Guest Post by Jessieh

Dear Jenny(s),

I realize this may come as no surprise to you but I also realize that it quite possibly could. It is officially your birthday. For reasons that can go without stating (for obvious reasons) birthdays are, like many normal life experiences, quite painful. This is not fair. We are going to live full, fun and completely astonishing lives despite the fact that things have not and will never be fair. Today is a day of grief for several, if not many parts of you. I do not mean to minimize this fact or try and offer some forced cheer. I want to merely suggest something else: Today is a day to celebrate being fully alive.

Today cannot be taken away from you ever again. Today, you can be anything and anyone you desire to be. You can do anything you want to do. You can live today without fear and without worry.

You are beautiful. You are strong. You are loved in more ways than you will ever know.

And because (for an even more obvious reason) we could not decide how we should celebrate today, we have these things to offer:

First: A Birthday Song

Happy Birthday by the Innocence Mission

When you wake up sun will shine.
We will not go under any cloud.
Let balloons go up in town,
ring out every bell.
Happy birthday, beautiful,
all the birds of this day
sing a song, sing a song.

Dream of trains carrying you
through the state parks with the cherry flowers.
When you wake up it will be
the beginning of the world.
Happy birthday, beautiful,
in the fields of this day
hear a song, hear a song.

Oh, undeserved sweetness and light,
stay by my side.
We will go out in the morning now,
a crown of maple leaves, a crown of flowers
circling your sweet head.
Happy birthday, beautiful,
in the streets of this day
play a song, play a song.

You can listen to this song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9v4O2U7u7Q

Second: I go back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar make of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips back in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it - she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to die. I want to go
up to them there in the at May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like male and female
paper dolls and bang then together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

~Sharon Olds

THIRD: this one (let us not ask who or exactly why)! It is very important:

Other things about 32:

32 is the ninth Happy number.

The New General Catalogue object NGC 32, a star in the constellation Pegasus

The number of completed, numbered piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven

In the Kabbalah, there are 32 Kabbalistic Paths of Wisdom.

Sometimes considered to be the occult opposite of number 23

In Regina Spektor: "32 is still a god damn number"

REMEMBER YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE 32 TODAY IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO THAT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE MORE SPECIAL THAN OTHER PEOPLE!!!! (Jessieh almost erased that for the record).

32 WAYS TO DESCRIBE YOUS:

splediforious, magical, creative, terrific, better than The Golden Girls, tremendous, fab, incredible, lovely, tough, delightful, sugar-free with a little spice, joyous, crazy-great, totally rad, neato, wicked, genius, extraordinary, brilliant, super-fly, magnificent, lovable, cuddly, the cat’s meow, artistic, inspirational, besty besty friend everrrr, Lloyd’s other woman, multi-faceted (go ahead, laugh really hard), passionate, and ALIVE!!!

I love you so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Love always and then forever,

Jessieh