This morning begins mine and Betty's 70th year here on Planet Earth--as she reminded me in a midnight email We've known each other (and mostly loved each other except for third grade when we fought over Brenda Cootie) for 65 of those years!
This year will mark Carlene's 93rd year, Will's 40th and Elena's 6th--and that's just the youngest, one of the middles, and the oldest. Six years ago, on the 16th of January, Elena came into the world two months before we expected her, a tiny four-pound magical being.
I watched several episodes of "This is Us"--a series that features the kind of men Betty and I think we'd have done well to choose all those years ago--then fell asleep to the sound of fireworks in the neighborhood.
Firsts and lasts collide on New Years Eve at midnight when the year ends and the unknown year begins. I woke up thinking about how many people are sleeping off hangovers, how many babies were conceived in the celebratory mood of the night, how many feet are waking up aching from high heels and dancing. I couldn't help thinking, too, of all the families grieving over the death of someone they loved in 2017--by gun violence, disease, drugs, fires, and storms.
This will be a year of first steps on little baby feet, last steps, and feet that can't walk at all. A year of shouting and making love and secrets coming out of closets. A year of refugees and homeless and hungry; a year of prosperity and luxury travels.
I'm going to a party this afternoon at the house of a Marga, a woman I admire so much--one of the women featured in the book for which I was photographer: Wonderful Old Women.
Then on Wednesday night, I'm having a gathering here at my house of four other wonderful women to celebrate Gerlinde's birthday.
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