Where he was, in the past, on this date, was a question that occurred to him sometimes two, three times a week. Then there might be a span of time of two or three weeks with no thought of the past, of anniversaries, of what he might have been doing on this date twelve or seventeen or thirty-two years ago. Often the thought would be triggered by a change in the season. He might have time to sit on his porch with a cup of coffee in the early morning of a Sunday. No schedule. No appointments. No one would miss him if he sat there all day. He had time to ponder and the slant of the sun or the new coolness or the growing heat in the air would make him think “where was I thirty years ago today?”
He would not know what he did exactly on that specific day, but he knew what would have been a typical day on any given day. He never forgot the important anniversaries: his birthday, her birthday and those of his children and his parents and brothers. He would never miss his wedding anniversary, but the exact date when he quit smoking, or had sex for the first time, or altered his faith, he did not know the exact date. He knew the date within a few days, but the exact date was lost. He probably has some written record of some of those dates: a journal, a poem, a letter kept. But when he sat with coffee on a free morning, he did not go into the attic to research a date. He would not break the delight of a moment to relive a moment that was long past.