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EDITORIAL: we need to keep celebrating

It's the Undercurrent's 45th birthday this week. We'd planned to make a bigger deal of it but life had other plans.
The first Undercurrent
A photo of the first Undercurrent

When I was in Kindergarten, my school burned down. It was a January afternoon when the fire bell interrupted classes and the school went up in flames. 

As I was four years old, I didn’t know there even was a fire until I was in the throng of students leaving the building but the sound of the bell is seared into my distant memory and the terror and tears of an utterly confused child echo in my adult brain. 

Yet, I still remember that day with some fondnessit happened to be my mother’s birthday. 

I’ve been thinking about the fire a lot this week. As we hunker down in disaster mode, unsure of the future and envious of our oblivious past selves, the world keeps turning. The birthdays and anniversaries keep coming and we need to keep celebrating them. 

The evening of the school fire, my family stayed with a local family as the fire had damaged our own home. In one of my bouts of tears the mother of the family asked what was wrong and I explained that it was my mom’s birthday and we didn’t have a cake. So we baked a cake (probably she baked it and let me put sprinkles on the icing but that’s not how I remember it). There was a big gathering at that house that night. We sang happy birthday and ate cake. For a four-year-old, it was pretty great. I can’t imagine my parents’ stress over that daymy mom was pregnant, they weren’t sure of the state of their home, they’d lost many belongingsbut nearly 25 years later, I just remember the cake. 

This week, on March 28, the Undercurrent turns 45 years old. We’d planned a more festive occasion but life had other ideas. Nonetheless, as I isolate in my apartment, I’m going to bake a cake. 

— Bronwyn Beairsto, editor