#2,443 31st Birthday.

I woke up this morning, 31 years old. I felt a bit gloomy about this, as I do most every birthday (it’s my peoples’ way—just ask my parents who are the same!), but the day brightened with so many incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt well wishes throughout the day. We had another reveal, then a lunch where I was given an ice cream cake (a childhood favorite of mine!) and a bouquet of beautiful white hydrangeas by my sweet co-workers:

And my mama was there too, who gave me a beautiful strand of pearls I’ll have for the rest of my life.

And there was a date at Tabella for dinner with tiramisu and a trip to the bookstore for a fresh new stack of delicious fiction set in France, England, Scotland, and New York from Ben:

But my favorite gift of all today, was looking out into the park when we had finished filming the reveal at the very moment a leaf unlike all the others drifted out of the sky, the color of a jar of cinnamon pears in the sunlight, bright as a firework flare. I followed it to the ground with my eyes and walked over to it, and picked it up and carried it inside to show Ben. It’s the first falling leaf I’ve seen this year, and the sweetest gift from the Great Artist reminding me that the passage of time brings a change of seasons, and the best is yet to come.