. A forest of seeds are planted in new soil. A glacier melts into the ocean and the sea climbs closer to the land. A man comes home from war and holds his son for the first time. A man is killed by a drone that thinks his jug of water is a bomb. Your best friend relapses and isn’t picking up the phone. Your son’s teacher calls to say he stood up for another boy in class. A country below the equator ends a twenty-year civil war. A soldier across the Atlantic fires the shot that begins another. The scientists find a vaccine that will save millions of people’s lives. Your mother’s cancer has returned and the doctors say there is nothing else they can do. There is a funeral procession in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away. (Reprinted from this interview)

I loved the duality of this collection: joy alongside despair. The other poet, Patricia Smith, was new to me, but I can’t wait to check out her book from my public library. The first of my celebrations was a hit!!

*Special shout-out to my mom for holding down the fort with my 4 year old, 2 year old, and 2 month old*