Life as pi

Today is March 14, otherwise known as Pi Day. As you surely recall from middle school math, pi describes the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter and begins with 3.14 (March 14, 3/14, get it?) Math nerds love it for its irrationality, meaning it can't be expressed exactly as a fraction. Some even memorize digits of pi as a sign of numerical prowess. I like that it's called a transcendental number. There is a technical math definition behind the word transcendental as used in this case, but the metaphorical implications cannot be ignored, especially when you realize that pi is a mathematical constant that never ends and never repeats. 'Nuf said.

Pi Day, and pi, has long been beloved of my sister Bec, who got married yesterday. (There was even a pi-shaped ice sculpture at the reception with a -.o1 underneath, a charming and geeky tip of the hat to the actual wedding day, 3/13) Like all siblings, Bec has been a constant in my life. As the next in line in the birth order of our sprawling, often irrational modern family, she was my first experience as a big sister. Whenever I hear third-trimester moms marketing the role of older sib to a dubious first born, I have to smile. Whatever my parents said to me as a two-year-old worked like a charm. I have inhabited the role of big sister so thoroughly I shudder to think of landing in any other spot on the family tree.

That being said, the marriage of one of my little ones is an occasion for some serious nostalgia, not to mention a poignant twinge, as the number of family members who share my last name dwindles. (In fact, as of today, I remain the only hyphen-less R of my generation.) It was impossible to look at Bec, dressed up in a bridal gown and ballet flats and not remember the girl who crawled through the bushes and backyards of our neighborhood, began a life-long love affair with baseball at age 10, and blazed a trail of extroversion through her young adult years until our family bulged at the seams with FOBs (friends of Bec) from all corners of the globe. Being at Bec's wedding was better than a college reunion, in that it featured multiple layers of her life through the years. As a sister, I've had a front-row seat for most of it. It was cool watching her flit between groups, all gathered to celebrate her big day. Family buzz about Bec's wedding has always featured big crowds. The actual event was so much more intimate than we had all pictured, not because there weren't 200+ people on the guest list, but because they all seemed to get along so brilliantly.

Bec is the sister I am closest to in life experience (we are only two years apart, attended the same schools and have traveled to many of the same places), but perhaps farthest away from in personality. With her, though, it has never mattered. We have always been the best of friends. It's like that, I think, with family at its most functional. Or maybe it's like that when you meet someone the day they are born and live with them for the next 18 years, building each moment on a solid foundation of love and exuberance. You take the same life experiences and live them different ways. You develop wildly divergent gifts and talents. You connect about some things and seem to live in alternative dimensions about others. So many changes, beginnings and endings, seasons, years and eras. What's one wedding but another decimal place in the string of life's memories, never ending, never repeating...and yet remaining a constant that defines reality, independent of time and space. Totally transcendental.

Just like pi.

Congratulations Bec and Chris...you are off to a great start!