Byron has been in the midst of a midlife crisis since I met him around age 21 so he is bound to have many woeful thoughts this year as we both hit our mid-thirties. But when I woke up on the boat Saturday morning this is the first thing that occurred to me: it has been exactly twenty-three years since I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I’m nothing if not competitive, and I think that it is safe to say that turning thirty-five is the most genius accomplishment yet.
Of course, with precise comic timing, a letter from the teaching hospital was waiting in my postbox. The department of medical genetics would be ever so pleased to make my acquaintance – and I haven’t even been referred.
Repudiating the month of January and giving up my birthday was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done; but it is my fate, and my pleasure, to attend parties, and this year Byron staged one on my behalf. Iain and Xtina showed up early to watch me pretend to cook and later the place filled up with an eclectic crowd of friends, with children running amok under foot.
Karen cooked dumplings, Sally and Steve turned up with beautiful flowers, Sarah and David brought chocolate, Josh brought wine, Don and Barbara gave me a weather vane with little dancing Germans.
Iain and Xtina gifted me with a Powell Pressburger film and loaned all sorts of books and movies to acclimate me to this new country. My children offered the Willy Wonka movie soundtrack featuring Gene Wilder, and assorted books I wanted from the Cambridge University Press.
We pulled out the button (in the UK one would say ‘badge’) machine to amuse the guests, played music, talked, and ate. I proved my claim that the older child is a clone by pulling out pictures of me at the same age; it is in fact rather spooky that she is so like me physically – and nothing like me in terms of personality.
One of the best parts about making new friends is the fact that they’ve never heard the stories I can’t publish; in the middle of one I remembered the Cautionary Tales series Gabriel and I collaborated on. I pulled it out for the first time in years; my elder child was astonished and kept pestering me to do something with it.
By the time the last guest rolled out the door at two in the morning it was officially our tenth wedding anniversary.
We don’t celebrate this milestone as it is such a random marker. I have always viewed marriage as an economic contract (hence the fact that I’ve been married to someone or other continuously for sixteen years).
In exercising the privilege I have gained access to health insurance, community property protection, inheritance rights, and sundry other novelties that have proved worth the trouble. It is a huge bonus that I really like Byron. We marked the day by drifting around town chatting with friends.
It was, in short, a brilliant weekend.