Celebrating
One Thursday night, when I was in my mid-twenties and thought nothing of dancing in hotel bars until midnight, every night, while putting in 12-hour workdays, I watched a coworker of mine order a glass of champagne during happy hour. She liked champagne, she said. She wasn’t celebrating anything in particular; it was just a Thursday.
I hadn’t known you could do that.
Now I wonder why we don't all do it more often. There is something to celebrate every day -- some new stone turned, some smile won, some baby born or trip planned or book finished or even just a day when the sun rose and set like usual, but spackled unimaginable colors across a hardwood floor.
I like to make occasions out of things. I always have a bottle of champagne on hand, just in case I come home one evening, reeling from an exciting email or phone call, or even just when I just feel that kind of breezy happiness that requires acknowledgement. When new or old friends come over, I like to set out cheese plates and fancy napkins; I make new playlists. It is important to solidify moments. And it doesn't always need to be with cameras. Sometimes the documentation in our bones, our minds, is enough.
After a completely excellent day yesterday, the kind where you wander, not at all lost, and end up in perfect places at perfect times, we finished out the evening in my family's favorite restaurant, and I ordered a sweet, bubbly Moscato. It reminded me of California and France and Ecuador and New York all at once, and I got caught up in counting my luck, at how much of the world I've seen and loved and the people I know and how good they are, which never ceases to amaze me, even though I get to live it every day, and I raised my glass.