Looking both backward and forward in North Idaho

A palindrome is a bouncy word with a directional meaning. It is a word or phrase or sequence of numbers that reads the same backward or forward.

We just had a palindrome day on June 2, 2026 — 6-2-26. Looking at the date from both directions prompted me to think of my life this way. What is still the same backward and forward — and what isn't.

Maybe category is how to examine a palindrome life. I was a cheerful child — but I had teen and young adult and mid-life “bouts of bummer.”  The thing is staying depressed was never that comfortable for me and a cheerful personality kept breaking through. Now on the silver side of life, I categorize myself as a positive person.

I still passionately detest cottage cheese. Mrs. Carter, the farmwife and babysitter who tried to make me eat it, can detail those objections. Dill and mustard are right up there, too. The chocolate crush has stayed as steady as gravity — ever since I invaded the stairwell at Christmas to dabble in the tins of my mother's homemade fudge. Resisting the gravitational pull of sugar is as hard at 74 years old as it is at 14 years old. It's just that now there are more health reasons to motivate me.

Needing time alone hasn't changed; not because I am being antisocial — just wanting an environment for my own thoughts. Birthing four children in four-and-a-half years seriously encroached on that scenery. But the “mom” dream had also been there early on. What began as a quartet has since become a generational explosion with the addition of 20 grands and two greats. The backward read is a lot fatter than the forward read of 50 years ago.

I value nature much more than I used to. I noticed the world in spurts as a child. I had a big fight with the neighbor kids over climbing a tree to look in a robin's nest. In college there was a favorite maple in the autumn that has stayed as young and fresh in memory as though I could pass beneath its pale pinkish orange leaves today. Now though, I don't just visit nature, I live it.

While I have moved north to Alaska, and east to Minnesota, and spent a year in California — along with residing multiple places throughout the Pacific Northwest — I am exactly where I was as a teen — North Idaho. I know many people who never left at all — who have led a small-town palindrome life. To some that sounds like entrapment. However, I do not see roots as entrapment. Deep root structure can yield a magnificent tree.

I was at the end of the teen spectrum when I married. Fifty-five years later this fall, we are still married. We are unrecognizable in some ways. I would love to see my husband walk backward in time — right out of those crutches he now needs. I'd love to see him swing a leg over that custom Harley and take off for the open road — with me in the passenger seat. On my inherently cheerful side, I've dubbed our companionable neighborhood excursions “walk and roll” — I walk and he rolls alongside on his scooter.

My palindrome story needs its faith component. I don't fool around anymore with half in. I've learned Jesus is both worthy of my all — and worth it all. He is who He says He is — God revealed — so that I do not have to wonder if there is a God and what He is like — and does He know me and can I know Him.

This palindrome perspective on life is a way to both keep and let go. To know which is which. To look backward and move forward.

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of "The Preacher's Kid" column.