My Birthday is September 15
On sharing a birthday with Mexican Independence Day — for seventeen years and counting
People always say it must be wonderful. There is always a party. And there is always a party — that part is true. The part they leave out is that the party is not for me.
I moved to Mexico City in 2009. My birthday is September 15 — the night of the Grito de Independencia, when the president rings the Bell of Dolores from the National Palace balcony and the Zócalo erupts. Mexico’s most important national holiday. I have spent seventeen years figuring out what to do with that.
The first year was disorienting. I had been in Mexico City for only a few months and didn’t know many people. I went to a party at the home of some friends of my then-boyfriend — a big multi-generational September 15 party where the parents and their friends, the children in their twenties and their friends, and maybe some grandparents and uncles, all filled the house and spilled into the garden. I knew five people at the entire event: my boyfriend, two or three of his close friends, and our hostess, a woman I had met at a couple of previous social events.
I found myself a bit bitter and trying to defend my birthday to the people I met — explaining to everyone it was my birthday, and wondering what I was doing spending it with a huge group of strangers dressed like Adelitas. I went home feeling a little sorry for myself, and a lot out of place. I definitely tried to spend my birthdays in the United States for a couple of years after that.
A lot of my big feelings around sharing my birthday changed in 2013: my husband and his family hosted a Mexican-themed birthday party for me. His family brought food from Oaxaca — empanadas from Ocotlán, mole made by a family friend, mezcal from the maestro mezcalero his uncle knows. Many of our friends were there. His mother ordered a mariachi, that showed up right after he proposed.
The following year, my husband was on his bachelor trip, and I spent my birthday (and the national holiday) in Oaxaca with my mother-in-law. I was asleep early in the morning when I heard mariachi music playing outside the window. I wondered what was going on, and then went back to sleep. Whoops! The mariachi was for me, and it was actually incredibly rude not to get up and listen to them from the balcony in my pajamas! Actually, my husband explained it last year…
When we were in Oaxaca again for September 15, with a group of friends who we were showing the sights over the long weekend. My mother-in-law ordered a mariachi again. This time my husband dragged me out of bed, and I made my appearance on the balcony, then put some clothes on and went down to have some coffee and receive well wishes from our friends. Fortunately, it was a group of early risers.
We went to dinner at Copal (@copal_oaxaca) — a modern Mexican restaurant in a beautifully restored casona, with an open interior patio, cement walls, lush greenery, and rustic lamps. It feels more like a Mexico City restaurant than an Oaxacan one in terms of the design. We talked about trying to go to the Zocalo, but no one felt like the Asador Vasco, even if their mole has won awards, and getting a table at the bar on the plaza would have been too complicated.
For my fortieth, I declared that we were not going to celebrate the Grito. I hosted fourteen people — the maximum number that could sit at our dining table — served tacos with homemade tortillas and caesar salad, asked everyone to dress up, hired a jazz band, and drank champagne. The friends who came skipped traveling or delayed their departure over the long weekend to be there.
Seventeen years in, my feelings about sharing my birthday with Mexico have relaxed. The disorientation of that first party — the sense of needing to defend my birthday to strangers at someone else’s celebration — has been replaced by something more comfortable. The friends I have now are willing to sometimes change their plans to be there for me. They celebrate Mexican independence and my birthday, or sometime just my birthday.
On the best years, sharing a birthday with Mexico’s independence feels a little like kismet — the Californian who moved here and stayed, whose husband proposed at a party with Oaxacan mole and empanadas, whose mother-in-law orders mariachis. The holiday is not mine, but the people who celebrate with me these days are, and that makes all the difference..
If you are trying to figure out what to do on September 15 in Mexico City — where to watch the Grito, which gala dinners to consider, what to expect on the 16th — I’ve provided some suggestions in my practical guide.
