Photo by Moses Pendleton
Well, I’ve been carrying on about it all week, but today is my actual birthday. I was going to get all profound about my life and lie about how being fifty is so much better than being forty, or thirty or twelve. I was going to list all the things I plan on doing before I’m sixty, describe the ways I’m going to alter my personality so that I will go to heaven when I die, though I don’t really believe in heaven. But just in case there is one, I like to increase my odds of going there, as opposed to the other place that I don’t really believe in, but I’ve heard is really, really hot. I was going to write about the fact that I think about dying more now, probably because there’s no denying that I’ve already lived the bulk of my life. But I woke up this morning with an overwhelming feeling of being utterly blessed in this life and feeling grateful for that.
Many thanks to all of you who have already posted birthday wish on my FB wall and here. I love all my blog readers and commenters and at risk of offending you poem haters by posting two poems in a row, I am going to post this little one today. I’m not sure it’s even a poem. It’s a Sanskrit proverb that I have always loved:
Look to this Day
Look to this day, for it is life,
The very life of life,
In its brief course lies all the realities
And verities of existence:
The bliss of growth, the splendor of action,
The glory of power.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness.
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
Happy Birthday Ann!!
Happy birthday to talented and may I say gorgeous writer! Love your writing! Enjoy and have no worries…there’s still so much living to do (just turned 57 myself on August 11).
Your words could of come off my own lips (if I was a better writer)(: seriously though after reading your blog and that sweet poem I sat back and smiled feeling blessed myself.
Happy Birthday to you and many more!
Hi Ann, Just want to wish you a Happy Birthday. Love your blog! Take care and in case you don’t remember … I was Steve’s secaterrie. Remember … 50 is only a number!
Of course I remember you Lois! xo
Happy Birthday, Ann – you’re just a kid
BTW – did you ever get my emails? Just wondering!
Happy Birthday! My daughter turns 18 today so it’s a big one in our house! I recently turned 50 too – it’s not so bad!
i hope today is a wonderful birthday for you, followed by a great year. thanks for all the funny posts, thoughtful observations and for keeping this blog going all these years- i’ve loved reading it!
will be waiting to hear how you celebrated the big day….
Ditto! Happy Birthday, Ann.
Double Ditto! (thanks, lisa) Ann, this is going to be a great year for you. Your book will be published, just for starters! Can’t wait to read it. Please continue to enjoy your blessed life and share it with us.
“Life – the existence of each breath in this instrument.
And each breath that comes – plays the instrument.
It is a divine instrument.
An instrument that plays day and night,
never ceasing, plays and plays.
Playing a rhythm for you. Have you heard it? ” – Prem Rawat
Happy Birthday, Ann. I can tell you it’s true that life begins at 50. I’ll be 57 in a few weeks and I’m loving this part of life.
Enjoy your 50th! I think that you have many more years ahead of you–more bulk to experience. I’ll be seeing 50 in December, and am looking forward to the “second half”!
I haven’t posted a comment in a long time. Happy Birthday Ann! I love the proverb–inadvertently you have helped me today–I lost a friend unexpectedly last Thursday and the proverb is perfect for what we have all been feeling. I am stealing it for my Facebook. I hope you don’t mind.
Christine,So sorry for the loss of your friend. Sending you hugs.
Thank you!
So sorry about your friend, Christine. Sending you a hug.
Happy, Happy Birthday Ann!!!
Happy Birthday Ann. I wish you all the best for the future. God bless!
Happy Birthday Ann!! I know you just turned 50, but here are some words from Andy Rooney that I thought you might enjoy:
As I grow in age, I value women over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 50 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What are you thinking?’ She doesn’t care what you think.
If a woman over 50 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting.
Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it..
women over 50 are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.
Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50.
Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.
women over 50 are forthright and honest.. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk, if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.
Mary L I love it!!!
Love this!! Thanks for posting.
Happy Birthday Ann – hope you have a wonderful day! Mary L’s posting says it all.
Happy Birthday Ann!
welcome to the club–
Ann, have a beautiful day!! Best wishes!!
So true, and so well put, Ann. What a blessing to be able to step back and count both the challenges you’ve overcome and the blessings you enjoy. And after fifty you get to be as loud-mouthed and eccentric as you want.
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday. Wishing you the happiest birthday. I still believe that the best is yet to come!
Ann, Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that people who have the most live the longest.*
*from Birthdays Messages.com
Happy Birthday Ann! Enjoy this day in your wonderful life. As a birthday present, I will let you beat me at Scramble . . . AGAIN!!! ; )
Happy birthday from London, UK! You’re still a baby to me (57 in October). And of course, you are still a babe, which helps. I’m not a poem person, but I’ve loved reading the Sanskrit one today – it seems so apt for here, now, where a whole city is coming down from the Olympics.
Happy Birthday, dear Ann! (On your birthday, you can post as many poems as you like…). All the best to you—always!!!!
Happy Birthday Ann! 50 never looked so good!
Happy b-day and welcome to the 50 club, I am 8/21 b-day and over 50. I am finally very comfortable in my own skin and loving it.
Ann,Happy Birthday from Roxbury, Ct.
Lovely poem – and very meaningful having recently turned 50 myself. Hope you have the most wonderful birthday ever!
Dear Ann,
Happy birthday! You deserve the best that life has to offer.
Esky
Happy Birthday Ann! I hope you have a wonderful day. I didn’t know you and Denis had birthdays so close together. I’m also an August baby too (mine is the 26th).
As for “feeling old”, it’s all about attitude. When My mom turned 50 back in 2008, she reveled in it. My brothers got her an AARP membership because she asked for one!
Birthday wishes from southwest Michigan,
Jackie Tennyson
Happy Birthday Ann! As my son told me when I turned 50, You’re Official. (he was 9) Not sure what that is, would like to think it’s more on the exciting/glamourous side because I pretty much do what I want, although reality is closer to bat shit crazy. Just have a great day and from now on the excuses are endless for living large and doing what you want. You’re Official.
Thanks for the proverb, I liked it so much that I printed it out!
I started thinking about dying after I turned 40. On my birthday, I had managed to outlive my dad. He was 39 when he passed. It was an odd feeling to be older than dad. He seemed so young when he died and I felt so old, even though I wasn’t. No matter the number, we always just feel like ourselves, don’t we?
Happy Birthday Ann, I hope your birthday was filled with all kinds of wonderful!!!
You always make me laugh and inspire me. Happy birthdate to my dearest sister in law.
Happy Birthday Ann. Thank you for all your posts. You have made me laugh and cry and laugh until I’ve cried. Your posts are the best. Please keep on keeping on. I hope this is a great year for you.
Happy Birthday, Ann! I’ve been away from the blog for several months, and today, I happened to check in. Welcome to 50…I turned fifty last December. Though I thought that number might kill me, it hasn’t bothered me at all, in fact, I don’t even think about it. I think I am resigned to the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do about time marching on. I loved today’s poem, it brought tears to my eyes. I do relate to the thinking about dying thing, and just try to live with no regrets about things left unsaid and undone. Wishing you the Happiest Birthday, and hope this will be the start of a great year, with many more to follow.
Happy Birthday, Ann. Hope you enjoyed your day!! I’ll be 60 in two months – to me you’re just a kid!! Live it up!!
Wishing you all good things today, Ann, as you celebrate turning 50. I think this decade is fabulous, and the next has been even better!
Happy Birthday Ann! I think the fifties are great. I did stop and think about it when I turned 50 but that was it. None of us have any guarantees in life, whether we are 20, 40, or 70. So enjoy all your days.
Hope you have a wonderful year. You have given me many smiles and laughs this past year.
Thank you!
Happy belated birthday, Ann!
Your talk of middle-age and heaven reminds me of a poem I very much love, which I happened upon in a collection I’m reviewing. The poem’s called Heaven of Horses & the book is Dispatches from the Department of Supernatural Explanation, by Jesse Millner. So that I don’t break any copyright laws and have the Poetry SWAT Team sent after me, I’ll only excerpt a piece of it here and leave you a link to the full poem on Interlitq’s site.
Hope you like, and hope your birthday was divine ~
*
I must say that the sky is a thunder of horses
when the nimbi rock with afternoon storms,
when thunder rolls the once-solid world
into a more wary wakefulness of the heavy rain
still to come. I must say the night sky
is a heaven of horses, ghosting across
the milk and white of interstellar spaces,
those places the “I” is always longing for,
that consciousness gathered beyond the single, hopeful spirit.
*
http://interlitq.org/issue13/jesse-millner/job.php
Nice Denise!
Off topic but since we were discussing um bra sizes I found this lol http://www.buzzfeed.com/samir/ghost-tits-should-be-made-into-an-actual
OMG, this is too funny
Happy Belated Birthday, young lady. Renewed my car registration online this week and thought of you. Hope you are extending celebrations into the weekend.
(PS: Life begins at 60)
Looking fabulous at 50! You wear it VERY well! I hope you had a spectacular bday.
I hate to be a party pooper but I don’t think 50 is nifty. I’m 55 and I’m not jumping a jive about that either. Anyway Ann, celebrate whatever way you want!
I too have been away from the blog so I was delighted to get back on it today and wish you HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
Happy birthday, Ann! I’m hitting a birthday milestone myself and i’m not looking forward to it. Love your site….
DL- happy birthday eve to you, enjoy your day tomorrow.
Happy belated birthdays to you both. You both look even better as the years pass!
Sorry I’m a bit late for your birthday greeting- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I wish you a fantastic year of new adventures, and great memories from the past. I am 44 years old, and if I can be as adventurous as you in 6 years my life will be full of great things. Many blessings to you this year! xxoo
Oh I’m so sorry to have missed your birthday; hope it was wonderful ! I’ve been on vacation, both from home and my computer. I was fifty-eight in June and I can’t wait for 60!!
I think counting your blessings and feeling grateful is a terrific attitude! Hope the day was all you hoped for !!
It is a weird feeling, I turned 47 on the 18th and i think about dying a lot, though i do like a warmer climate, so I may just do the opposite and alter my personality a little more the other way
You will probably live to be a 100, I really hope I am not 97 reading your blog about who changed your nappy that day, but hey… who knows !
Happy Happy Birthday, I did like it when you said, you woke up feeling blessed, but i am going to ignore the Poem .. !
Oh Bev, you really do need a T-shirt or bumper sticker that says “Just ignore the poem.”
Happy Belated Birthday Ann!! My husband’s Birthday is also AUG. 14th and he’s pleasantly surprised that he has lived to see 63!! Hope it was wonderful and here’s to the next 50 years!!
Happy Birthday Ann and welcome to the “club.” A blessing of this age is waking up to that timeless reality of the poem. Just a number in a vast universe party.
xo Jade
Interesting blog and I love the poem. Very pretty. Happy belated Birthday!! Hope it was a great one.
Hey Ann – I’m catching up on the blog after being away for a while. A very happy belated birthday to you! I always grumble about poetry, and then you post something beautiful like this one. Thanks for sharing!