It is the changes and transitions in life that are always the most interesting parts. My life has always been full of changes. The longest I have ever lived in the same building is about 8 years. I went to five different schools before college. My hobbies also seem to be all about changes. Change ringing is the music of combinatorics, square dancing is the rhythmic moving from one formation to another, and ba gua is a martial art focused on stability in transitions. Even my research is about how to get from the initial point to the final point, and what the best transition is. Then there are the deeper changes within myself that happen all the time. Two of the most significant transitions in my life were centered around Friday, February 25th. I remember both of those days and the events which occurred on them very clearly.
The first day (17 years ago) I remember laughter, smiles, balloons, and rain as I waited to be picked up with my cello. It was a day of beginnings, a day of happiness. The spring that began then was one of the happiest seasons of my life, in which basically everything just went the way I wanted it to (this also happened in the fall of 1999, fall of 2003, and summer of 2007). That weekend and the following week were just about perfect.
The second day (11 years ago) I remember snow, a turning away, a question, an answer that wasn't an answer, "heads will roll", a ball, and a pair of parallel conversations. It was a day of endings, a day of sadness. The spring that followed was the worst season of my life, in which almost nothing went well. There was a certain happiness and optimism that I had had which faded out and never fully returned. I lost touch with quite a few people that spring, though I have recently found some of them again.
The major transitions associated with those days did not actually occur on them, as they were far too big to be completed in just a day. Those days were just the turning points at which things could never be the same again. They were the catalysts which forced the transitions to occur, forcing the changes which I could at best attempt to control. Those two days and the transitions associated with them are linked in more ways than I could count, because as different as they seem to be, they are in many ways just the opposite sides of the same thing. Separating everything out into basic components and then putting them all back together again. The story of the canon and the rainbow, of the sun and the flame. A story of discovery and exploration.
And now it is Friday, February 25th again, for the fifth time in my life (although the first time I was only 2 1/2 years old and probably didn't notice). The next time this will happen is in 2022. I'm not expecting any major events today, although my life is full of transitions right now. I remember thinking in the spring of 1994 that the only way I could ever have a better year would be if I graduated, got married, had a child, and got a job I really liked all in one year. Two of those have happened in the past year, one of them was longer ago than that, and the fourth one I am still working on. Where will things go from here? I don't know.
