Now That You Don't Have To Be Perfect...
...you can be good: field notes from a surprise party.
Two weeks since my last newsletter here, and yet I refuse to beat myself up for the lapse in timeliness. Firstly, because I am reminded of that old adage, no one is thinking about you as much as you are thinking about yourself. This one is a personal constant, as a socially anxious individual with unreasonably high personal expectations. But the reasonable part of my brain—the part of my brain that’s been in therapy for the past several years—acknowledges that no one is keeping score. No one is waiting testily, arms folded, wondering what is taking me so long. No one is putting me on as steep a pedestal as I do myself. The minute I step down from the heights of irrational, self-created pressure, the resulting grace is a palpable relief.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Secondly, the temporary suspension from writing this past week was perfectly valid and deeply necessary, as time skittered away in a mad dash to surprise Mike for his 30th birthday. For the record, neither Mike nor I are big-birthday-bash-type people. Part of our compatibility lies solidly in our down to earth, low key natures. So naturally, a glittering, adrenaline-filled surprise party to usher his entry into true, sobering adulthood made perfect sense. Plus, he’d never had one before! And I am of the opinion that one should experience the combined thrill + terror of pure surprise at the hands of all those you love at least once in a lifetime.
In all seriousness and sincerity, I could think of few better ways to celebrate the life of someone I love so much, who is also equally beloved by so many. Even if it was outrageous and over the top, a massive party prefaced by mystery and anticipation felt somehow right. Mike is known by all as a special person—no, this is not hyperbole, it’s an objective fact—so squeezing as many friends and family as I could into our modest barn-apartment to shower him with affection seemed as special a gift as I could offer. And, I have promised to never do it again.
To be fair, that promise is just as self-serving as it is consoling. The weeks and days leading up to the party were jam packed and steeeeeeressful (ahem, stressful.) Between the conversational jiu jitsu required to evade Mike’s innocent questions—“what are you doing tomorrow?” “oh um, you know, things and stuff…”—and the contortionist schedule-bending needed to sneak in party planning and cake baking without him around, I found myself wound up quite tight (bit of a reach-y pun there, if you dig for it!)
While party prep may have rushed by in a frenzy, it was a happy onslaught nonetheless. Perhaps the best illustration of this happy onslaught was the point mid-week when I brought raw sourdough along to my cafe shift, so I could pull espresso shots and fold the dough simultaneously. As one does! Afterward, I ran home to bake the pistachio birthday cake I had dry mised—a phrase I can’t seem to shake from bakery days, derived from mise en place, or the measuring of ingredients prior to baking or cooking—that morning, aaaall before Mike returned home that evening.
Suffice to say, surprise birthday planning was a delightful whirlwind. And while I may have flirted with the edge of very real anxiety due to my own, again, unreasonable expectations—“the bread must be homemade! The Cake lovingly decorated by hand!”—mostly the nerves were of the delicious & risky variety. Keeping secrets, after all, is half the fun of surprises (and, admittedly, an absolute torture, as Mike and I talk about everything.) Before the party even began, there was a heightened feeling of poignant aliveness from so much secrecy and impending celebration.
And then, of course, there was the party itself. It was all of the above—a delightful whirlwind with delicious anxiety and poignant aliveness—and more. Mike was distracted by friends that evening, so we—Mike’s mom, aunt, a few friends and I—could frantically decorate our barn-apartment in his absence. At 6:45 I picked Mike up, blind-folded him, and proceeded to drive him in circles around town until the poor guy was on the brink of car sickness. For someone who swore he knew this town like the back of his hand, he was surprisingly easy to disorient (blindfolds are very effective.) But when we stepped onto our porch and our automatic floodlight kicked on, the jig was up—even with a blindfold, Mike knew exactly where we were.
Still, there is nothing that can quite prepare a person for a home bedazzled with gold streamers and filled to the brim with friends and family, both his and mine. Every counter surface was crowded with party fare: chips + salsa, homemade bread and deli meat, the good olives from Vito’s Italian Market in Harrisonburg (thanks mom and dad!), hummus and veggies, a platter of wings, a pistachio cake with chai cream cheese icing—lovingly handmade!—and so much beer we’ll have to host another party just to drink what’s leftover.
We listened to 80’s dance hits, including but not limited to the electric slide; we sang the obligatory birthday song, a good-natured embarrassment; and we played a very serious game of Taboo with a roomful of twelve people. To top it all off, the entire party convened outside in the crisp starry night under a unicorn pinata filled with airplane bottles of liquor. We howled with laughter beneath a clear, nearly-full moon as Mike, his cousin AJ, and my best friend Kathryn obliterated the cardboard creature with wild swings. If that’s not a great way to ring in the big 3-0, I don’t know what is.
Aside from the spirited birthday party hijinks, my favorite part of the whole affair was the warm feeling of gathering our people together. It was like worlds colliding, catching glimpses from across the room of my mom chatting with AJ, or Kathryn laughing with AJ’s partner Katie. Our parents met for the first time at this party, an event I had tried to envision for months but never could fully picture in my mind. As these things often go, it went so smoothly and easily I nearly cried. None of it was perfect, because it was oh so human and real, but it was all so deeply right and good. Steinbeck might’ve even approved.
And so now, the biiig, week-long exhalation that follows any memorable occasion. Mike and I are back in our grooves, nesting and adventuring and all the good mundane business of living in between. We just adopted two kitties, Dougie and Pancho! They are still deciding if they want to keep us, i.e. emerge from under the couch, but we are very much smitten with them regardless. Beyond that, I am hopeful to live a very uneventful life, in the conventional sense, for the next few weeks so I may narrow my field of vision to the more subtle and specific (aka have time to walk and ponder and paint.)
By the way, it’s still on my mind to send a few, shorter, more poetic-leaning posts out to paid subscribers during that quieter life time. To reiterate what I hope I’ve made clear before: I don’t mean paid subscriber-only posts as an exclusionary act, but to honor the (very appreciated!) monetary support and commitment. However, I also honor the (very real!) circumstances, of which there are many, that prohibit or prevent paid subscriptions. A long winded way of saying, I get it. If you want to receive that content, regardless of subscription status, email me (alwayspracticingsomething@substack.com) and I’ll put you on the list without a second thought. No value judgments here friends, ain’t nobody got time for that.
In the meantime though, I’m sending late-winter sustenance in the form of kitty snugs and hot coffee mugs from my cozy home to, hopefully, yours.
<3A