Today is a little anniversary in my life that celebrates two anniversaries.
It is the sixth month anniversary of my commitment to publish a blogpost every Friday, a commitment that I began on December 16, 2022, which would have been my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. When we were growing up it was *very* important to my parents that my siblings and I knew the date of their anniversary, even though they consistently chose to celebrate without us. Today, my father is dead and my mother does not remember. Their anniversary is still important to me, so I try to honor it and them.
Each year my remembrance is a little different. Though I know it does not make a lot of sense, this past year their anniversary date was the date I chose to start something I had long thought about doing. My parents both had very public dimensions of their life and leadership, and I think they’d be proud of the public commitment I made to show up in the blogosphere. Now the anniversaries are linked, and each draws strength and significance from being joined together in this way.
As far back as I can remember, I have collected children’s books. In fact, if there’s any road I’ve not taken that calls to me still, it’s the road of writing children’s books. They are silly and serious, beautiful and profound, and they’re often way more honest about what it means to live as a human being than are adult books.
One of my favorites, which came into my life in adulthood, is I’m in Charge of Celebrations, by Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall.[1] The book is told from the point of view of a person in the desert who remembers and keeps track of important events, such as Double Rainbow Day as well as encounters with rabbits, coyotes, and other fellow creatures. In this way of being in the world, there are many anniversaries, each of which has its own day.
I’m getting ready to celebrate A LOT of anniversaries. In a little over a year I will be 50. That birthday will culminate a year of anniversaries I plan to start celebrating this fall, with 20 years since I entered a doctoral program, followed by the 20th birthday of my older child. There are 30-year observances in there, too: traveling to Japan to sing in a 2,000 strong choir; signing up to be a camp counselor; and studying abroad, where I met my life partner. There are also anniversaries of significant friendships–10th, 25th, 30th–and the anniversary of my father’s death: 10.
The aforementioned life partner is not 100% on board with my enthusiasm for anniversaries and sometimes suggests that I might prefer the past over the present. Far from it! Instead, what gladdens my heart is to contemplate decisions I made at ages 19 and 20 that continue to unfold and bear fruit in my life today. It is a joy in getting older to reflect on and celebrate roots that have reached for nourishment and branches that have stretched to find the sun.
I’m about all the anniversaries and will happily celebrate with you when you’re ready to claim one.
[1] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Im-in-Charge-of-Celebrations/Byrd-Baylor/9780689806209
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