I thought I wanted to celebrate turning 59, and look back on a decade of accomplishments. I invited friends to come via Facebook and email and face to face encounters. If anyone asked me if they could bring something, I told them cake, or something to drink.
My friends came through, big time! Above is the table full of different cakes, and the author of two of them. I had a tiny slice of each one – they were all so delicious, in so many different ways. Also we had a tent in case of rain but it was turned out to be a nice place to keep out of the sun, and Al decided a birthday is not an elaborately celebrated birthday without helium for balloons and liquid nitrogen for amusement value.
I talked myself hoarse. I visited with people I see regularly and people I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. I introduced friends to other friends; some introductions I’ve been thinking about for a while(!).
Today I am sitting still and reading birthday cards that are making me laugh, and also are making me grateful, and trying not to talk to anyone.
What did I do over the last decade?
- sheparded/supported two kids through high school graduation, college acceptance, college life and 1.75 graduations (Alice should graduate in the spring. I will still be 59. I’m just anticipating this a little.)
- Rode a first level dressage test, and got better than 50%
- built a boat, launched it, rowed it
- built a boat trailer, and am slowly learning how to back it up
- designed and printed a tarot deck, and sold 100 copies
- sold some artwork through a gallery
- designed and built a city from cardboard – a stage set, but still!
- worked for five different theater groups building things
- made new friends
- kept the old
I’m glad you could join me on this part of the journey, I’m all agog to see what comes next!
Lee Thomson 
Congratulations! What a host of beautiful achievements.
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congratulations on the decade past and your wonderfully open-hearted way of celebrating it …
and thank you for introducing me to your tarot deck, which is absolutely beautiful, especially the moons and feathers, the whales and the seabirds … I’ve always been intrigued by tarot, but never got any traction with applying it to my own life … now I’m wondering if connecting it to the creatures of the Texas Hill Country would do the trick
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I would really encourage you to experiment with connecting the Tarot to your environment! It was the Kitchen Table Tarot (illustrated with 1950’s era advertising imagery, and a lot of clueless dudes) that made me realize how personal a deck could be. From there it was a short step to illustrating classic imagery in ways that spoke to me. If that encourages you to do the same, that is a really terrific!
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