Saturday, June 2, 2007

A Book of Days

It's a Dixieland laundry day in this Book of Days.

The ferryboat out to one of the town's island beaches started running today. To celebrate, they've hired a charming Dixieland Band to play on the ferry. So back and forth, I hear the music gain as it nears and lessen as it heads off into the Sound.

I'm not a fan of Dixieland music per se, but it has added a layer of happy punctuation on the day reminding me to look outside of my window and notice the folks on the ferry. It's my day for laundry; their day for the ferry; someone else's day for something else.

Maybe they are in another city. London has been on my mind. So maybe they are in London and today in London, on their little street corner, something equally sweet is happening. Maybe there's a festival. I could check the Internet, but won't. It's enough to wonder.

It occurred to me while I lived in New York City, a home to people from all over the world, that I needed to celebrate a wider range of holidays than those offered by the standard U.S. banking and stock exchange calendars.

For instance, the serendipitous, swirling flutter of cherry blossoms in Kyoto causes a holiday where people jump up from their desks and picnic under the trees. Could midtown Manhattan handle such a holiday? Could Central Park possibly hold all of the revellers?

Or the holidays of the Indian calendar. There are the birthdays of the gods and seasonal observances and cultural landmarks.

I enjoy thinking, for all the anger and war happening right now, that somewhere on the planet, people are gathering to celebrate some aspect of being alive. A Book of Days, as I would write it, would include them all.

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