When I arrived on the scene (we’re one of those postmodern re-assembled families) I brought a rich selection of ambiguity. Weirdness. Just downright madness. I think I simply misjudge things. Other guys bring flowers. I brought flowers out of my then home garden. Ginger flowers. They’re beautiful, fragrant, elegant, exotic, living sculptures. And about 1.5 metres (5′) tall. They just don’t fit in teeny delicate little vases, they need something more akin to paint buckets.

The house became full of (huge) flowers and a host of other crazy things. Like the time we converted the entire ground floor of the house we were renting into a fairy dell for the fairy party. With a cave and glow-worms. Meanwhile, although Danica found all this a bit too much, she had to admit often the end results were, at the least, fun. Some even worked out well. We’ve both worked together, and laughed together, and I think we’ve built a pretty wonderful relationship.

Happy birthday, Danica, and very many happy returns of the day.

Manifesto
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
08. Every day choose to bring about change.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.

Today’s Damian’s birthday. Talk about one small step for man, one giant step for mankind. D’s bent the rules and beat the odds for some time – a long time – now. You need a high tolerance for ambiguity in our world. We tend to find making decisions difficult, making plans need to have plan b built in, and all bets are simultaneously on – and off – at the same time. Whatever you think – great – but have some other thoughts as well. You’ll need them. All of them. None of them.

Damian has spent the day cruising Lambton Quay with his Baba (grandmother) and had McD’s for lunch, and then we all hogged out on spicy deliciousness at KK Malay tonight. In D’s hands are a couple of Terry Pratchett books on CD – pressies – life’s simple, life’s good. For the moment. We got to breathe out for 27. And we get to hold our breath for another year.

Manifesto
01. Every day is a fresh new day.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.
49. Every day is a good day.

For one week of every year Lynsey and I are the same age. That week began today – his birthday.

Lynsey has an interesting modus operandi regarding present giving for special occasions like birthdays. He believes you don’t need to wait until the actual day to give someone their present, instead you give it to them whenever the gift “appears” to you (i.e. when the spirit moves you) or when you feel it is the right thing to do or when the person really needs what it is you are going to give them. So in our world you can get a birthday present months before your birthday or even months after your birthday. Any day of the year could be your birthday. These gifts Lynsey gives are always meaningful. He will have thought long and hard about them and the giving aspect is always a surprise.

Initially I found this approach odd but over the years I have grown to like it a lot. So much so that I have adopted my own variation of Lynsey’s practice. I still like to give a gift on the actual day even when I have already given that year’s birthday present at some other time.

This morning as we awoke to the alarm clock at 5.30am I reached down for a small package I had wrapped and hidden under our bed. When I presented the gift to Lynsey he was surprised because he had already received his birthday present from me weeks ago – a new SLR (single lens reflex) camera. This morning’s gift was an added extra. A gift I knew he would love. I wrapped it in shiny gold paper and gold cord (guess who loves shiny gold things?). Inside was a book, Big Weather: Poems of Wellington. He was thrilled and I was even more excited. I so love giving gifts especially when you know the person so well that you know they’ll love what you have bought them.

As I left for work I looked back to see Lynsey lying in bed reading. I was smiling and so was he.

It is important for us all to remember that any day is worth celebrating. Don’t leave it for special occasions only. Any day is an opportunity to give something to someone else or do something for someone else. Don’t wait until tomorrow because it may be too late.

Manifesto
15. Every day make a difference to yourself and others.
42. Every day celebrate. Who you are. What you have achieved. Things that matter to you.
49. Every day is a good day.

Fear is a slinking cat I find beneath the lilacs of my mind. — Sophie Tunnell

Every year we would take bunches of lilac flowers to Bestamor for her birthday. My father loved them too. Given that she, he, and I share the same birthday it seems perfectly reasonable that I should love them too. We used to have a huge bush of them – I can remember lying on the grass and staring up at the leaf canopy with the pinpoints of sunlight spotting through. Lilacs are deciduous, and yet I don’t remember the bush being anything other than leaf green and flowering in time for our birthdays.

Mum used to make us a cake for our birthdays – how she found the time to do this I do not know – the things you do for love. The cake was always a legendary work of cake decorating art – driven by my obsession with detail and fidelity. So there was the seal cake. Yes, Mum somehow carved cakes into a seal and iced it, complete with a ball (see also: xmas decoration) on its nose, with licorice slivers for whiskers. There was a pineapple cake – it stood upright and incorporated an actual green leafy bit off a real pineapple. To make the the patterns in the ‘skin’ Mum dipped the spoon end of a teaspoon into some sort of food colouring and then pressed the shape into the yellow icing. Imagine!

We would load the cake carefully into the boot of the car, along with the bunches of lilacs, a couple of cowboy novels for my Bestafar, and whatever other treats and trophies were to hand, and head off to my grandparent’s farm. Their farm provided a fantastic opportunity for me to go off by myself (for hours) exploring. If I work at it I can recall the morning smells of the lilacs, Bestafar’s Havelock Dark tobacco, the lemon oil of the furniture polish, and Bestamor’s coffee, and transport myself back there. When I do, the slinking cat is gone.

Manifesto
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
30. Every day use all your senses. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hear. See.
44. Every day remember how far you have come.