How a dilemma at the garden center became a favorite moment of this birthday.

Numbers are not my thing, so I tune out as many as possible, like my official age. Just a number, right?!

But then comes a birthday, when I embrace the whole month of June as mine for celebrating long, light-filled days, a fresh summer — and am forced to face a higher number as my official age.

Especially this month as my husband and elder stepson delighted in calling my attention to the NUMBER 53.

 How does it feel? my husband asked on my birthday morning, delivering a cup of coffee to me in bed.

 My elder stepson texted birthday greetings early with a couple pictures of his gorgeous, grinning little boy whose smile turns my insides to wiggly-wobbly JELL-O. Soon, another message with the freaking NUMBER, in all caps, a lot of punctuation and the question:

How does it feel?

I asked him about Father’s Day weekend plans, ignoring the pesky question that had already planted itself in my mind, and got ready for the “mulching party.”

My Birthday Wish

My husband’s gift of two big scoops of mulch included him unloading it that afternoon. Mmmmm… I couldn’t wait.

Last summer, we splurged. On my birthday, he took me to my favorite beach in Maine while our contractor and his crew renovated the second floor of our house for a new bathroom designed around my dream bathtub. The cast-iron, clawfoot soaker would be so good for bathing grandchildren — and for my aging joints — and required a new floor system to support it in our 1860s house.

This year, a mulch party is exactly what I wanted and needed. The rain finally returned our soil to its soft, luscious state, my place to recharge and regroup, digest and daydream as my hands pull weeds and work the earth.

 Back to the earth is my way to slow it all down and savor.

June has been busy, loaded with happy events and layers of memory. The blessing and privilege of aging, I’ve found, is that certain times of year take on all kinds of meaning both bitter and sweet.

My birthday falls around Father’s Day, and this one was richer and harder than it’s been in awhile.

All month, as we celebrated the bridal shower for my soon-to-be daughter-in-law and my younger stepson’s first Father’s Day, I’ve held the joy of watching our kids launch and settle into their family lives as new, fantastic fathers.

Still, as Father’s Day approached, I felt the weight and emotional reverberations of the past.

A Time Loaded with Memories

For many years selecting a Father’s Day card was a dilemma. (Read: When Father’s Day is Complicated.) Those cards all say such nice things. My dad and I worked hard to heal and make peace in our relationship. Then, 11 years ago, enjoying the first baseball season of this new life as part of a baseball family, I called my dad on Father’s Day from my younger stepson’s baseball game, eager to share the moment with him.

Our catcher played that evening at the field with the big lights where you could perch on the hill and watch the game against a backdrop of folding green mountain ridges and the sound of horse-drawn buggies.

I knew my dad would have loved to be there, sharing a couple of hot dogs.

But he sounded so strange on the other end of the call, and said he didn’t feel good. The next day, an Emergency Room doctor told my dad he had pancreatic cancer, a moment of shock marking the beginning of the end. His last chapter. Our last chapter.

A moment heavy on my mind this June. I looked forward to unloading all of that weight I’d been carrying, along with the mulch, into the garden.

Dear Toyota: Short Women Drive Trucks, Too!

Off we went to the landscape center in the big Toyota Tundra pickup. I am five foot, four and a half inches “tall.” Before we bought this truck, my husband made sure I felt safe driving it, and I do. Yet, climbing up into the driver’s seat with nothing but the steering wheel to hang onto is tricky. (Dear Toyota: Why is there a nice handle on the passenger side, and not the driver’s side?)

Just after that little bulldozer dumped a big scoop of single-ground, pine bark mulch into the pickup bed, I realized we’d forgotten a rake or hoe to spread out the mulch, making room for a second scoop — which was coming quick. And someone was waiting in the mulch line.

So I held the top edge of the truck bed, anchored one foot on the tire and pulled myself up and over the side.

Soon, I was on my hands and knees in the bed of the pickup, pushing mulch into the corners, taking in the sweet scent of pine bark.

I felt deliriously happy, like a Cheshire cat stretching in a sunbeam. My body warm, hands working, arms reaching as my knees and toes anchored me in the soft, rich shreds of bark.

Joyfully immersed in my task. No stress. No pain. I felt good, fully alive and grateful to be.

Embracing mid-life, not afraid to be silly — and excited about all the miles ahead.

So — how does 53 feel?

Like that moment in the mulch pile. Mostly like a privilege, borrowing a descriptor of aging from a relative’s post about her college reunion. I am healthy and lucky to have never spent a night in a hospital.

Also, truth be told, it feels a little scary to be closer to the end than the beginning. Someday this body will indeed go back to the earth for good. None of us really knows when, nor what will happen in the leadup or aftermath of that moment.

 My ‘50s have given me heightened awareness that life is finite, unfolding like quicksilver.

My body is changing. My feet and joints are stiff and tender after sitting awhile. My friends and I talk about the shoes we love most for our sore feet that are showing their mileage.

But oh, all those exciting places our feet can still take us.

My heroines are vibrant, strong and wise, rocking their silver hair, calling it like it is, shaking off inhibitions and busting society’s norms of how women of a certain age are supposed to look and behave and be.

Not afraid to say no, to get the rest we need.

I want to be a good role model for my daughters-in-law, our infant granddaughter, my nieces. You can do or be anything you want to be, sweethearts, at any age. Find your bliss and purpose. Be strong and brave and do your part to help heal this world aching for the rising wisdom of strong women.

Right here in the Middle, Rejoicing

My challenge, then, is to rejoice in all I still have and all I can still do rather than lament what I’m losing, to face fears head-on. With honest conversation, faith and planning.

The rush of it all struck me in the pickup bed at the garden center, chuckling and playing in the mulch, thinking when we got home I could lie flat on my back in the mulch, moving both arms and legs into the curves of an angel’s wings and body. The thought made me giggle.

Warm and limber, my few creaky spots in my lower back felt just fine as I planted my right foot on one rear tire of the pickup and deeply lunged so the other foot could reach for the ground. Back to the Earth.

53? Well, I felt young enough to still do THAT and old enough to not give a rat’s patootie who saw a silver-haired grandma blissing out in a pile of mulch — or what anyone thought of it. That’s how it feels.

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