the philosophy of Birthday Month™

My birthday is coming up. I share this with you not to solicit well wishes (though I will accept those), but to spread the gospel of one of my favorite practices: the Birthday Month™.

I have always loved my birthday, because it is the day of the year where I feel most loved. Loved by others, of course; but as I have gotten older, it’s the day I feel most loved by myself. It’s a day where I can give myself permission to bask in all the things me and celebrate myself; for who I am now, and who I am becoming.

So why not extend that feeling?

Birthday Month is not a religion, it’s a lifestyle. In practical terms, it encompasses the calendar(ish) month of your birth, and it is an excuse to do whatever makes you happiest & sharing what makes you happiest with good people.

Birthday Month looks different for everyone, because - shockingly - different people enjoy different things. For me, it means inviting all my friends to go roller skating, throwing a party where everyone wears their favorite outfit, vintaging, eating sushi once a week, summiting mountains, trail running, dying my hair, buying more books, and taking myself out to see Sweeney Todd at the 5th Avenue Theater. 

For you, it might look like cooking an exciting meal at home, watching your favorite movie with others, watching your favorite movie alone, adventuring near or far, ordering a fancy coffee, going to a spa, upgrading your mountaineering equipment, or inviting friends out for a themed bar crawl.

The Birthday Month philosophy can ultimately be boiled down to what any Parks & Rec fan would shout in a mall dressing room: treat your self. 

There are 12 months in the year - make at least one of them about you.

good things on the internet

• I published a community cookbook called you need to eat - check it out for easy, vegetarian/vegan weeknight recipes, and feel free to download/share/print/whatever. Thank you again to those who contributed recipes 🧑‍🍳 

• Samantha Irby on being shamelessly basic: “I can’t live in hell and make excuses for ravenously consuming a shitty reality show produced by a person I don’t know personally on a network I am unaffiliated with.” 💅

• How to write an email asking something of someone you don’t know (side note, Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study newsletter is well worth a subscribe) ✍️

currently reading

• CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill: The subject is fascinating, but I keep reading for quips like “the raw pugilism that ran beneath Manson’s philosopher guru façade.”

• In the spirit of birthday month, and sharing things I enjoy with others, here is one of my favorite Rainier Maria Rilke poems from The Sonnets to Orpheus:

Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly, // to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate. // And if they are sad about how they must wither and die, // Perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret.

All Things want to fly. Only we are weighed down by desire, // caught in ourselves and enthralled with our heaviness. // Oh what consuming, negative teachers we are // for them, while eternal childhood fills them with grace.

If someone were to fall into intimate slumber, and slept // deeply with Things -: how easily he would come // to a different day, out of a mutual depth.

Or perhaps he would stay there; and they would blossom and praise // their newest convert, who is now like one of them, // all those silent companions in the wind of the meadows.

this week’s jam

photo of my cats

Image Description: Muir (left, eyes open) and his cat brother Kerouac have a little cuddle on the couch.