Summertime Birthdays, Tradition, and Pickle Juice

I stayed up late on the eve of his birthday, getting his present out of its clever hiding spot, wrapping it, pulling out ingredients and mixing up sourdough waffle batter, setting a special breakfast place at the kitchen table for the birthday boy, just like my mother used to. The warm June air was spilling in through the open window, bringing with it the scents of early summer evenings - the flowers, the dogwood, the freshly mown grass.

I thought of my mother, mostly.  I’m the same age now that she was the day I was born, and I wonder if she felt then as I do now; if her knee ached climbing the stairs with a toddler on her hip, whether she noticed stray gray hairs and lines slowly appearing in the same places, and if she searched the slightly new face in the mirror, wondering where had the twenty-year old gone who used to smile back at her, yet liking the reflection of her life in these changing features. 

My mother always made birthdays special. My favorite part was breakfast, because it was the first moment of the day. I would get out of bed, the golden summer light streaming through my basement bedroom, and too excited to get dressed, I’d climb the staircase in my pajamas. In the kitchen, where the small table was pushed against the windows, my mother would have set a special birthday breakfast place: a pretty napkin under my plate, flowery silverware, a card, a gift, and a glass with a bloom or two from the garden. I would eat my bowl of cereal while the sun rose higher before me, admire how the light cut through the flower’s water, sparkling on the table, and wiggle with anticipation for the day to come. From that moment forward, I would feel that every minute of that day was a good one, meant just for me. 

I try to recreate that feeling for my own children by imitating my mother’s tradition as best I can. What I didn’t realize was how much work actually went into making a birthday breakfast look so nice, but I’m sure it helped that she is an excellent housekeeper. I, on the other hand, am not naturally inclined towards keeping a very tidy house, which is how I found myself up until midnight on the night before my son’s birthday, trying to make things as nice as I remember my mother keeping them, hoping that he would treasure these mornings like I did. I thought of her as I cleaned a smear of pickle juice off the glass door, and as I scrubbed the tines of a fork in the sink. The scrubbing, the tidying, the laying of special tableware: my mother made this seemingly small act of love year after year, for each of her four children, and we all felt it.

I wonder if my grandmother had the same breakfast table tradition. I texted my dad to ask him to question her about that, but no, this was something she came up with on her own. I wonder if my boys will do this for their own children. 

It’s one big cycle, isn’t it? Parenthood, family traditions, cultures. Mothers do for children, who do for their children, and so on. Staying up until midnight to make that first moment in the morning feel like a hug, wiping smears from a window to make the morning sun sparkle over a bowl of cereal. Generation after generation, on and on it goes.  It’s so beautiful to be a part of it.