My 888th birthday

was last Friday. Eighth day of eighth month of eighth year of the century. Just to ramp up the 8-power, I was born at 8am in the morning, and weighed eight pounds and eight ounces.

So 8 has always been my special number. Clearly the world agrees. Didja see the amazing fireworks Beijing laid on for me?

Thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes I received. And the poems! Poems written just for me put a smile of delight and wonderment on my face.

Yes, I had an utterly blissful 3-day birthday weekend. Filled with large and small pleasures.

I hiked a trail fragrant with jasmine and red earth. Played with monkeys and butterflies: powder-blue, saffron, crimson, pistachio. Startled a young antelope in the bushes. Sat beneath beautiful trees and made birdsong-infused images in my sketch pad of all I want to create in the year to come.

I walked under the root-doorway of a giant sacred Mugumo (fig, Ficus Thoningii) tree, behind a waterfall, down into prehistoric caves that sheltered the first humans in Kenya, and centuries later, the Mau Mau freedom fighters. Rowed my biceps and triceps to exhaustion, under a soft blue sky, to a soundtrack I never tire of - water lapping the sides of the boat.