On my thirtieth birthday my English and Italian friends and family held up plastic champagne flutes filled with pink spumante in a toast.
Cheers!
Salute!
100 di questi giorni!
I’d never heard this Italian expression before despite my Italian husband and being in love with Italy for nearly a third of my life.
It took another long loved Italian to tell me, the same friend who always reminds us to dab spilt champagne behind the ears like perfume; a giddy blessing for good fortune.
Cento di questi giorni...
It means ‘100 of these days’. I imagine 100 more birthdays, celebrations, days to remember.
I have kept the words in the days that have passed since, beating in my head like the endless onward march of spring coming.
There is something about every day being a celebration: not needing to wait until St Valentine to say I love you; not needing to save the champagne until we are rich; not needing to keep the rose petal jam for a special guest.
There is always a feast in our lives just waiting to happen. Pull up a chair, put out the purple napkins, do something with the leftover plums.
100 days. 100 things to celebrate and more more more...
