Our Town Birthday

It's official...this mama is 29! For the first time. And the last. I contemplated skipping 29 altogether and moving to 30, but decided I should take this year to wrap up my 20's in the next year while I look forward to starting into a new decade.

I set out to have an Our Town inspired birthday and I had a day I will always remember...for being normal and special at the same time. You see...by a strange series of circumstances starting with a unusual master class schedule that landed all 120 freshmen in LA this fall we had more students that texts and teachers were scrambling for material. Our Town, Thornton Wilder's famous play, is traditionally a 10th grade text, but became 9th grade.

I had never read or taught this play and I wasn't so happy to have to figure out how to do so quickly. But I fell in love with it.

Paul Newman produced the play in 2000 and coupled with reading the text as a class, watching Newman's version, and watching a PBS documentary called OT that chronicles Compton, CA teens (self proclaimed ghetto home of ganster rap) putting on the play despite numerous obstacles, the students fell in love too. After all, they live in small towns and know firsthand how small towns, like Grover's Corners, are.

For me, it brought Rock Port, Missouri to life. My mom grew up in Rock Port; my grandparents still live there. I have walked down Main Street all my life to people unwittingly calling me Cheryl. A few Christmases ago I was standing at my grandma's kitchen sink when her neighbor came through, called me Cheryl, and looked like she'd seen a ghost when she saw my mom too.

Each Act of Our Town is simply titled by the pattern of life: Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and finally Death. In the last Act, the dead speak amongst themselves in the cemetery as someone new joins them. It brought back memories of the many times I have stood in the cemetery on the hill in Rock Port saying goodbye, looking at dates on stones, laying flowers, and telling stories. I know I will be there again.

It was an ironic beauty that we were reading and watching Act 3 on the day before my birthday. Emily Webb, to reader's shock after just moments earlier in the play having "attended" her wedding, is now a wife and mom, but joining the dead in the cemetery. She has died in childbirth and wants desperately to go back. Against the dead's advice, she chooses to relive her 12th birthday but is so udderly saddened by the realization that the living don't understand how precious life's little moments are, so she willingly returns to her place among the dead.

As a teacher of literature, I view stories as mirrors and windows, and I found my thoughts tumbling over my ever so brief brush with mortality when Georgia was born. We dismiss it as a overzealousness treatment of a iffy situation, but for a few hours in the middle of Georgia's third night of life, we were unsure what morning would bring.

My heart raced unexplictedly after three days of strange pulse rates and blood work showed an elevated level of something that could indicate a pulmonary embolism. I remember the house doctor visiting me and while remaining cool, he was serious. It was easy to dismiss him, until he asked if my heart had raced before and I thought about the nights when I woke up in the preceding months when my heart was beating hard against my chest. He insisted that because a blood clot could be fatal if not diagnosed, it was necessary to investigate immediately. As he ran over the scenarios, I became numb. He left us for a few minutes to prepare for a CAT scan and check on an ICU room should it become necessary. He told us we would have to leave Georgia with the nurses. She had been away from us only for a hearing test. I wanted Noah to stay with her, but I was scared to be without him. I remember looking across the room at Noah, holding this tiny (ok, relatively little) dark haired bundle and bursting into tears.

How could this be happening?

In the following week, it was determined that the flu combined with a low tolerance for narcotics was to blame for my symptoms, and we all just scoffed. I continued to scoff until I read a new blog by a widowed father whose wife got up post-delivery to go see her baby, said she felt lightheaded, and died instantly from a pulmonary embolism.

It happens.

Life happens, too. Every day. Special days, too.

So I took Our Town's message to embrace the little details of life and

decided to take in every bit of my 29th birthday....

In the middle of the night I took my crying baby in my arms and soothed her. Then I laid her down on the bed and watched her close her eyes and sleep. I looked at those straight Gusy eyebrows and the long lashes and perfect Noah-ish lips. I touched that bubble nose and ran my hand over her soft hair and took in this beautiful creation of two people who

love each other very much.

I woke up my sleepy husband with a fantastic rendition of "It's my Birthday!" to start the day. He smiled and laughed at me.

I sat in a meeting before school and looked around at all the incredibly different and wonderful people I have worked with for five years. I thought about the laughs, the tears, and the obstacles we've conquered while working with hundreds of teenagers. I shook my head at our current dilemma and honestly responded "no" to a new task...no being a word I am learning to say more in order to do what is best.

I smiled at the beautiful pink roses on my desk and laughed when I saw another latte on my desk...a doubly caffeined day was ahead!! When my fellow LA teachers popped it to take credit, I was so glad to say thank you to women who I am so thankful for.

I took time to look into the eyes of every Happy Birthday wisher and even faced the class singing the song to me despite being a little embarrassed.

I had a great time answering phone calls and opening mail and reading posts from friends and family all over the country thinking of me on my day. I beat my mom to telling the story of the day I was born by giving her an I-understand-the-work-you-did THANK YOU!...and a sincere apology for her not getting dinner after I was born and having to wait for breakfast the next morning. We had a good laugh recalling Nurse Katy thinking ahead and having dinner in the fridge for me after Georgia was born (and which my mom fed me).

I was so excited to get a call on my way home and hear Noah say he was coming home early and would be there when I arrived with our girl. I was ubberly grateful to find Georgia refreshed from a nap at the sitters and ready to go to a birthday dinner.

I was pleasantly surprised by a plate of bananas the waitress brought Georgia and chuckled at her taking into it. We laughed through a dinner at Cheesecake Factory where we ate with one hand on the plate to keep Georgia from pulling it away from us and off the table. Although I felt like I was shoveling my food in as quickly as possible, I also savored what might be one of my last meals in a resturant for a while! I tried not to be worried at Georgia's antics in the resturant and greatly appreciated an older woman stopping on her way out and telling Georgia (and us) how good she was behaving!

I was ready to see the new case Noah and Georgia got for my guitar--thankful he still encourages me to explore my interests and dreams even when I haven't picked up the guitar in more than a year.

I loved every second of Noah arranging the blankets and tucking me in at the end of the night. And I loved the last thought that crossed my mind as I went to sleep...I didn't change one diaper today. How did that happen?

What a happy birthday!

(This was the ice cream cake Opa brought me!)