Suppose you were to meet a stranger today and suppose that stranger were to speak to you and say, “One hundred and seventy-three.” Suppose he were to say just that, nothing more, nothing less, just “One hundred and seventy-three.” What would you make of it?

Perhaps he was thinking of days, perhaps of June 22, the one hundred and seventy-third day of the year. Was he thinking of his birthday or the birthday of another? Of his anniversary, or maybe of the day on the stream he caught the two-pound salmon on a Barnes Special early in the morning before the sun had cleared the tops of the spruces?

Or perhaps he was thinking of one hundred and seventy-three days ago or one hundred and seventy-three days hence. What happened then? Or what will happen then? Does he have one hundred and seventy-three days yet to live? But how could he know that with that kind of precision, or, if he did, would knowing it be a blessing or a curse? If you happened to meet him again tomorrow, would he say to you, “One hundred and seventy-two?” And would it break your heart to know his days were so quickly slipping through his fingers, slipping away faster and faster with each sunset? Or would it make you glad to know he was counting the days, prizing each one, fully open to the wonders each day brings?

Or maybe it is not days, but years, one hundred and seventy-three years. Why would he want to remember one hundred and seventy-three years past? Why does he hold the year 1848 in his mind? Was that the year his great-great-great grandfather stepped onto the dock at Ellis Island, debarking the ship that had brought him from Markinch to a new and unknown life yet to unfold, the great-great-great grandfather whose burgeoning family would make home in Vermont and Michigan, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, and now Maine?

Or maybe he has one hundred and seventy-three dollars in his wallet. Or is impertinent enough to ask if you have one hundred seventy-three dollars in yours. Or maybe it is a price, the cost of a gift, a Christmas gift, a tourmaline necklace for his wife or a remote control sailboat for his grandson.

Or maybe it is not days or years or dollars, but people, the number of people in his high school class. Was he reminded of them by the reunion he was unable to attend, remembering not just the number but the faces, the faces so dear but now fading in memory, the faces held in memory as they were: eager and ambitious and curious and hopeful and delighted, full of the unrepeatable delight of youth?

Or is it not one hundred and seventy-three people, but one hundred and seventy-three whales, one hundred and seventy-three known right whales still swimming the Atlantic, one hundred and seventy-three right whales bearing amongst so few the destiny of their species? Does he worry about them, so much that he broods on their number, speaking their number aloud so that speaking it may declare their existence, declare their right to exist, declare their need to exist?

Or perhaps it is mountains. Perhaps he counts the mountains he has climbed, remembering them as a group, but remembering each one too: the scramble up the Hunt Trail on Katahdin, intimidating and exhilarating, breathtaking and soul-filling, or the day on the Traveler Loop, the unforgettable day summiting Peak of the Ridges and The Traveler and North Traveler that he replays in his mind again and again and again, the steep and bouldery climb up Center Ridge, the brave and thrilling traverse of Little Knife Edge, the cliffside views of South Branch Pond just before the steep descent back to camp, the exhaustion and the satisfaction and the sheer joy.

Or maybe one hundred and seventy-three means nothing at all. Maybe it is something he chooses to say just because he chooses to say it. Maybe it is nothing but a number, a number that follows one hundred and seventy-two and precedes one hundred and seventy-four.

And yet, it is not one hundred and seventy-two and it is not one hundred and seventy-four. It is more then one and less than the other, not anything else other than itself. And it implies abundance. It is more than one, more than two. It is many. A world in which one hundred and seventy-three may be spoken is a world of abundance, of complexity, surely of variety, a world where if one hundred and seventy-three is possible, one hundred and seventy-four or even one hundred and seventy-five is possible!

And you, the one to whom one hundred and seventy-three is spoken: you live in this world where one hundred and seventy-three is, and where you are, more of this than some and less of that than some, not anything else other than yourself., a world where you hold dear your own memories of days and years and people and places … and possibilities. The next time you meet this stranger, what do you think you will say?