Today is Groundhog day.

And, if all biological cues are any indication, it could also be the day –or the day before– I meet my second child.

Punxsutawney Phil apparently saw his shadow this year, which means that there will be six more weeks of winter.

Funny enough, February second is at a junction in time where technically there are six more weeks of winter any way you look at it: March 20th, the first day of actual spring is 46 days away– which is about six weeks no matter what.

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Reading The Happiness Project's reflection on the day earlier today, I realized that I'm not the only one who thinks of the movie Groundhog Day on this day, let alone on its deep philosophical implications.  What if I had to live one day over and over again?  What would I do for a perfect day?

Perfect day aside, as I don't think that ideal can ever truly be achieved, I think it would be rather wicked yet fascinating if you had to relive the day you are to give birth over and over again: watching the arc of decisions and the cascade of symptoms and wondering if anything or everything you do could make the birth any more speedy or painless would be by turns abject torture and yet it would mean reliving one of the most important days in the lives of many people, which is a very tall and dramatic (and inspirational) order.

Or, conversely, seeing how a birth can devolve from a normal occurrence into highly-medically invasive, and possibly even tragic, territory would also be fascinating in the way a trainwreck is fascinating.  It only takes one or a few decisions to turn a smooth process into something that becomes far more complicated than the sum of its parts.

After all, "Groundhog Day" while being a comedy did not shy away from the main character's urges to explore his suicidal, homicidal, megalomaniacal and criminal tendencies before he realizes that the day that torments him can also be the single best or most meaningful day of his life.

And isn't that what is at the core of life itself?  That we, even those of us who are most flawed and humbled by our own actions, still hold on to the belief that we all have the potential to have the best day of our lives within us, whatever that may be.

May you live one day worth repeating over and over again. 

02 Feb This entry was published on February 2, 2009 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Onerous Onomastics, The X-pectant Files. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.