Hi My Love.

Today, in my heart, you are 48.
So tonight, as we have done for the past three years, the posse is gathering at Firehouse - to celebrate you. We'll have wings, beer.
Laugh and cheer.
Fries and grilled cheese will be added to the menu, for Lily and her friends.
Jake is mildly obsessed with the legacy of his Uncle Alan.
He and Lily are attached at the hip.
Most times.
They love and bicker like old people.
He will be in attendance, possibly with Stella.
Chris' son Jackson will be there, Raina and Gabe, Ruby and Olivia too.
Your favorites.

Black and Whites, of course, will circulate.

But everyday I celebrate you.
We all do.
You are with us always, yes?

I've snapped a few (OK, many) pictures of Lily recently and they're you at that age.
And she occasionally has an x-ray stare that brings you before us.

We went to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving and she brought a pound of pebbles from "The Wave Hill" for Jiji's garden. She played with her West Coast buddies, Madeleine, Henry, Baby Jacob and Simone and Addison.
She had a blast.
She fed, read and sang to the cat.
"He doesn't like Hello Everybody" she reported.
I assured her it couldn't have been her singing.

"When will I grow up Mom?" She asked me recently.
She is intent on becoming "a bigger girl".

Surprisingly, she was weepy to return home.
Usually she is glad to land in NYC, like her dad, most comfortable in her original surroundings. But this time, she had a bit of wanderlust, happy like her mom, to be on another shore, to breath in the fresh air - scented subtly with burning wood.

I had a great dinner with Gillian and Lois (while my mom succumbed to Lily's ultra-creative anti-sleep tactics) and it warmed my heart to be with them. On the way home I got to blast Over the Hills and Far Away followed by Landslide courtesy of the radio.
And I wept for our landslide and smiled and wept that we only got to walk a while but also because I have so much.
Both beautiful reminders of things past and present -

Yes I'm getting older too.