“How do you measure a year?” the cast of Rent famously and musically asked.
“In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in the life?”
It’s a big question; a bigger one, still, if the unit in question is not a year in the life but the life itself — a coil that is still joyfully, curiously, hungrily spiraling longer and higher even as it grounds and roots itself ever deeper. If the song’s 525,600 minutes sounds like a big number, consider these:
31,536,000 minutes
525,600 hours
21,900 days
Or…
60 years.
Those are the celebratory numbers that pop and dazzle the sky today like fireworks on this benchmark birthday of my beloved. At least they dazzle me; I’m not sure how excited she is about arriving at this decadal threshold. And it’s true that the numbers aren’t ultimately the subject of celebration. As the song suggests, it’s all the beats and blinks that pulse behind them. It’s the cups of coffee, the sunsets, the laughter — even the strife. It’s the first days of class, and the last; it’s the paychecks, and now the pension checks; the harvests picked, the eggs gathered, the flowers cut. It’s the meals playfully prepared and then shared together; the kisses and hugs, the nuzzlings of a dog nose.
But it is more, still, than those. It’s the kindnesses shared, the laughter spread, the forgivenesses tendered. It’s the lives stretched, the minds stimulated, the curiosities piqued. It’s the indifferent and aloof, dragging her or his feet, drawn in and deftly intrigued. It’s the broken and clumsily mended heart softened and reopened.
I am gratefully acquainted with most of these measures, but by no means all. I came late to this party. She, after all, was an Iowan and I, a Texan — miles apart in more ways than one. I was inching toward 40 when we were first introduced, at a time and circumstance in my life when I evinced a reputation for competence but rarely sunshine. She, of course, changed all that, encouraging the competence; evoking the light. Intellectually and spiritually I trust the conviction that some of that light comes from within. To whatever extent that is true, the delight of my experience in her company is more moon-like, reflecting the radiant cascades that spill my way. I’ll not gush and bore you with details, except to say that it is a gloriously bright place to live, here in the company of her incandescence — minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year.
Happy birthday dearest Lori Jo. I’m so grateful for the Waterloo hospital that sheltered your first moments in this world; for your Alexander parents and siblings who nurtured and shaped your subsequent years; for the co-workers and companions who broadened, comforted and challenged your growth, and for the intuitive mutual friends who nudged me into your orbit — a gravitational pull to which I happily submit. I can’t wait to experience whatever fills and animates the clock ticks, rooster crows, and calendar pages ahead of us.
