The clothes pins we used were wooden. I wasn’t tall enough to hang anything on the line, nor old enough to wash clothes, but I did use them for a birthday party game. 

My mom said I could use the whole basement for my party. I taped the donkey on the side of the wall. Put dice on the table. And placed the glass jar beneath the chair, beside the bucket of clothes pins. I was kneeling on the chair with pin in hand when she walked in. She paused with a look that said I thought we talked about this. And we had. I wasn’t going to play in any of the games. Or if I played, I wasn’t going to win, because the winner got a prize — their own present. And it being my birthday, I was guaranteed to get enough. “I’m not practicing,” I assured her, “I’m happy to let someone else win.”  And I was. Truly. “I just like the sound it makes, when the wooden pin falls inside the glass.” She smiled at me. “The little clink, clunk…it’s like the glass is happy. It’s not empty anymore.” I didn’t really have to plead my case, my mother knew me. “Keep playing, forever,” she said. 

It’s funny how long I thought forever would be back then. 

I never had a clothesline until I moved to France. Our clothes dry in the breezes of Provence. Our clothes pins are plastic, and not really even pins anymore, but I still can hear the sound. Each memory of my mom bounces against the glass of my heart, clink, clank…and my heart is never empty.

Today is my birthday. I mention it only because I know that I have already won — so much. So I stand beside the chair and offer you to play. I want you to win on my birthday. I want you to hear the sounds of joy. The only way we outrun forever is to keep playing.