Birthday Girl

The clock has just ticked midnight to my birthday, 66, unimaginable. Some birthdays I remember well, others are simply forgotten, which I liken to sedimentary rock, layer upon layer tightly pressed together, hard to identify one from the other, but somehow, all together, remembered or unremembered, they make me who I am.

But one birthday I do remember is my 7th birthday, in 1964. I have to admit I think I remember it mostly courtesy of a photograph taken that day, undoubtedly by my father, that sits on my bureau. I'm not sure why out of the many hundreds if not thousands of photographs taken of me or my family and friends over the years this one made the grade but somehow it did.

I'm sitting on the couch in the den at 495 North Columbus Avenue in Mount Vernon, my three-year-old sister Eleanor beside me and my mother next to her. My older brother Joe, Joey back then, also seven, is not in the picture. (No, we’re not twins, just baby-boomer-Catholic-spaced less than a year apart. Joe won't turn eight until February.) I'm opening a birthday card, and my sister is holding a gift-wrapped present I will momentarily open as well. It's all just so fabulously 1960s and every detail is memorably vivid to me, from the pumpkin color of the drapes to the apron my mother is wearing, to El and my haircuts with our fringe of bangs, the handiwork of mom. My mother was 31, and although she grayed early in life, here she still has her beautiful dark brown, almost black hair.

I'm wearing pearls and a little bracelet – pretty sure I got the bracelet for my 6th birthday – and my very favorite fancy dress with its black velvet top and three-quarter length sleeves, a black-and-white plaid taffeta skirt and, the crowning touch, a red rose at the waist. (I still love wearing those colors and would buy that dress in a heartbeat today!) I am focused on my task, the task of opening the card, and also the task of growing up. I had been in kindergarten only the year before and put ahead to the second grade, where I quickly learned that kindergarten behavior would not cut it. On one of my first days in second grade, I raised my hand, and when called on, informed the class that I had been to the dentist the day before. My teacher, Mrs. Hartman, nodded and said quickly, “That's nice, Maria” and returned to the lesson. Shamed, I realized that in second grade you do not just babyishly share random information at any time. As I look at this photograph, it is clear by January I have made the transition to second grade behavior!

So what was in the box? Oh I remember that too! My first watch, with its yellow leather band and an accompanying ceramic figurine of Snow White. I had been looking longingly at the three Disney watches in the girls department at John Wanamaker's department store, each with its own cute little figurine of a Disney character: in addition to Snow White, there was the Cinderella model with its pink leather band, and an Alice in Wonderland one with a blue watchband. My new watch was the perfect gift, exactly what I'd hoped for! My mother or father showed me how to wind the watch, carefully, a task I religiously performed every night. Many years have passed since that day, and although the watch itself is long gone, I still have my little Snow White figurine, and, of course, my memories.