A Tiny Trail of Breadcrumbs

I recently came across my mother’s wall calendars from the early 1970s.

Who saves wall calendars for 50 years?

Apparently, she does.

The calendars are illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund—images of pastel, round-faced children with tiny black eyes, but no mouths or noses. They can see everything, but they can’t say anything.

But these calendars reveal a lot. Inside are highlights of our lives in the '70s. They disclose a lot about who my mother was.

She had needlepoint with Nancy, coffee with Margaret, and tennis on Fridays at 6:00 pm. (I didn't know Mom played tennis!) She marked when she was working on a new bulletin board at school, and when the KQED auction was. One year, the local PBS station auctioned off an entire Big Bird birthday party she had created, including favors, decorations, cake, and all.

One February, she hosted a Valentine’s party for my brother on Monday the 12th and one for me on Wednesday the 14th. Clearly, she could be a bit over the top.

My sister had ice skating on Mondays, ballet on Tuesdays, and Brownies on Wednesdays.
And the Kirby man apparently came to our house about a vacuum cleaner on March 21; the same day that my brother ate one hard-boiled egg. And that year, we had a special terrarium demonstration at day camp.

Mom kept track of when our St. Bernard, Shanty Pooh, was in her first and second heat (really? They were making puppies and we did not know it?).

And we left on September 15, 1973 for Glacier National Park, and went camping for two weeks. (I just told my partner recently that I had never been to Glacier! What do I know?)

When something funny or interesting would happen in our lives, my mother would say over and over again, “You have to write that down!” And I always responded, “I know, I know.” She was obsessed about recording information so we would not forget.

Because of that obsession, I now know what my first full sentence was. It was September 1971, and my father was wallpapering my sister’s room. I said, “Mommy and Daddy doing Tudi’s room.”

Our mother must have anticipated these times. That over a decade after she died, on some dark day, reeling after two years in a pandemic, we would be spiraling a bit from what’s happening in the world around us, we would find these calendars, and maybe even read them.

Through them, we would have a glimpse back into what life was simpler.

The details of day-to-day lives seem humdrum. Maybe not even worth capturing. But they may be fascinating to generations that come after you—just because they were yours.

A friend of mine recently gave me a one-line-a-day, five-year memory book. Each March 1, for example, you note one thing that happened that day—and you do that on March 1 every year for five years on the same page.

I scribble notes in the book, here and there. Sometimes I think, who will care that I got snowed in in Indiana for several days in February 2022?

But then I remember my mother’s calendars, and think someone just might.

Joan Walsh Anglund, the illustrator of those calendars, wrote in her book A Cup of Sun, “A bird doesn’t sing because he has an answer—he sings because he has a song.”

What is your unique song?

Years after you are gone, what details of your life might you leave behind?

It doesn't have to be in the form of a wall calendar (thank goodness), or even a journal.

Author Shola Richards says we don't have to wait until we die to leave a legacy—we can leave a legacy every time we leave a room.

So, what trail of breadcrumbs you might leave behind for others to follow? What will remain when you leave this room for the last time?