Happy Birthday to Me!

There might be more than one post today, or maybe not, who knows. Maybe I'll be too busy to write about all the things I have to say. I have lots of fun things going on that I want to write about, but this post isn't going to be about them. I drove down to Boise yesterday and on the two hour trip I indulged in long internal monologues about turning 31 and doing it here, of all places, and, this is totally me exposing how ridiculous I am, but I may just have made myself cry once or twice. (I'm not depressed, just sentimental!) Is it self-centered to be sentimental about one's own birth? Indulge me.

When I was getting ready to be born, three+ decades ago today, my mom and dad were in Boise. I'm not actually sure what they were doing there. Visiting my grandparents? Shopping? But they were in a donut shop when my mother's water broke. Typical. My love of the sugar/fat combination was sealed. They took their donuts, got in the car, and with my mother in labor, started driving back up the very canyon I traveled yesterday. And it was June, and green, and the banks of the river, and the hills, were covered with syringas in bloom. Do you know about syringas? They're a leggy shrub, nothing special aside from a few weeks in late May/early June. But when they bloom they're lovely. Long boughs covered in tiny five petaled white flowers with the the strongest, sweetest scent. So it was sunny and beautiful and the syringas were in full flower and they drove the narrow winding road beside the river and up the mountain. And I imagine that the water was high and if it was warm they rolled down the windows, and mist from the river and the scent of the syringas was in the car where I was waiting to be born.

And they made it to the tiny hospital in McCall and there I was, and they named me Corina Syringa. They named me after a Bob Dylan song that my parents loved. And after the sweet smelling Idaho state flower that filled the air while my mother was in labor. Have you heard the song? How could one not grow up in the comfort that she was wanted and loved when named after a song like that? How could one not want to spend her birthday where syringas bloom? And I am loved, and I am spending my birthday where syringas line the banks of the river, and as freaked out as I am about turning 31, I'm oh so grateful to have been born to those two people, in this place.