Lucky 13!

Hurray, today is the official publication date of The Globalisation of Love. November 13th is the perfect date for my book on multicultural romance and marriage to arrive on the market. Even better than 11.11.11, just two days ago? Yes! No offence to November 11th, 2011, for it is a noble date indeed. The 11.11.11 constellation happens only every 100 years after all, and everyone wants to get married, start a business, or have a baby born on 11.11.11. It looks stable, like pillars of time all lined up neatly in a row, it sounds kind of ‘lucky’, and, let’s face it, it’s easy to remember. Despite the virtues of November 11th, 2011, however, I still prefer November 13th. Even though November 13th happens every year, for me, 13.11.11 beats the pants off 11.11.11. Here’s why. The Globalisation of Love is officially published on November 13th. It’s not every day that you publish your first book ever, so I would have been pleased as punch with any date on the calendar to be honest. When I saw the November 13th publication notification for the first time however, I have to admit, it was cause for rumination. Thirteen has interesting cultural connotations and is considered both bad luck and good luck according to different folklore and superstition. I come from a culture where it is considered to be bad luck, the number of witches in a coven and all that. Despite my cultural upbringing however, 13 seems to be my lucky number, and November 13th in particular, seems to be my lucky day. Mathematically, 13 is a prime number, which means it cannot be divided by any number other than itself. Hence, it symbolises “qualities of incorruptible nature and purity”, according to Wikipedia at least. Well, it seems to be working for me. November 13th is not only the official publication date of The Globalisation of Love, you see, today is also my wedding anniversary with my GloLo husband. It was 13 years ago today, on Friday the 13th no less, when we got married. It was a GloLo ‘Secret Wedding’, interfaith and bilingual. The bride, like the groom, wore jeans. The bouquet was, well, missing. No rings were exchanged so there was a bit of an awkward moment when the City Hall official presiding over the ceremony stumbled over his scripted words, scratched his head and told us, sceptically I might add, that a ringless wedding was ‘highly unusual’. Nervous ‘I do’s’ were exchanged in German and I barely understood a word of the rest. It was ‘pretty low key’ we told friends later. My parents were informed by postcard. The whole event took about 20 minutes, including photos. Who would have thought then that the marriage and the life journey we would share together would inspire a book about multicultural romance and marriage? Forget superstition, forget random correlations, and forget coincidence, there does seem to be some kind of magic happening for us on November 13th. Happy anniversary, Darling.