a moment in the day: birthday

Sunday afternoon, sitting at my laptop working on an image for a book cover. Out through the little window in the dormer of my used-to-be-an-attic room, muffled, quiet, comes the sound of singing.

Haaaa-ppy birrrrrrth-day toooo youuuu..

I get up from my desk and duck my head into the dormer's little alcove, crawl around the bulk of my freestanding air conditioner, crouch at the window. A big white van is parked across the street. Behind it, at the curb, mostly obscured by the van, is the family that lives in the house, a mom, a dad, and two small, blond children. I can't see the smallest, but I'm sure he's there. The older one, a girl with a bouncy mop of yellow curls, wears a white dress and carries, together in one arm, a red blanket and some sort of stuffed animal.

The van window closest to me is open and a hand hangs out, holding onto a string. Up above floats a big, almost-cube-shaped mylar Happy Birthday balloon.

"Oh!" The mom runs into the house and comes back with a small plastic container with what look like two cupcakes with white frosting. She bends down, lost behind the van, as she hands the cupcakes to her children.

Drive-by birthday parties in the new normal.

The balloon flashes in the sun. As the parents stand at a safe distance from the van and chat through the windows, the little girl with her cupcake and her stuffed animal, her red blanket trailing like a cape, runs happy birthday circles around and around the yard.