30

(Potshots #2797, by Ashleigh Brilliant.)

Well, it's a new year and a new decade for me today. Thirty still sounds like too big a number, but I've also kinda been looking forward to getting out of all the late-20s nonsense of the past few years. So I'm assuming it'll be good. :-)

I got to do several fun things this weekend, starting back on Friday with dinner and birthday stuff with Mom, Lacey, and Cathy, before going out waltzing. Then a Waldon gathering on Saturday (more of a general family reunion, but family + apple cobbler + double chocolate brownies is close enough to a birthday celebration for me). Then yesterday Cheryl and I made one of my weirder ice creams (about which, more here) and other amusing sillinesses.

So today, the actual day, will probably be a bit different. But I always like to make sure I get some quiet, introspective time around my birthdays, to think and write and such. And to plant a lot of new seedlings in my garden. And to work my way through the leftovers of five different, excellent desserts from this weekend. That'll make for a good day.

Not 30 Yet

For such a solid-seeming number, 28 turned out to be my most unstable, changeable year probably since 23 or so. (I realize now that it makes more sense if you realize that 28 is numerologically related to 10 - The Wheel of Fortune.) You can never really tell whether changes are ultimately good or bad, but some of them were certainly more pleasant than others. One relationship ended and another began. One job ended and has not yet been replaced, though that's still okay. I got another regular volunteer gig instead. I've been to four new countries. I survived an accident that my car didn't. I got 20/20 vision. I learned to meditate.

Looking at that brief list as a whole, I think I have a lot to be thankful for and happy about. There have been times when I've forgotten that, though -- times when I was too shaken by the things that didn't make me happy or thankful, or times when I was simply too caught up in the raw change and uncertainty to notice. It's been that sort of a year.

I don't have a lot of inherent associations with 29, other than it being some sort of morbid gateway to 30 (yeah, you over-30's can laugh at me). But it's also an 11 - Justice. So perhaps it will be a year for regaining focus and clarity, for doing the right thing(s) with confidence. I'll take that.

28

It's a pity I never got around to dancing (or playing or writing) any cubed slip jigs last year. But I think I'm ready for 27 to be done, even though I'm still working out what I think about 28. It has a very solid, organized feel to it. If you cube root the 8, you get three more 2s after the one in the ten's place, and you can't get much more stable than a square of four 2s. After balancing and wobbling on the pointed end of the 27 for so long, it's like a tetris block falling neatly, gaplessly into place. At least, I like to think that's how it will be.

Year of the Cubed Slip Jig

Twenty-seven is an interesting number, since being 3 x 3 x 3 makes it not only a cube but a slip jig. Also, slip jigs often make good cross-step waltzes, which is another reason this is a good number. It also reminds me somewhat of 25, in being very pointed, though I think it has more motion and less stability to it. But all the nines involved make it also very secretive.

On a final note, apparently I share a birthday with Scott Adams.

A Silver Grahamiversary

I think 25 will be good age. It still sounds older than I'm used to feeling, but it'll be okay soon. It's just a good number, too. It's funny, the effect numbers can have. Twenty-two was a good year -- a power number, not to mention an Emperor-Fool number. Twenty-three was rough, though. Not only odd, but prime, and very unstable. A lot of difficult stuff happened that year, and a lot of changes. Twenty-four, though was very different. A much more stable number, with a very solid feeling, having so many factors. My life stabilized immensely over this last year as well, in various ways. And now I'm at 25, an odd number, but a square. I'm not sure yet how that will work out. It has a very pointed, determined feel to it, as if it has two feet planted firmly on the ground, and yet reaches as far as it can towards some lofty ideal.

Birthdays for me are times for reviewing and taking stock of life, and noticing what I'm learning. I don't think I'll do as detailed a recap of this last year as I did on my previous birthday but still, a few highlights are in order.

My angel card for this last year was Abundance, and it certainly turned out to be an abundant year for me, in many ways. The most obvious example would, of course, be my wonderful new job -- my first permanent one ever. And the job then has allowed for my new year's resolution, which has shown that giving money away is every bit as much an affirmation of abundance as receiving it.

I've had an amazing abundance of learning this year, as well, which always makes me happy. There's been shape note singing, Tuvan throat singing (sort of), Rubik's cube solving, a lucid dreaming class, West Coast swing, and more books of all sorts than I can shake a stick at. Just the way I like it.

Other wonderfulness in my life from this last year has included a piano to get me playing again, a spiffy new computer, the ever-glorious Camp Harmony, and my first ever trip to New York. I could go on with many other examples, big and small.

So it's been a good year for learning to notice and appreciate and create abundance in all forms. For this coming year, the Angel Card I've drawn is Power. A good card for 25, I think. It'll be an interesting concept to start focusing my awareness on for a while.

Busy Weekend

This weekend contained:

• 1 improv show
• 2 dance shows, involving 3 different groups
• 1 contra dance
• 1 Shakespeare performance
• 1 new friend (previously an online-only acquaintance)
• 2 books finished, 1 started and 1 continued
• 1 Memorial Day / Birthday party
• 2 lucid dreaming experiments
• Several naps
• The best (though sadly, the only) Mondae Night Dance of the year

Not bad for three days.