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She arose at 10 a.m. and went to bed at midnight and in those fourteen hours there were no harsh words, no snarls or snippy comments, no big spills, no spam messages, no knocks on the door by downstairs neighbors complaining about our shower leaking onto their bed.
Instead there were phone calls from numerous people she loves, there were numerous small thoughtful gifts, there was a very long entertaining supper outdoors on a warm September evening with good food (but not too much) and lighthearted talk and some good stories and nothing about a possible constitutional crisis in November.
Her day began with coffee outdoors with her husband and two poems by him, a sonnet and a limerick, he being a professional writer — were he a plumber or a podiatrist, he might've given her a bouquet of petunias, but no — and a cheerful conversation about small things, and some phone calls and text messages, and it ended with a FaceTime call from her brother and his wife in Minnesota with plenty of laughter and then she aced the Sunday Times crossword and got "the last of the Marx brothers" (Zeppo) and then a last phone call, from our daughter who's away at school and in a good mood, who said, "Make me laugh" and we did, by whispering the word "diarrhea."
I've never paid much attention to birthdays and I keep forgetting them and I have always pooh-poohed making a big deal of my own. I thought of birthdays as something you do for children. And I'm from Minnesota where we're brought up to be self-disparaging. "Don't go to any trouble for me," I've said about a thousand times in my life.
Birthdays are an expression of love, nothing more, nothing less. Tyrants do not get beautiful birthdays like the one on Saturday: to be surrounded by sycophants and security men, with loyal followers cheering from the plaza below as you stand on your balcony — it's not the same thing. Al Capone didn't get a perfect birthday party; he was always aware of the snub-nose .38 in his shoulder holster. Lenin didn't enjoy his because Trotsky was there, giving him strange looks.
My sweetie is dearly loved by a great many people who take time to let her know she is loved and that's almost all you need. You don't need excess. Look at what we Christians do to Christmas. So the supper Saturday was antipasti, no platters of prime rib, and some wine, and an opera cake for dessert, and coffee. No rants, no lectures. People told stories.
A story about a son who celebrated his 30th birthday by going for a thirty-mile run and about a violinist having to learn to play viola in three weeks and about a woman interviewed on TV who had thirteen children — she said, "I love my husband" — and the host said, "I love my cigar but I take it out now and then."
I must say, it helps to be in a pandemic, having been self-isolating for many months and anticipating more of the same — it makes supper with friends around a table feel like a great luxury. Life feels more precious, knowing that danger is in the air. Creating one perfectly beautiful day is a heroic achievement.
And now we go on. What else can we do? Every day, these days, my email box is full of scores of pleading letters from candidates and they all say, "We are so close to victory but we're being outspent by dark money and your contribution, no matter how modest, will make the difference and carry us to victory" and it's nice to imagine that we can check the $10 box and help save the world, but meanwhile the great challenge is to love the ones we love and give them pleasure. It's all about love and friendship. That's what it's always been about.
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Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality. His latest book is "The Lake Wobegon Virus: A Novel". Buy it at a 33% discount! by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR.