Before you jump to conclusions, let me assure you this is NOT another blog dedicated to someone's pathetic attempt at making/keeping New Year resolutions. Not to belittle those who take their resolutions quite seriously, but I guess I'm not the resolute type. I do respect the concept. Yet, I've always thought that commitments made simply because it's the first day of a new year are doomed to fail. What magical, mystical power does the stroke of midnight, on this particular day, conjure, anyway?
When you think about it, the concept of a calendar "year" is a fairly meaningless abstraction. Since the earliest civilizations, humans have created their own calendars as a structure to explain change of seasons, lunar cycles, solar patterns, and the position of the stars. If mankind could explain/contain such universal things, then it followed that mankind might harness...well... mayhem. (And we can all see how well that worked out.) But I digress.
So this past week when the island of Samoa decided to "skip a day," I'm sure it had Gregorian monks and Mayan holy men spinning in their graves. By dropping one day from their year, the Samoans thumbed their noses at the calendar and placed themselves at the front of the line in the world trade markets. Now that's thinking outside of the calendar box. Samoa waited until December 30-31 for the transition, making them one of the first countries in the world to ring in the new year. Talk about getting a jump on the party!
But what of those Samoans whose birthdays and anniversaries fell on the 30th? Weren't they left feeling a bit...well...uncelebrated? Then again, it might be a gift. You could claim that you're 39 for another year. And if your husband is asked how long you've been married, well who can blame him if he gets it wrong?
The concept of skipping a day kindled whimsical conversation around our backyard firepot New Years Eve. If you could get a do-over for 2011, what day would you like to skip altogether? Hubby's answer was quick and decisive.
"I would have skipped the day I spent prepping for my colonoscopy."
"What if you could go the opposite way and stretch one day into two?" I asked.
"I would want to go back to July 4th when we were back in Missouri with the family."
Both good choices. "How about you? What day would you slow down?" Hubby countered.
"Probably our daughter's wedding day," I said, laughing. "It was all such a blur--I should like to at least remember some of the day."
"And what day would you have skipped?" Hubby asked.
I searched the cobwebs upstairs for any memory of a day in the past year so dark, so painful that I'd prefer to wipe it off the calendar. It was a hard year for a lot of folks. I thought of the residents in Japan and Joplin who had lost everything to natural disaster. I remembered the Americans who had lost their jobs and then their homes. And I recalled the losses of so many of my friends and families this past year--personal health crises, failed marriages, and the passing of beloved mothers, fathers, and sons. So much sorrow. What one day would I choose to erase?
"Sweetie?" Hubby prodded.
"I wouldn't skip a single day," I murmured. That's right. As bad as things were for many, how do you change the course of life by erasing one day? And how do you savor the joy of a 4th of July or a daughter's wedding, without first tasting the salty tears of sorrow? Perhaps I'm showing my age with this lack of druthers, but...life is too short for regrets and too full for skipping a single day.
Skip a day? I think not. This Kitchen Garden Novice wants another full trip around the sun.
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