My Aunt Margaret had a posse. Those women, all born within the first decade or so of the last century, wouldn’t have thought of themselves that way. They were friends, or maybe bosom buddies, or just “the gals.” I saw them as reliable sources of card-game rules, egg salad sandwiches, arithmetic tutoring, and models of how to be a grown woman.

Five of these six women were born in El Reno, Oklahoma. Billie moved to El Reno from Virginia as a young bride. Two of them, Margaret (not my aunt) and Martha, never lived anywhere else. Those who hadn’t stayed, “came home” at some point in their lives because of divorce, broken health, economic necessity, caring for an elderly parent, or retirement. By the time I was a teenager, they were part of the fabric of my summertime life.

When I was old enough, say 13 or so, I would join their card games. Canasta, Spite & Malice, and some weird kind of poker are the ones I remember best. There were glasses of iced tea and glasses of bourbon on the card tables. Little bowls of salted nuts and those semi-soft white mints that melt in your mouth. I don’t know what the conversation was like when I wasn’t around, but I suspect it was neither profane nor sanctimonious.

These were well balanced women, who had seen a fair amount of life (except maybe Martha, who always seemed to be slightly somewhere else, somewhere sweeter) and understood that expectations and resentments were first cousins. They had all worked for their livings for decades. They were teachers, a social worker, a nurse, a businesswoman.

I remember their laughter and that they always dressed up (at least more than my friends and I do) and smelled good. I’m sure they had sorrow and disappointment with husbands, children, jobs, but it wouldn’t have occurred to them to share those stories around me.

I don’t know what bound them together; if longevity of friendship was the secret, or if it took a tightly knit culture and more shared than singular experiences. Just being friends wouldn’t have been enough, though. I have a social set, some dinner companions, a few fellow card players, and a handful of good friends, but I don’t have — have never had — the closeness these women shared.

So here’s to Margaret, Margaret, Martha, Lois, Billie, and Virginia and their 80-year-long posse.

Every workday morning I drive through a gate onto a U.S. Air Force Base. The lines of traffic creep forward to the guards who view our badges and give us permission to enter. While I’m edging toward the base gate, I watch a colony of prairie dogs foraging, tumbling, scampering, and, seemingly, guarding their territory. Some of the critters stand upright, looking like fat-bottomed meerkats, with their backs to the colony’s home turf. It’s possible they aren’t on guard duty. I suppose they could be watching the cars go by, maybe figuring out when it is safe to cross the four lanes of pavement (never!), or maybe they are asking themselves why one human needs so much metal, glass, and noise to move really slowly into and through their limited, ground-eye view.

Their territory, by the way, is the front yard of an elementary school. School buses use the circular drive that surrounds the yard on the north side of the building. The playground is on the east side of the school and the teachers’ parking lot is to the west. Except for the morning and afternoon bus trips, the yard is a peaceful place for the prairie dogs to dig their underground homes, raise their young, and munch on the weeds and grasses.

The size of the colony has changed over the years I’ve been making my way through the gate. I don’t know if its size is self-regulating or if occasionally humans decide to reduce the numbers. Right now it is pretty small, with maybe a dozen individuals roaming around in the morning. I suppose colony size could be seasonal. Youngsters are born in the spring and stay underground until they are big enough to fend for themselves, usually at about six-weeks old.

My work is useful and good for our country, but it isn’t warm and fuzzy. Watching the prairie dogs go about their business as I get ready to go about mine gives me a boost and puts a smile on my face. I’m sure the guards appreciate that.

Several months ago I decided to stop eating meat for ethical reasons. A month or so after that, I decided to stop eating all animal products for health reasons. That foray into veganism lasted until I bumped into a breakfast burrito at the Los Ranchos grower’s market. Back to eggs and cheese. Then fish swam in. Now my dietary rule for myself is to not eat meat from anything that walks on the earth (I thought about making the rule “nothing with feet,” but I wasn’t sure where crabs fit in.). Eggs are a little iffy under that rubric, but I don’t feel like adding a clause excluding embryos.

The Beatles released this song when I was 19. Sixty-four was unimaginable then; and at 29 and 39. By 49, it was seeming possible. At 59, likely. Today: Happy Birthday to me.

When I discovered that I could be a lesbian, I went for it wholeheartedly. Up to that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that my crushes on girls and women were crushes. Once I noticed that kissing a woman was better than kissing a man, I made a quick and comprehensive transition from wife to girlfriend; from Gordon to Marsha.

I was nearly 40 when I came out and so had a lot of years to look back on when my friends and I got together to share the part of the coming out story that addresses: when did you know? The answers I heard ranged from being 7 years old and watching Annette Funicello on the Mickey Mouse Club through high school sleep-overs that turned into something more to my middle-aged story of feeling the thrum when I heard a moan in my own key.

I wonder if today’s young lesbians have their own “when did you know” moments? Did they always know? Did they ever have to deny their feelings or have they always felt free to be who they are? For them, is it Coming Out or Being Out?

My father ruled our home and my mother did everything she could to keep him happy. Because he hated to be kept waiting, she and I never dawdled, delayed, or dragged our feet. We moved through our lives at home with a no-steps-wasted precision and a deep, abiding respect for time.

I’m phobic about tardiness and the fear of keeping someone waiting makes me rush just about everything I do. I thought about this today as I was folding laundry. Hurrying is my default mode and when I realized that I didn’t have anything on the schedule after the laundry was folded, I consciously slowed down. Some folks need to be told to step it up; it’s just the opposite for me.

One way I slow myself down is by appreciating the details of the task. As I folded the laundry, I focused on the feel of the fabric — smooth t-shirts, nubby towels, fuzzy socks — and the neatness of my gestures as I folded the items and placed them in the hamper. I learned this attention to my actions by exploring Buddhism. Mindfulness. Being here now. These concepts were as foreign to me as the actual practices of Buddhism — the formalities of sitting, walking, breathing, chanting, listening. The concepts are still useful long after I stopped the practices.

I believe that’s how religion works for some of us. The practices are the means to a spiritual end, however one defines it. For me, the end is loving kindness, another concept I encountered in Buddhism, but one that appears in all the religions I’ve ever heard about.

Over the past quarter-century, I’ve done a lot of searching for the God of my understanding. Recently, I’ve given up the search. I’m content today that I understand the purpose of religion, a deity, a church, and that I can get to the spiritual end without resorting to anyone else’s means. It’s a relief to acknowledge that while I am awed by the Creation, I don’t care at all about the Creator.

Some time today my great-niece, Lauren, will give birth to her first child, Audra. In some families, a great-great niece might be a distant relation. For me, she is a meaningful connection.

My half-sister, Judy, was Lauren’s grandmother. My nephew, Tom, was Lauren’s father.

I was seven when Tommy was born on Valentine’s Day, 1956. Judy and Larry were living with my parents and me in Washington, D.C. I remember my mother waking me up and telling me that they were going to the hospital because Judy was going to have her baby. I was taken next door to the Clopton’s house. Marsha Clopton put me back to sleep in a little attic room but it was so cold that I came down to her and Ned’s room and she let me crawl into bed with them.

When I woke up in the morning, I had a nephew. I went to school and told everyone that I was an aunt. In second grade, I was clearly ahead of the family curve.

Judy and Larry had one more child, Tracy. Tom and Julie had Lauren and TJ. Tracy and Don had Casey. My parents, Maxine and Casey, only had me.

Time passed and my family dwindled. Now I have Lauren, TJ, Tracy, and Casey. And Audra.

We are all links to our past and our future.

Welcome, Audra, to my chain.