I’m 19 now.
This was my first birthday away from California. It’s easy to miss your friends and family at a time like this (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t get sentimental for birthdays). A birthday is just another day, but with a hell of a lot more Facebook notifications. Not that I’m complaining — the recognition and acknowledgement that comes from them feels good.
Grandpa was never one for birthdays either. You don’t have to do anything special for me, he’d tell the family. And he meant that, too. He was a man of routine. Stable like an ox, my father would say.
But of course the family doesn’t listen to his request. At least a nice dinner with everyone together, Grandpa.
He doesn’t seem to mind.
~
The voorzitter, or captain of the ice skating team remembered that my birthday was coming up. Are you doing anything special to celebrate? he asked. I told him I have no clue.
You could bake a cake, have some drinks. It’s really up to you. It’s your birthday.
I realized I never threw my own birthday party. Or even threw a party or reunion on my own, for that matter. I’d bring goodies to a potluck or help clean up after the party was over, but I never took the initiative to host or make plans to bring a community together. When I was a whiny teenager, I would complain to my parents about how nobody would ever invite me to social events.
Well then, throw a party of your own and invite your friends over.
I don’t think I ever did.
Like a social moocher, I was floating around and latching onto whatever was out there, relying on other people to make plans instead of making them on my own. I was passive.
~
But that’s the past.
For my 19th birthday, I baked an apple tart with the help of the lovely British ladies that live in my flat. We didn’t have any measuring spoons, so we had to guess the quantities for each ingredient. Fine for cooking, but not for something as precise as baking.
But the tart came out wonderfully, thanks to Mollie. I never realized that brown sugar on top of apples would make such a nice finishing touch. Mollie and Sepi made mulled wine with cinnamon and oranges, heated over a stove. The flat was lively with people, and even the regulars at the bar downstairs came by to chat.
~
Shortly before the adventure in baking, I was in the Douwe Egberts café in Janskerkhof at the city center. It’s one of my favorite places to go for both people watching and coffee drinking, if only because the baristas know me by name, and what I order each time.
Mellow Morning – koffie met melk en honingen
I was having coffee with a friend. I told Sandra about my birthday goals, or what I wanted to accomplish in the coming year as I study abroad. Something about improving my cooking, speed-skating, Dutch, and decision-making skills. I said something about becoming “more independent” or “more comfortable with myself”, but even I don’t know what that means.
Sandra’s birthday had passed a couple of days earlier, and I asked if she had any birthday goals herself.
No, because why I do have to wait until it’s my birthday to change something?
photo credit: Aih. via photopin cc
