Diary 36

Thursday, April 23rd

Today was Shakespeare’s birthday (as I’m sure you all knew). He’d be 456 if he were still alive, and that was more candles than I had on hand so I just sang him a happy birthday or two as I washed my hands.

One of the big lessons that Shakespeare can share with us is that when the plague came to London and shut all the theatres, as it did on several occasions, he didn’t just mope. As far as we can tell he turned his hand to long poems. We don’t read them as much these days, but at the time they were immensely popular.

Shakespeare also had many other life-affirming things to say, but for us, today, it might be enough to know that he showed us an important truth: Never Give Up.