I love the month of August. The warm late-summer evenings. Ripe and juicy berries and melons. Receiving schedules for the upcoming ballet, opera and theater seasons.
 
Part of what makes this month so special to me is celebrating my birthday. Yes, I'm a Leo!
 
Birthdays have always been special days. In some places and times, they have been celebrated like mini-festivals. During my childhood in Russia, the entire extended family and many friends would gather for a long sit-down dinner with toasts offered to everyone and everything we loved.

 

My family lived in a tiny apartment in St. Petersburg, but, like so many Russians, we left the city in the summer to live at our "dacha" (summer home) nearby. When I look at this black-and-white photo of myself at age 12, I remember the birthdays and summers at our dacha.
 
I remember all the excuses I came up with not to work in the garden, planting potatoes, weeding the tomatoes and cucumbers or watering the carrots. Painting flowers and reading a book under an apple tree were much more appealing to me! Of course, those relaxing times couldn't last; sooner or later I was called to chores, or chased by my mischievous little sister with a frog or handful of worms.
 
As we grow and mature, as our lives change in so many ways, birthdays are a time for contemplating where we've come from and where we are going. Am I the same person as the young girl in the photo? Could I have guessed that day where my life would lead me?
 
I'm still not a big fan of frogs and worms, and I still adore the arts, as I did as a child. But it's a good feeling to be in my thirties and to contemplate the growth and learning (including learning from mistakes) that have taken place over the last two decades.

Magazine headlines tell us that the thirties are the new twenties, the forties are the new thirties, and life really starts after fifty. But who would really want to turn back the clock and erase decades of life experience and growth of wisdom? To truly be twenty again would be to sacrifice so much. Let's hope that the headlines are talking about having younger-looking skin, fitness for travel and adventure, and better health than previous generations, not about having 20-year-old brains locked in 50-year-old bodies!

 

Recently I shared a story with my mother, which she absolutely could not recall, from when I was a little girl. Making lunch for us, she realized that there was only one egg left. She put it in the frying pan and asked me if I liked the yellow or the white best. I chose the white and she said, "Great, because I wanted yellow." I was pleased at how things had worked out, but then I asked her what she would have done if I had chosen the yellow. She said, "I would have given it to you."
 
Decades later, I remember that one-egg lunch and its lesson of sharing and giving. My mother taught me what it meant to be grown up, to put someone else's needs before your own. Maturity isn't always about sacrificing what we want, of course. But this story has stayed with me as an example of maturity and wisdom in everyday life. To my mother, the one-egg lunch was not a memorable event; it was just a normal part of being an adult and a parent.
 
After the candles are blown out and the wishes are made, after the dishes are cleaned and the gifts are opened, there are questions to be asked. How is this year going to be different from the last? What wisdom and knowledge do I have now that I didn't have before? What do I expect from my future?
 
I hope that this beautiful month will be a happy and fruitful one for everyone, and I would like to wish a special happy birthday to all my fellow Leos!

Aleksandra Efimova, President