Panorama

Tomorrow is my thirty-second birthday, and I am feeling introspective. Summer is all of a sudden over and it’s raining outside and I’m not sure what time it is because I went to bed late and got up early and the clocks changed today. I’m sitting here on my bed waiting for my sheets to dry and to go with my extremely fantastic flattie A. to go to the bigWarehouse in Lyall Bay to get birthday-tiramisu-making supplies, which will have to include a big mixing bowl as well as an electric mixer because there is no way in hell I am whipping egg whites by hand. I have this entry about flirting I’ve been wanting to write but I’m just not in the mood today—I’m in the mood to look around at my messy room and think about the past year and about being ankle-deep in my thirties now and to write about it online, sipping tea and listening to autumnal music. Last year my birthday ended up being on the of the first warm days in the fickle Seattle spring, and tomorrow I bet it’s going to be another rainy windy Wellington fall day.

Last year was really good, and not just because of the stripper, y’all dirty-minded pervert-heads. It was just really fun to have everyone in my house, and feel all the love that they poured all over me like Magic Shell upon a delicious ice cream sundae. I went out with three cute boys Friday night and was telling them all about it, saying that it was going to be pretty difficult to beat that birthday. (At least one of them offered his amateur-stripping services, so check this space tomorrow to see how that all panned out…)

Last year I was saying, “Well, to top this I’m going to have to move to another hemisphere or something for thirty-two,” and, you know? Here I am. I’m just going to work tomorrow and meeting my friend Steven (for the first time! ) at the airport and going out to dinner for my actual birthday, but underneath it all, still, is the knowledge that I made it here, that I continue to make it here. I’m making it here so much that I don’t want to leave in five months, that I’m trying to stay longer so I can keep being the person New Zealand is allowing me to be. Thirty-one has been more challenging and difficult and and amazing than I ever thought would be possible after leaving my twenties—because obviously once you pass twenty-nine you stop growing or changing or doing anything interesting at all, ever—and even though I have the culturally-mandated slight fear of ageing, I have to say that it looks like all systems are go for a really good thirty-two. That’s part of how I’ve changed since being here, I think: I’m a lot more interested in a lot more things than I used to be, and therefore I’m having a really good time and life is just better in general, better than I was even able to imagine in my constricted, benighted twenties. I’m just really curious about what’s going to happen this year, about the entry I’ll be writing in March of 2008 about thirty-two. Will I be celebrating in spring or fall next year? Regardless, it’s going to be really good. I feel it. I know it.

Since writing the above this morning, the clouds have rolled back and given me a last perfect summer’s day. A., (who instructed me to tell the internet how good she is at reversing into parking spots in her car, not to mention her parallel parking skills) and I put on “singlet tops” and sunnies and took the long way to Lyall Bay and to the other shops, where I proceeded to spend a hundred dollars, more or less, on tiramisu-making ingredients and equipment—totally worth it, because I just whipped the cream and popped it in the fridge, and it is going to be awesome. I am wearing new earrings and listening to Goldfrapp and Stevie Wonder and looking forward to going to a friend’s house to cook dinner and watch a movie and sit out in the garden and maybe get a sunset. It’s been a good end to thirty-one.

Here’s what I got out of this year: My world is opening up in all sorts of ways, my eyes are getting wider and I’m able to see bigger and clearer and farther. Several years ago when I was making some really hard decisions about my life, I said I wanted more, more, more. I have more, now. I didn’t think I ever would. I’m doing and thinking and being more, and at this point I can only think that I’m going to continue with more. Every year, the blinders come off a little more; every year, the panorama swells and blossoms and I keep walking forward, studded with the jewels of each passing day, into the rest of my life.