I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

The experience of aging, of having a birthday, is so exciting for children.

I remember when my kids reached double digits.

That was a big deal.

This year is the first year I have not one but two teenagers.

My son will be 12 one day, 13 the next.

I'm sure he'll look the same, sound the same, be the same, but he's also excited about turning 13,

turning into someone who was more his own and less mine.

Aging feels different as an adult, but every birthday is an opportunity to take stock

and to be grateful for the years we've lived. Who knows what we might be turning toward or into when we turn a year

older? Today's poem introduced me to a new word for longing or yearning, and it showed me a way

to use that expansive desire as a frame for the magic of everyday life.

Zainzuked by Michael Domanus

My daughter says six is her favorite year ever,

though she suspects that seven will be better. Her dress

spins down the corridor. It's made of butterflies and billowing like the memory of a chocolate

souffle. Was I ever more like her than like me? Shoulders not flagging, breath hot with awe

as I sidestepped each stone, the promise of age like a helium balloon, dragging me behind it

on a flouncy string?

My daughter tries to show me everything she's left a mark on, painted clay, a smiley-faced

cotton ball perched on a stick, her name in all caps on an envelope. Does she already somewhere in her spleen or

pancreas, in the soft tissues and marrow, sense that the impossible goal is for all of us just to keep going?

...