I think I’m a good healthy mix of both my parents’ personalities. I’m fairly reserved and tidy like my dad. And I’m creative and restless like my mom.

I don’t ever remember a time when my mom wasn’t doing something artistic. In our house on Church Street she converted a basement bathroom into a darkroom. My sisters and I would sit for her in front of blue paper backdrops and she would adjust lights and exposure and something about the shutter or metering was involved. I was never fully comfortable posing in front of a camera (although you wouldn’t have guessed that if you saw the stuff I’d go on to do in 2010) but I sat dutifully. When she wasn’t taking or developing photographs, she was airbrushing them, which at the time I didn’t really understand but I knew it involved a spray nozzle and lots of heavy metal bands apparently had it done to their album covers. Only she would airbrush flowers or something — I think she used it more as a coloring tool. 

My mom has always loved to bake and experiment with recipes. If asked how much of an ingredient she’s added, she always says, “I dunno. I guessed.” She never measures. She likes to make her own rules. She is passionate about food and has steadily adjusted her diet over the years to the point where she is now, without a doubt, the healthiest eater I know. She gets drunk on a quarter of a glass of wine. She calls it being “swiffy” and always announces it when it happens.

Forever studying foreign languages (just for fun), my mom went back to college when I was a teenager and, a few years later, was fluent in Italian. To this day, she puts aside time each day to study German and Spanish and linguistics and probably other things I’m not even aware of. She has written poetry, short stories, essays, blog entries. She wrote a blog entry a day last year. When I have a grammar question, I ask my mom—and my father is an English professor. My mom loves foreign films and books and dogs and chocolate and being independent and speaking her mind.

My mom is outspoken and passionate about loving the things she loves. When she makes a good meal, you must try it. When she loves a movie, you must see it. She laughs easily and loves wordplay. She gets a Netflix movie, watches it and returns it the next day.

Not only do I not have any brothers, but my mom is a feminist. I did not grow up with the notion that men and women weren’t considered equal. We didn’t have a boogeyman in the closet. We had a boogeywoman. One time we drove past a construction site with a MEN WORKING sign. My mom leaned out the window and yelled in equal parts jokey and serious, “WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN?” I was mortified. I’m so glad it happened.

My mom turned 65 today. When I spoke with her earlier, she said she was going to spend the evening online, looking up all the discounts to which she is now entitled as an “elderly” person. (She also highly recommended I watch The King’s Speech.)

Happy birthday, mom. Thank you for making me inside your body.