From my now-somewhat-extensive experience with birthdays, I can say that most of them are disappointingly anti-climactic. In so many ways, they are just another day, unremarkable for the vast majority of the rest of the world. It’s supposed to be about you and only you, but it is really just a reminder of how insignificant it is to everyone else. That may be why I prefer to spend them quietly and out of town, or buffer them with vacations to Boston or New York or Rehoboth Beach. Anything to distract from their intrinsically non-momentous nature. Even one’s 50th birthday, which for me dawned on a beautiful Boston morning, felt more like a day off before a vacation than any holiday or occasion of itself. A number of Virgos have felt similarly about their birthdays, or so I’m told, being somewhat despondent on the day we are supposed to be celebrating.
Lowering expectations has been my typical mode of addressing the tendency to indulge in melancholy on this day. And so it was that after waking, I quietly padded out to the front room and looked over Braddock Park’s fountain before rousing Andy and heading to brunch at Aquitaine.
On the way back, we passed a few Nike hearts – and the one that called to me was this one, with its little feather in the lower right corner of the picture.
As Mom’s main gift, she had gifted us a night at Raffles in Boston, so we packed our overnight bags and wardrobe and I sprayed some of my latest fragrance.
After almost thirty years of owning the condo, there are always new establishments coming to Boston, which keeps the city thrilling.
The new Raffles knows how to welcome a birthday boy.
A review of our stay is up in the next post…
