Rainy birthday
When did it start to rain? On Sunday the sun was still out and bright. I went to the Legaspi market. It was already raining then though a little uncertainly. Then we drove out to Sta. Rosa to have a delicious lunch with my daughter and her family. I thought that lunch would kick off my birthday week. You see my birthday is on Aug. 8 or 8.8.
I have had only two major celebrations that I can remember. The first was on 8.8.88 when I turned 44. I had a birthday celebration at the old Sampaguita compound because of all the 8’s in my birthday. It was numerologically remarkable. It also rained then. You see August is a rainy month, the beginning of the typhoon season in our country. Whenever my birthday comes around and I try to recall all the other times, I generally remember rain, a typhoon, a tropical depression but I don’t ever remember it ever raining as hard as it did this year.
The second was on 8.8.08 when I turned 64. Then I had a party at the Alexandra Clubhouse in Ortigas. I invited all my friends and most of them came. I put them all together that year — my friends from school, from Avellana & Associates where I used to work, from McCann-Erickson, where I also used to work, from the advertising community, my writing students, my market friends, my relatives. At 8 p.m. that night I introduced them all to each other and hoped they would enjoy themselves. I said it was my first and last big birthday bash because the numbers were exciting once again. It was 8.8.08 and 8x8=64, which was what I was turning then.
Since then I have had no more parties but on my birthday week I go out a lot with different circles of friends. Last Sunday with my daughter and next Sunday with my son. My family sort of bookends my birthday week.
Yesterday, Aug. 7, I woke up almost in the dark. I thought maybe it was six o’clock in the morning but when I looked at my clock it was almost eight. Outside my window the rain was falling in hard solid sheets. Now I remember, it began to rain this hard on Monday afternoon and continued on through Monday night. I remember seeing two bright flashes of lightning followed by two extremely deafening angry peals of thunder then very heavy rain falling in grey sheets.
I texted the two girls who come to my home to work with me and told them: no work today. I made myself coffee and watched local television that spoke of floods, requests for rescue, rivers overflowing. I was supposed to have lunch with my dear market friends Sunny, Reni and Tanya but in the end we had to postpone lunch to when the weather improved. I was happy to stay in my nightgown that I had slept in the night before and dragged myself around the house doing nothing much.
I switched from local TV to cable, watched Law & Order and NCIS, Criminal Minds, Parenthood, all sorts of other shows going on behind my back while I played solitaire then mahjongg on my computer.
I got up to walk to the kitchen to get myself something to drink or to help myself to a cookie or two. I got hungry at 11 and heated up leftovers for my lunch. Then I had dinner at five and went to bed to read The Fallen Angel, a novel about a woman who fell to her death in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Read that until I fell asleep. It was the eve of my 68tth birthday and I spent it well doing nothing in particular, just having and enjoying my own personal definition of having a good peaceful time.
Today I woke up at six o’clock in the morning. Very early. I turned on the TV set again to catch the local news. A slight improvement from yesterday but I determined not that much. So I texted my two girls again and told them not to come in, still no work. The sky was beginning to clear so I asked my driver to come in because I had lunch with my jewelry class friends. That went through and we enjoyed ourselves eating, gossiping and laughing together. Towards the end of lunch the rain began to fall again. I invited them to have dessert at my house and noticed that the rain kept falling harder in solid sheets again. I wondered how long this strange weather would last.
I think this is the rainiest birthday I have ever had. Bed weather, one of my friends texted, and that made me smile. Yes, it is wonderful to go to bed with a good book, nice fluffy pillows and a light blanket with no one to disturb you, no one to ask you for water or coffee or juice, to do just exactly what you feel like doing.
That makes this birthday feel really good and worthwhile.
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