43 Things

The last year in the life brought with it grief – a few times over in a short passage of months.  The universe at large also offered up tragedy, which isn’t new… but maybe against the fabric of my own reality they seemed to resonate more.  Inasmuch there were several reflections and bittersweet conversations about the lives that touched us, made us smile, and had much more potential that ended too soon.  I admit that selfishly I also reflected on my own life and wondered what I could say or others would say of my accomplishments and the memories I’ve created.  And I think about all those thoughts and reflections that I wait until a memorial service to call to mind.  Not when the person is right there in front of me.

Well, I am still working on that.   But I have thought how the opposite of those memorial services are birthdays.  A day when we tell our friends to be happy.  But really, I am starting to think it is that I am expressing that I am happy you are alive in this world right now and that we have had the opportunity to collide. 

Tomorrow is my birthday.  And, well, it is a number that isn’t young – but not exactly old.  But definitely one that underscores the question of what have I done with my time and my life?  What am I celebrating tomorrow?  Life.  But that is more than breath and the relative comfort in which I spend my day to day.  It is a tapestry of so many people and pleasures and memories and moments and wonder and pain and lessons and inertia and hope and fear.

Here are 43 of those tapestry threads.  In no particular order.  In no particular pattern.  These are just the strands that catch the light right now.  Maybe you’ll find yourself in there.  But if you don’t, there’s more to come next year.  Or tell me. 

1. a good cup of coffee

2. Sadie Lady

3. Brubeck’s Take Five

4. crickets on a summer evening

5. Once Upon a Mattress 1997

6. the fort in the woods at the edge of the WTAG fields

7. Overknights

8. Mt. Pleasant Ave.

9. Hannah, Lily, and Isaac

10. my dad’s goofy dancing and eye roll worthy French

11. Robin Hood marathons

12. that Mardi Gras party

13. watching The Return of the King extended version after too many glasses of raspberry punch

14. my mom’s Christmas cookies

15. the sunrise over Adams Pond

16. my sister playing the piano

17. The House of Yes

18. Supper Club

19. running on the carriage lane of Com. Ave.

20. Banned in Boston

21. cousins

22. Fitchburg

23. bad choices that lead to detours to the right path

24. Whosdays

25. Shakespeare

26. red wine

27. lily of the valley

28. London

29. drinking wine and eating sandwiches in the back room of a hotel in Donegal

30. Stevie Wonder

31. the humility that comes with being disliked

32. the smell of my mom’s tomato sauce

33. conversations that don’t notice the clock

34. Our Country’s Good

35. the name Brennan and all that comes with it

36. Wolfie

37. dancing

38. the moment when the lights go down

39. Christmas

40. eye contact that lingers more than necessary

41. youth theater summers

42. the nooks and crannies of Beauport

43. the scary, delicious possibility of it all