I have started thinking of my birthday as my own personal New Year.
January 1 is the Gregorian's calendars New Year which isn't even really the new year so my birthday gives me a real opportunity to stop and think about where I am, what I have learned and what I want the next year of my life to look like.
This year I turned 63, and I decided to spend my birthday weekend by myself in Colonial Beach, Virginia. By myself because I can do and go where I want to go and not have the noise in my head about what others are thinking, wanting, etc.
I didn't go with some big agenda. I just wanted to get away, spend some time near the water, explore a new area, and have time to think. What I didn't expect was for so many seemingly unrelated things that happened over the weekend to begin connecting with each other. By the time I was packing to leave the hotel Sunday morning, I realized that the entire weekend had somehow become a lesson about something I had read about years ago in a little blue book.
Going Back to The Tools
Something made me pick it up and re-read it before my birthday. I took notes and drew the very simple pictures in the book representing the five tools: Reversal of Desire, Active Love, Inner Authority, Grateful Flow and Jeopardy.
One of those drawings is about Inner Authority and the shadow. The idea that stayed with me was that we all have parts of ourselves that we push down or hide because somewhere along the way we decided those parts weren't acceptable. Maybe we thought other people wouldn't like them, or they didn't fit the image we had created for ourselves, or they were connected to something from the past. Whatever the reason, instead of integrating those parts into who we are, we put them somewhere in the background.
The Day Started With the Sun
On the morning of my birthday, I woke up in the hotel and the sun was coming through the window. It immediately reminded me of another drawing in that little blue book about Grateful Flow. That caught my attention because lately I have been deliberately trying to notice the natural world more: the sun, moon, stars, trees and water instead of moving through life so quickly that I don't really see any of it. So there was something fitting about beginning my 63rd year with the sun shining into the room and me noticing it.
The $20 Dress
The outfit I had put on for my birthday was cute but it was too hot for it, so while I was in Colonial Beach I found this loose black linen dress with beautiful turquoise, gold and white embroidery. It was $20, it was cool and comfortable, and I loved it.
I received compliments on that dress throughout the day, but I didn't realize how much I stood out until later that evening. At the jazz program at Ingleside Vineyards, a woman came over to me and asked whether I had been in downtown Colonial Beach earlier. When I said yes, she told me that she knew it was me. She had seen me on the street earlier in the day, and she and the people she was with had actually talked about how stunning I looked in that dress.
That was remarkable to me because I wasn't trying to be seen (but maybe I wasn't hiding either). I was just walking around Colonial Beach enjoying my birthday in a $20 dress I had bought because I was hot.
Day at the Festival on the River
After getting comfortable in the dress I walked through the festival booths and on the pier to look at the lake. I met some great booth people and folks fishing and really loved the feel of Colonial Beach. It was sort of like Buckroe Beach where I live but bigger.
And Then I Found the Shadow
At an art gallery I came across a small pottery piece with an opening at the top and a little figure or head appearing to come out of it. The moment I saw it, I thought about the shadow in The Tools.
It made me think about what it would look like to bring more of that hidden part of myself out instead of constantly managing her. I don't mean giving ourselves permission to behave however we want or disregarding other people. I mean the subtler ways we edit ourselves. We learn what is appropriate, professional, acceptable and expected, and after enough years we can become so good at managing ourselves that we don't always know where good judgment ends and unnecessary self-suppression begins. So I decided to play with that idea throughout the day. What would happen if I brought more of the shadow out and let her walk around with me? The surprising thing was that I liked her and judging from what happened throughout the day, other people seemed to like her too.
A Day of Encounters
I went to the Sunflower restaurant and was treated wonderfully. At one point the lady brought me rice shaped like a heart, which was such a small thing but also exactly the kind of thing I was noticing that day.
I talked with a woman at the Colonial Beach Museum, and what began as a normal conversation became warm enough that we hugged before I left. I wandered through the booths and found butterfly ribbons, a bookmark and earrings. I went to the car show, which was interesting, and discovered that I didn't have to pay for parking after all because I could park on the grass near the car show.
None of these things individually was some extraordinary event. What was extraordinary was the way I was experiencing them. I wasn't rushing or trying to accomplish anything. I was talking to people, noticing things and allowing the day to unfold and there seemed to be a warmth coming back toward me.
George Washington's Birthplace, the Trees and the Names
Around 3:00, I left Colonial Beach and drove to George Washington Birthplace National Monument.
I was interested in the historical site, but once I got there I found myself just as interested in the landscape, particularly the trees. Trees have been catching my attention lately. There is something about an old tree: its size, age, rootedness and the amount of human history that has happened around it. That makes me wonder what it has "seen." I took picture after picture of trees that afternoon, and at one point I felt like hugging one, so I did. That would probably have been something I might once have talked myself out of doing because somebody might think I looked silly. On this particular day my Inner Authority (me and my Shadow!) apparently said, I want to hug this tree, so I hugged the tree and kept going.
The visit also took me somewhere much more serious. One of the National Park Service employees told me where I could find information about the enslaved people who had lived on the property. I went looking and found their names. There were names such as Adam, Daniel, Esther, Isaac, Moses, Old Sam and Saul. I immediately noticed how many were biblical or Hebrew names. Seeing their names affected me differently than simply reading the words "enslaved people." A category can become abstract. A name makes you stop and remember that these were individual human beings who lived their lives on that land.
As I looked around the property and toward the water, I had another thought that I wrote down because I wanted to remember having it: Why didn't they just build a little raft, get into that water and escape? Standing there in 2026, the property looked so open. There wasn't a tall fence enclosing everything. The water looked almost like an exit.
Of course, the reality was far more complicated. Enslaved people lived within a system of laws, slave patrols, surveillance, punishment and the constant danger of being captured. Escaping also required knowing where to go, how to survive the journey and whom you could trust. And then there were family relationships. Freedom for one person could mean leaving a spouse, child, parent or other loved one behind. That stayed with me because I wondered how many of us still feel enslaved in our lives but someone looking in can see we could break free. We can see the water but we also see fences or barriers that looked like they are keeping us locked in but we can cross them.
By Myself at the Jazz Program — But Not Alone
From there I drove to Ingleside Vineyards for the jazz program. I arrived early, found my seat and settled in by myself. By the end of the evening, three different groups of people had asked me to sit with them.
They weren't just making polite conversation. They genuinely wanted me to join them. I talked with them and enjoyed meeting them, but I didn't move because I was perfectly content sitting where I was.
That distinction meant something to me. There is a difference between sitting alone because nobody wants you and sitting alone because you are enjoying your own company. I wasn't waiting for somebody to rescue me from being by myself. I had deliberately taken this birthday trip alone, and I was enjoying it. I enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, the conversations and the catered food.
It was also at Ingleside that the woman recognized me from Colonial Beach and told me about seeing me earlier in the day. Here I was miles away from where she had first seen me, sitting by myself at another event, and someone I had never met walked over and essentially said, I noticed you.
When I thought about the Inner Authority (me and my Shadow) experiment I had been conducting all day, that interaction felt particularly meaningful.
The Lion King: Remember Who You Are
I left Ingleside early enough to get back to my hotel before dark, which had been my plan, and eventually I found myself watching The Lion King. This is one of my favorite movies because I love the central message: Remember who you are.
Simba spends much of the story separated from himself because of what happened in his past. He runs away, creates another life and lives under another identity, but eventually he has to confront what happened and remember who he is.
That was an interesting movie to be watching after spending my birthday thinking about the shadow and Inner Authority. Maybe integration isn't about creating a new person but it is about remembering the person who was there before fear, pain, expectations and experience taught us which parts of ourselves we were supposed to hide. I went to sleep thinking about that and apparently the lesson wasn't finished because..
The Matrix: Wake Up
The next morning, while I was getting dressed and packing to check out of the hotel, The Matrix came on. I had to laugh! My birthday weekend had somehow been bookended by two movies with two messages that fit together almost perfectly:
The Lion King: Remember who you are.
The Matrix: NOW Wake up.
What I take from The Matrix is the idea of questioning the reality we have accepted. Neo senses that something isn't quite right before he understands what it is. Once he sees the world differently, however, he can't simply return to seeing it the old way. We can do something similar in our own lives. We inherit ideas about who we are, what we're capable of, how we're supposed to behave, what success looks like, what failure means and what other people will think. Some of those beliefs are useful, but some aren't anymore. At some point, we have to wake up enough to examine them. Then we need enough Inner Authority to decide for ourselves what remains true about ourselves and our lives.
I Turned the Bag Into the Story
At Ingleside Vineyards I had gotten a tote bag decorated like an American flag. After I got home, I looked at it and decided I wanted the bag itself to remember the trip. So I got out my color pencils and made it mine. Across the stars I wrote BIRTHDAY NEW YEAR, because that is how I think about my birthday. I colored individual stars in different colors and used the white stripes of the flag to record pieces of the weekend — the Source, Colonial Beach, the car show, the museum, Oyster Wars, the tree, the heart, jazz at the vineyard, George Washington's birthplace, the names of the enslaved people, Inner Authority and the shadow.
And then, of course: LION KING — REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE
and
THE MATRIX — WAKE UP!
I like that my handwriting isn't perfect. The little drawings aren't perfect. That's exactly what my life is really like too. It's not perfect but it is a work of art that I am creating.
What I Want to Remember About The Day I Turned 63
I changed how I showed up.
For one day, I deliberately paid attention and I allowed a little more of the woman I normally keep inside to come outside with me. People were attracted to me. I followed my curiosity. I hugged a tree because I wanted to hug a tree. I sat by myself because I wanted to sit by myself. I wore a $20 dress and felt beautiful in it. I looked at the names of people who lived more than two centuries ago and wondered about their lives. I walked where the first president once walked and I listened to jazz. Somewhere during all of that, I realized that the most important response wasn't others, it was mine. I liked the woman who showed up on August 15, 2026.
That is what I want to carry into 63...All of me! It means learning the difference between wisdom and fear, between appropriate restraint and hiding, between solitude and loneliness, between being accepted and needing acceptance. Maybe that is also what it means to integrate the shadow. I don't need to become a completely different Maria, Marie or Ridea at 63. There are parts of me that simply need more room and space. So my Birthday New Year begins with two instructions that arrived from two very unexpected places:
Remember Who You Are and Wake up!
I don't know what 63 is going to bring but I know how it started: with sunlight coming through a hotel window, a $20 linen dress, some remarkable strangers, history, trees, water, music, a shadow coming out of her container and a woman discovering that she rather liked the person who emerged and that's a Birthday New Year worth remembering.