THE (REAL) CURRICULUM VITAE

On the first of the year, I happened to be looking through a folder of old family documents when I came across a Curriculum Vitae my father had updated a couple of years before he died. I’m so glad he did it. If he hadn’t, I would have had no way of knowing all his medical residencies and honors and awards, all his military ranks and medals, all his societies and specialties. He was, for instance, a founder of the Crippled Children’s Hospital in Napa, and he was awarded a Southeast Asia Ribbon with Two Bronze Stars for his service training flight surgeons during Desert Storm, which he served in even though he had already been diagnosed with cancer.

My father accumulated an impressive list of accomplishments, even though he died at a relatively early age. For me, though, he was the doctor who set all the bones of my childhood friends, who attempted to operate on my pet mouse, who came home late to dinner, who wore a cowboy hat and named all his dogs “Sam” after the dog in a John Wayne movie, who smoked a pipe, who raced wooden Chriscraft motorboats in the summer, and who rescued me on ski slopes in the winter.

Also on the first of this year, I decided to (finally) put together a Birthday Calendar: one of those perpetual calendars that has the days of the month in a list and unassociated with particular days of the week, so that you can keep track of the birthdays and other important recurring dates, such as anniversaries and pet adoptions, from year to year.

But I had the thought of adding in some of my favorite authors and artists, too. So I added in a few of those, and then I felt sorry for the months that didn’t have a birthday on them, so I kept looking and looking and looking until I had filled 366 days with birthdays, and sometimes more than one.

I found myself thinking of all the books I’ve ever read, and all the philosophers who influenced my early thinking, and all the topics I studied at all the grad schools I attended, and all the authors from my dissertation on the origins of the novel. And I thought of favorite poets, and inspiring artists, and difficult literary critics, and sophisticated actors, and children’s book authors, and Golden Age illustrators, and glamorous fashion designers, and French pochoir fashion plate illustrators. And then I added in some of the lovely people I’ve had the pleasure to work with on my books.

And as I was scrolling through lists, and wikipedia, and databases of artists and authors, and genealogies of kings and queens, as well as rummaging around through the vast, messy room of my memory, I became entirely and utterly overwhelmed. Inspired, of course, but overwhelmed.

Of course, I also found myself sifting through lists of people of remarkable accomplishments in fields I know nothing about, such as cricket and banking and physics, and although I skimmed over them as much as I could, the sheer volume of them added to the overwhelm of all the accomplishments in the great sea of human history and advancement.

I’ve come to three conclusions.

1. Humans really are remarkable.

2. Culture really is degrading quickly.

3. I really do have no idea what I’m doing with my life.

For the time being, for a variety of life exigencies, I do not have the luxury of setting a New Year’s resolution to the tune of reading longer, more serious novels and learning to paint just like the masters (both of which I fully intend to at least attempt to do!). There is simply no time to work on plumping up my official C.V., and so I’m feeling more than a bit stymied. No, no, there are caretaking needs that must be met first: and of course there have been fewer women in the history books and on my Birthday Calendar, in part because of the same reasons.

I am trying to be patient, and I am trying to remember that, like a yummy cassoulet, it all goes into the pot. All the novels, all the courses, all the museums, and all the travels; and, just as much, all the heartbreaks, all the victories, all the loves, and all the sacrifices.

And I am trying to remember that even when we’re not heading straight towards an important goal, we’re still adding to the recipe.

And I am trying to remember that even though such Who’s-Who lists reduce these historical figures as Michel de Montaigne (February 28, 1533), French Renaissance philosopher, author of Les Essais; and Etienne de la Boetie (November 1, 1530), magistrate, classicist, poet; the really important part was, for them, in their friendship. After La Boetie died young, Montaigne penned “De l’amitie”, in which he puts together the most beautiful line captured in, I think, any language, on why their friendship affected him so deeply: “Parce que c’estoit luy; parce que c’estoit moy” (a little difficult to capture: “Because it was he, and because it was me”).

And so, I suppose that this year, while I might not be able to add as much as I’d like to my official C.V., I won’t be able to avoid adding to the other, the (Real) Curriculum Vitae: the real relationships, the real emotions, and the real memories, like standing stranded on a snowy mountain with my skis crossed as my father swoops down to take me back to safety and hot chocolate.

I don’t have the answers. Maybe you do. (Do you?) All I know, for the moment, is that somehow it all goes into the total life tally.

Oh! And here’s the Birthday Calendar! At least I’ve completed that!