Life unfolds beyond the calendar squares

By: Sallie Rose Hollis

By the time you’re reading this, summer
is over.
Except it isn’t.
Labor Day has come and gone, traditionally
bringing down the curtain on
summer even though the season itself
won’t officially end until Sept. 22.
And if September in North Louisiana
follows its usual script, Mother Nature
may not acknowledge the change
for quite a while after that.
We humans do like our markers.
We decide when seasons end, which
anniversaries count as milestones
and what we’re going to be doing next
Tuesday. Life, however, occasionally has
other ideas.
Take anniversaries. Hubby and I mark
34 years of marriage this month.
Thirty-four isn’t exactly a showstopper
in the anniversary world. Twenty-five gets
silver. Fifty gets gold. Even the numbers
ending in zero seem to command extra attention.
But 34? Not so much.