What I want for my birthday is (an) acceptance

On turning 50

I turn fifty a week from today, one of those milestone birthdays. It’s hard not to spend time thinking of all the things I wanted to accomplish before I turned fifty. It’s hard not to think of all the things I might be running out of time to do. It’s hard not to get all contemplative and reflective and, yeah, maybe a little maudlin.

This morning, I was thinking about what I want for that big 5-0 and the first thought that popped into my head was—an acceptance. That is, I want one of the short stories I’ve sent to various literary magazines to be accepted. I want to hear from an agent I’ve sent a query to, saying they’d like to “hop on the phone” to talk about an offer of representation. I’d like, you know, a win. I’d like a definitive step forward.

For my birthday, I’d like to make a wish and have a magical literary fairy godmother appear. This literary fairy godmother would have a New York accent and wear very stylish glasses. She would know all the right editors at all the big publishing houses. She would have the cell phone number of The New York Times book review editor. She wouldn’t have to be an agent, necessarily. She would just be very powerful and totally and completely in love with my writing. That’s not too much to ask, is it? To have someone decide that it is their personal mission in life to get your writing out into the world?

Probably, this is not what I’ll be getting for my birthday. Probably, my literary fairy godmother will never appear. We’ve talked about this before, after all. In the end, the writing itself has to be enough.

So then I thought to myself, well, what is the opposite of an acceptance? Or maybe, what is something a little healthier to wish for than an acceptance…and that lovely but improbably literary fairy godmother?

As I was contemplating this question, I felt a warmth across the sole of my foot. It was sunshine hitting my bare skin. I’m sitting on a patio in Casey Key, Florida. I’m staring out at the green water of the Intracoastal Waterway, the narrow body of water between Casey Key and the mainland. A light breeze stirs the three palm trees planted at the end of the yard. There’s a boat ramp across the short stretch of water and for the past three days, my husband and I have sat here watching people put in and take out their boats. You can learn a lot about people watching them get a boat out of the water and onto a trailer. The main thing I’ve learned is, I never want to have a boat. Still, it’s a fascinating parade of human drama right outside our door.

There’s also a squadron of pelicans hanging out at a little dock down the way. They perch at the top of the poles of the pier like very strange and angular chickens. There’s a cormorant who fishes next to the boat ramp. A heron who cruises in to check things out every now and then. Osprey soaring by.

Spending so much time on the patio as we’ve been doing, I also noticed a tiny little bird, scratching around in the line of bushes between us and the water. He was sparrow-like, but with a touch of yellow I’ve never seen on a sparrow before. I used my handy-dandy Cornell birding app to identify him. A palm warbler.

We just got back from a walk on the beach. We have nothing we have to do today except be still enough to enjoy this place. Isn’t it funny that even that task is still a little hard?

Sitting here, contemplating turning fifty and getting an acceptance, it occurred to me that maybe the opposite of an acceptance is, well, you know, acceptance. Acceptance itself is a strange word to describe the process of some stranger deciding they want to publish your story. After all, acceptance is so much bigger than that.

And here I am, in a place that is very much looking to accept me and instead I’m thinking about lack of acceptance. I am, in other words, ignoring the acceptance that’s right in front of me. The gentle breeze. The palm warbler. The pelicans. The gorgeous moon that rises each night above the mainland. The sun that sets over the ocean. The particular quality of Florida light that I love so much. The feeling of warm sunlight across the bottom of my foot. What fools we humans are.

So here’s what I want for my 50^th birthday. Not an acceptance, but more acceptance in general. More allowing the softness of the world to embrace me. More accepting where I am and who I am and the people I love. More, in other words, being present. More noticing the sensation of sunlight against bare skin, wherever I happen to be.