1) This second birthday during COVID stole over me gently like a slow and shallow tide on a flat beach. I could see it coming, but I wasn’t particularly alarmed or excited about it. But don’t get me wrong — I haven’t stopped loving my birthday! Along with New Year’s Eve, October 28 has its own unique radiance.
1a) This year that radiance was very much tinted by all the people I couldn’t be with in person — and of course when I say all you know very well I mean everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life.
2) Three scheduled activities occupied my day, one of which had nothing to do with my birthday. In the late morning a very dear friend called for coffee with half a dozen assorted doughnuts from Kane’s. We had a good old-fashioned visit in my parlor for almost two hours; it was like the Before Times.
2a) But the sugar content in that one chocolate glazed doughnut left me — how shall I say this? — sharpened by a halo of sugary spears, and I was more than relieved when I found an acetomenophan (sp?) in the house. Oof!
3) In the late afternoon I attended a Zoom retirement party for a friend and former colleague at ye Instytytte. Something like 100 attendees, and so many friendly and familiar faces in all those little boxes — just not possible to reach out to every one. This event created a cozy screen of happy memories I felt I hadn’t accessed in awhile.
4) Early in the evening I gathered at ye South Ynde Byttery for a little birthday dinner with three friends. Early because I’d asked to dine outside due to COVID, and it’s getting chilly. This turned out to be the perfect evening to launch my Venetian tabarro for the season, and I must say, it’s perfect for al fresco dining in the autumn.
4a) And a very good dinner: devils on horseback, Faroe Island salmon, a quantity of rosé, and then chocolate mousse (their only dessert) and apologies from the waitress that “our birthday candles were taken away.”
4b) Suddenly I jumped out of my skin when I felt a hand clap down on my shoulder. When you’re dining outside in the South End with your back to the sidewalk, well . . . it could be anybody. In this case, anybody was the beaming face and person of my friend Jim, walking home from a meeting, and a true pleasure to see him it was.
5) I didn’t get onto ye Fycebykke until late in the afternoon — let’s face it, I am just not spending much time there now — but in a shameless bid for attention I did put up a post and a story on Etiquetteer’s Ynstagrym. And it was indeed gratifying! And there were private messages, and replies to photos — every year I love reading and responding to everyone — and in real life, birthday cards, phone calls, one friend singing Happy Birthday on video, another on Facetime, and anxiety from my English friends about a parcel that hasn’t yet arrived.
5a) But the overall impression (looking back a day later) was of a cascade of names, impressions, memories, happinesses — but just out of reach in a shimmering wall. What is that wall? COVID, geographic distance, change of different kinds (routine, circumstance, position), and sometimes preference. It is keeping me from a peopled life, at least during the pandemic.
5b) I would just love to have gathered these hundreds of friends, colleagues, cousins together for one Big Occasion. I am like my Granny Dimmick that way; we both loved having a lot of people around.
6) And speaking of Granny, it was only fitting that at about 11 PM I got a text: “Are you at home by yourself?” About five minutes later my fun-loving Crazy Cousines from Atlanta called with a rendition of Happy Birthday delivered with their traditional brio. Absolutely wonderful!
7) On a more introspective note, Version 1.59 has to clean up a lot of bugs from, say, Version 1.5 through Version 1.58. It is a terrible thing to reach this age and delve into etiquette books only to be confronted by the enormity of one’s failings. (No, I am not talking about setting the table wrong. Oh no.) Queen Gertrude’s words come back to me a lot right now: “Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;/And there I see such black and grainéd spots/As will not leave their tinct.” Reprogramming the software to prevent error repetition feels like a big job.
8) I am at least still privileged, as I like to say at my parties, to know only the Very Best People. Of course that means YOU! I sure hope you can be with me in two years when I launch Version 1.40.a.
