Early engraving of the death of Captain Cook
On this day in 1778, Captain Cook and the crew of the HMS Resolution made landfall at Unalaska, a town on the Aleutian island of Unalaska, which has been populated for thousands of years by the Unangan people. Cook and his crew had left Plymouth, in Devon, over two years earlier in hopes of discovering a Northwest Passage that would allow them (and future commerce) to bypass lengthy travel around South America by sailing straight through North America and on to China or India beyond. They Resolution and its sister ship, the Discovery, stopped in South Africa, in French Polynesia, and in Hawaii before charting much of the northwest coast of what is now the United States and heading up to Alaska. Frustrated by his inability to locate a Northwest Passage and thwarted from further travel by encroaching ice, Cook directed the two ships to Unalaska for minor repairs before sailing on to Hawaii.
When they arrived in Hawaii, a native tried to steal one of their smaller boats. Cook decided to take the King of Hawaii hostage until the boat was returned, which proved to be a fatal error. Cook and his men retreated, but not before they could get knocked on the head. The people with whom they had lived peaceably for a month killed Cook.
On this day in 2009, Zack and I were married. No one died. Like Cook, we didn’t discover anything new, unless you count each other. We said words to each other that are as old in sentiment as anything I’ve ever said, words with histories further-reaching than anything I had committed myself to before that day. One kind of life ended, and another kind of life began. It wasn’t really that different, it turned out, and that’s not all bad when you’ve been dating five years before you get married. But a lot changed.
We have lived in three different places since that day. We’ve gotten a dog. We’ve weathered fights and played umpteen games of cribbage at the Latin American Club over strong margaritas. The day we got married, a friend told me that we would have to do it again next year. I was confused. “The date,” he said, and pointed to our program. The date printed was October 3, 2010–a year later. We only got married once, but in the way that you do, we chose to be married every day. And maybe an anniversary is a celebration of the discoveries you’ve made and haven’t made, the choices that have allowed you to stay despite what you feel, the slow living into the aspirational vows that you and so many other people have given each other.
It’s a good day. Captain Cook got his ship repaired in Alaska. People were born. People died. Empires came and went. We said “I do,” and our friends danced. We still do, although in the blink of an eye it will be over. October 3, 1778, was a very real day to James Cook and the rest of the men aboard those ships. They ate and grew tired and couldn’t get enough sleep and talked about who they missed and what they wanted to do and how cold it was. They felt the sun on their skin or the wind where they weren’t covered. I hear the bus braking outside our house right now. I have had too much coffee and my fingers clack on the keyboard. It’s a day, just like any other day.