Caducity

The Butler Dance Education Center, the new home for all of Ballet Austin's administration, classes, rehearsals for the professional company and small performances, is almost done. (In other words, everything Ballet Austin except the big performances will be in this building.) Silver and gold 'ribbons' are dancing across floors with words from donors.

It's been a day for me to miss people, too. Life is transitory. Perishable. Caducous. I've been cleaning out one of those boxes you keep around of sentimental stuff. We call them 'archives' or 'souvenirs.' Often there are date labels but they can be wildly inaccurate. I find that by going through them I can weed them down to about half the size.

There is sadness, though. You'll be going through the boxes flipping old holiday and thank-you cards into the recycling and the handwriting of people who are gone stops you. Or some notes you made about your goals and desires makes you pause and think how little or how much has changed for you. Or you see a signature and realize you have no idea who this person is who has in the past written a 'thank you' note to you for some kindness. Or you find notes from someone pledging undying friendship. Only the friendship has, in fact, been extinguished by them.

Among the handwritten notes, colorful postage stamps and ticket stubs is a sheet torn from a page-a-day calendar featuring words. Caducity: the quality of being transitory or perishable it reads. March 12, 1990. Nothing special about the date, but over seventeen years gone.