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Four nights ago, I danced as the boys played guitar and erhu beneath the moon on top of the hill where we slept. Drew called it a rain dance. The rain was my fault. A Chinese friend of mine said that the rain is female and the sun is male, so I replied to Drew, “Well, I am the yang.” My knees hurt when it rains. I must be getting older soon.

Today, the sun is dripping again. As if still wet from the rain dance 4 nights ago. As if doused with holy water. My grandmother used to call me the devil in hell. She must be looking down now and pouring slowly.

We had birthday cake and chocolate milk and Chinese mooncakes and dumplings and dumpling soup and fruit for breakfast. I blew out 5 candles trying not to spit on my name and the Chinese message written in red icing. I felt so honored. I felt young. I felt like riding.

So we rode 40 km to a mountain town with smiling humble mountain folk and  feasted on the best Chinese meal we’ve had since we started. At least that’s what everyone agreed on. We’re always up for food comparisons. Peter even notices the different tastes of the rice. Though sometimes, if he’s feeling ravenous, he mixes all the dishes together and eats with a spoon instead of chopsticks.The laban (boss) of the restaurant lapped us up a heaping bowl of ripe orange winter squash steamed. It is our favorite kind, in its natural state. We’ve made no mistake this time. This is not orange pumpkin sliced and boiled in a tasteless soup, nor is it pureed and sugared and corn starched. It is just a pile of steaming winter squash. We eat in confidence over our decisionless decisions.  This is fate.  Great restaurant, great people, great food, great mood, great weather (the sun came out), great Birthday. Everything has gone smoothly and we want to seal it with a date.

But curiosity must kill this cat, because the laban, our beloved laban, tells us that it is October 23^rd. My Birthday is October 24^th.

I am still 25. Cheers. This is still as old as I wanted to be a year ago. Maybe if we stay in this town long enough, the days will begin to peel back like old skin, our memories purified by the cloudy mountain sanctuary and the peaceful mountain folk and we will be back to our original selves, naked and raw. 

25 still am I. The world in reverse. Like a stream of consciousness. How did I end up here riding a bike in a mountain when last year, I was dancing like a cat on a friend’s bar table in Japan, wooing a man to “Satisfaction” by Otis Redding? 

Tomorrow, I am running through corn fields with a white dress on. I am 20 and virginal. I write poetry on a swing next to a lake as a beautiful boy with sunshine in his eyes watches from afar. It is sunny, which is good, because I like men.

This is a dream. Tomorrow it is my birthday. Tomorrow, I think, maybe, it could be, I don’t know, according to the laban, whom we respect because she knows how to cook a pumpkin, it is October 24^th.  

And I am actually 26. Older than I wanted to be. Tomorrow we camp outside on a rice paddy to celebrate because I want to be rebirthed in the Earth on my birthday.  The red sun transitions impalbably into the red moon, and i am confused whether it the sun itself or if it is its reflection that brightens the faces around me. I need my sunglasses to decipher the colors.

This is Eden and the sky is leaking its white blood on my brown skin again, wrapping everything in a wedding veil.Everything is about to be consummated.  Everything is about to become real. Everything is moist. Suddenly, I am very aware that I am grown. Happy Birthday to me. .