May 17, 2007

Today, someone will look at her egg carton and think, "May 17?! Maybe I'll make an omelette for dinner." Today someone set their timer to record the season finale of his favorite show. May 17 is someone's first day of her last period. Someone else will be wracked with labor pains, but in between contractions when her body has room for her mind, it will occur to her that she (please don't let me labor for more than 24 hours) knows the birthday of her new child.

There are people who keep track of dates, and years from now a couple will be at dinner with friends, or maybe some co-workers, and they'll be asked, "So when did you two meet?" And one of them, the one that keeps track of dates, will tell the story that has become part of their couple lore. We were at a party. We were at work. We were right in the middle of doing the hokey-pokey--turning ourselves around, right, honey? "It was May 17, 2007," that person will say and sigh the way people do when they're satified with their memories.

Today, someone will vow that she'll remember the date. Right now, someone is moving into a house. Maybe this person is newly divorced. This morning, this person went to the lawyer's and signed documents in which she wrote her name and May 17, 2007, over and over. At the end of the morning, she takes her keys and drives to the brick house. Maybe neighbors left a pot of geraniums on the porch or a bottle of champagne in the kitchen. Maybe she feels fragile yet hopeful. The window sills are dusty but the flowers really are a nice touch, she'll think. I'll never forget this day. The memory of that emotional state will stay with her, although the date itself will fall away, overwritten by new birthdays of people she hasn't yet met.

Other things, worse things, will surely happen on May 17, 2007. Someone will say something that he or she can't take back. Someone will get an injury that turns into a scar. Someone will get a troubling diagnosis. Someone will speak to a person she loves for the last time, but with all luck, she will have said what she always meant to.

I think the odds are pretty good that, somewhere in the world, this is how May 17, 2007 goes down for some people. Odds are better, though, that for most people it's a regular day, winding anonymously away, the fate of most of the calendar.

This is all to say that today is not all about me. But, on the other hand? My first book comes out today, and I can't help but basking in May 17, 2007.