turning seven, in dog years

My 7th birthday (in dog years, that is). I both love it and hate it that all the stuff old people used to say is actually coming true. Time does take on a different quality—it’s quick and slippery in a new way these days.

The first time I was seven I was in second grade. I don’t remember all that much except little snapshots from when I was that age.

Flash.  My teacher was named Mrs. Thomas—and if that isn’t a shout-out to teachers everywhere, I don’t know what is, because I remember her name when I can’t tell you who I had lunch with last week. I had a crush on a freckle-faced kid named Rusty, who was the naughty boy in class. He talked when we were supposed to do lessons. I always liked those talky boys who made me laugh.

Flash. We lived in southern California and it was fire-hazard dry that year; my dad plumbed the washing machine so the gray water could serve as irrigation for the lawn. It was against the city ordinance to do that, but when everyone else’s burned up, our lawn was magically the greenest on the block. It did have the sheen of run-off bubbles. The neighbor kids and I would fling the hose around and make rainbow arcs of soapy spray until my dad’s car pulled into the drive and they’d scatter, leaving me covered with bubbles and sheepish.

Flash. I vaguely recall arguments over the dinner table between my parents. Something to do with war. Somehow connected to this mysterious Vietnam business was Uncle Pete being in the Army and Uncle Fred flying for the Flying Tigers, which my mother said was “downright foolhardy these days.”

Flash. My brother and sister—twins—took the snub-nosed scissors out of the desk drawer and between them, cut the bedroom curtains in half horizontally—a jack o’lantern-grin line—and then took turns cutting each others' hair.  Somehow I got in trouble for it. I think because I was supposed to be watching them and I failed to stop them. Oh, I can think of many other things since then I didn’t stop them from doing that maybe I should’ve.

It’s true, also, when they say that you don’t really feel any different inside. But I have new lines in my face—and I’ve got what looks like the beginnings of my grandmother’s jaw. The parts of me that are fatter, saggier, and wrinkly-er don’t really bug me nearly as much as I say they do. But when I notice, it’s with some surprise. Who the hell is that old chick in the store window? And yes, my joints ache.

Those days.

These days.

I notice things more intently. More often. More consciously. The twist of a tattoo over a burly arm, the anxious tightening of a voice, the slobbery two-toothed grin of a toddler or a homeless man in the subway. I notice the sparkle of early gray in my own son’s hair, the tiny crinkle of crow’s feet at the corner of my daughter’s laughing eyes. There’s beauty in the placid old doorman’s sleepy face, the burnished gleam of fruit on the street cart, a graffiti’d wall behind an empty lot. I notice with hunger.

I attend.

I show up.

I cry more often, not just for the blues, but for the mauves and indigos and just for the hell of it. I laugh. A lot.

Time isn’t short. It’s tall. And fat. And savory.

In the words of Red Molly, “may I suggest to you that this is the best time of your life…there is a world that’s been addressed to you, a treasure chest for you.”