Oh, magnolia tree please don’t leave me
No longer a spring chicken
On Saturday, it’ll be my half-birthday. Six months left until I turn thirty. No pressure. I haven’t planned anything yet for my birthday, and it’s making me stressed. Yes, I have six months it’s fine. But I’m so excited about the opportunity to have all my loved ones together in one room and mark the ‘special’ birthday with something bigger and better than I’ve done before. I’m not panicking.
The 12th of April was also my great granny’s birthday. She was precisely seventy-nine and a half years older than me. I was six months old when she turned eighty. Can’t say I remember it, but home videos assure me I was there. Family from far and wide gathered together in my granny’s front room. My grandma’s birthday is two days later on the 14th, and it’s now her turn to celebrate being eighty.
Milestone birthdays, dates, and achievements can be a blessing and a curse. They offer moments of reflection, allowing you to zoom out of your life and consider the bigger picture. Tradition seeps in, either from religious ritual or family invention. On the anniversary of the day my Dad died and on his birthday I want nothing more than to be with my siblings. A ‘happy’ anniversary is one most often thought of, but any specific date of significance that comes around yearly counts, technically. Dates, for better or worse, thread our lives together. They’re evidence of a life lived and of time moving forward. Thanks, iPhone, for reminding me what I did on every single day of my life for the last decade of my life.
A half birthday is maybe not an occasion that calls for gifts, cards, or a cake (I’ll gladly receive all three if you were considering it) but if I had to pick a half birthday, then April is a good one. We’re approaching Easter, an opportunity to reflect on life’s cycles, circles, and the idea of rebirth. Spring has found its footing. The potency of April in particular is something I always forget. It feels silly to admit, as I know I’ve said it before, and I will probably keep on saying it as every new year comes around. Perhaps instead of finding my forgetfulness something to be embarrassed about or to change and improve upon, I can reframe it as a wonderful gift. There are countless TV shows and films I wish I could erase from my mind and watch from the start without an inkling of how things will unfold. I outwardly say as such and thought only the other day how much I’d love to rewatch the train scene with Katherine Parkinson and Danny Dyer in Rivals. The cigarettes and champagne in first class, the lost manuscript. Urgh it’s too perfect. There are lots of things I would love to experience again for the very first time, or certain days from my memory that would be magical to relive and savour that body-tingling chill-inducing feeling of awe. So, how lucky am I to forget the wonder of spring and bask in its beauty each year with amazement?
I’m upset that all the blossoms on magnolia trees have nearly finished blooming. I don’t want it to be over. I fawn over the beauty of its pale pink petals. I find now, my joy of seeing it is tinged with sadness knowing just how little it’ll last for. So, I walk a little slower when I pass by on the street. I tilt my head up towards the branches, appreciative of having been gifted another year to spend these two weeks together.
