Balls and Charger

Day 352: Balls and Charger


Today is the day you don't get in California, or Florida, or Costa Rica. It's the day the sun shines and the snow melts and the incessant sound of the furnace finally pauses. Today, robins sing and basements flood.

On this day, people take off their scarves and hats and full-length parkas and emerge. We put on our rubber boots and go outdoors.

When we pass each other on the sidewalk, we smile and say, "Nice day." When we slip on the ice, we don't mind so much, because things do get a little slippery before it all dries out and the crocuses come out. When we stop at the corner and wait for the light to change, we turn our pale faces to the sun, close our eyes and draw breath.

Today, we remember our Birkenstocks.

Today is a wang-dang-doodle, shindig jamboree.

It's wahoo, woot woot, weeyaw and hot-diggity dog.

It's yessir, you betcha, yes indeedy-do, yeppers, mm-hmm, true dat, yes ma'am.

It's get-out-of-jail-free day.

Today is hope, faith, charity and love, all rolled up in a ball of sunshine and a fresh breeze.

Today is spring.

Watercolors

Day 351: Watercolors

I'm at the Michigan Theater with Rich, waiting for The Second Rxotic Marigold

Hotel to begin. The organist is playing Let's Go Fly a Kite, very loudly. I'm full to the gills with Knight's  ginger and violet cocktail and an All-American Burger, but contemplating popcorn nevertheless. 

Life could be worse. 

Wickless Candle

Day 350: Wickless Candle

In the days after 9/11, so many writers, philosophers and leaders spoke and published their thoughts about the event. I remember being moved and impressed that anyone could process such a terrible and momentous event, and communicate about it movingly, cogently and quickly. I remember Ken Pfifer, our minister at the UU, gave a sermon that made me cry.

Perhaps I was in a crying state of mind.

I'm not one of those admirable people who can communicate quickly and cogently about a calamitous event. This last week I find I keep forgetting about the stuff project. It'll be seven o'clock at night and all of sudden, I'm saying to myself, I've got to find something to get rid of and write about it. I've got to do this for XXX number more days, and then I'll be free of the project. Today, the number is 15. Fifteen days.

If it wasn't such a hair's breadth to the end, I'd probably quit.

In fact, we are not in the middle of a calamitous event, but merely a difficult event. Even a painful one. Our family is at the starting point of a long and difficult path. There's nothing to say about it yet.

It's difficult to sit in front of the keyboard, self-reflecting, and to think about much else. Waiting, knowing nothing, worrying, planning and trying not to plan. This is the stuff of these next few days. No insight there. Only waiting.

Fierce Wooden Doll

Day 349: Fierce Wooden Doll
The metaphor for this toy is as subtle as Texas. There was once a rod that went through the middle section, holding the toy intact once assembled. At some point, the rod went missing. The toy has been no good ever since. I went to the trouble of scouring the toy shelves trying to find the missing backbone, but no luck. It's just gone.

What is the rod that holds me together? Is it my own inner strength? My husband and family? My yoga and meditation practice? My writing? My work? My mother?

My father?

I have a feeling I'm about to find out.

Address Book

Day 348: Address Book

Another casualty of the Information Age: address books. Where we once used the mighty pen to record information, we now use the cloud. Where we once used our brains to remember the phone numbers of our closest friends and family, we now use speed dial. Our brains we use to remember passwords. 

This little black book is documentary evidence of how transient we are. Less than ten years old, and so many of the names, addresses and telephone numbers out of date

This time, I completely forgot about photographing the object before I got ride of it. Guess I am distracted. 

Photo Printer Paper

Day 347: Photo Printer Paper

I had identified this printer paper as the target for today's blog before I knew my father would be diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This object, with its cheesy photograph of a smiling bride and groom, had me thinking about weddings and funerals and the passage of time before I even got the news.

My thought was that no one would print out their wedding photos on a home Epson printer. That was before I remembered that our three wedding photos were taken by my brother with a cheap point-and-shoot camera. Rich and I were married in the basement of the temporary City Hall in San Francisco, with only my brother and my friend Tina as witnesses. The real City Hall, with its gorgeous gold dome and soaring ceilings, was closed for repairs. We weren't eloping, we just didn't want a lot of fuss.

The basement was typical. Fluorescent lights, acoustic ceiling tiles and green linoleum tile floors. There was a sign on the wall above the registry that said "No Refunds." My brother took a photo of us making silly faces under the sign; I got very tired of looking at that photo in the years after. In my hands, I'm holding a mixed bunch that Tina picked up at a street vendor on her way to the basement. I remember the oriental lily smelled quite overpowering.

My mother once told me that 15 years is a short time. I remember it distinctly. We were sitting in the car on Huron Parkway, stopped at a red light. I must have been in high school. I don't know what I said, but I'm very certain I rolled my eyes and gave the classic hair toss. I remember thinking, "I will NEVER believe that 15 years is a short time." Fifteen years, I thought, represented one-fifth of a lifetime. Fifteen years, I thought, represented my entire life.

I know a lot has happened between and for me and Rich over the past twenty years. I know that during some periods, time seemed to flow like crystallized honey. But from where I sit right now, twenty years seems like nothing. Just a little over twenty years separate me, my brother and sister from our parents. That, and a short cross-town trip.

I'm counting my blessings right now. And praying for another twenty years to spend with my beloved father.

National Geographic Videos

Day 346: National Geographic Videos

To me, these videos are the screen-time equivalent of broccoli. Why would I watch National Geographic videos when dozens - nay, hundreds, of Star Trek videos await?

Why would I eat broccoli when the world is full of beets and cucumbers and acorn squash?

Don't get me wrong. I have a great fondness for National Geographic. I spent three days laying on a sofa in a rented room in the Hebrides 19 years ago, reading National Geographics from cover to cover in between dashes to the bathroom. All-day morning sickness.

Has anyone noticed how much better t.v. is than it was 19 years ago? And how much worse? The line between t.v. and movies is blurring, and in some cases, t.v. series play like a ten, twenty or thirty hour movie. The difference is the venue: at home in your Archie and Edith chairs, or at the theater with popcorn and a giant drink in your hand.

And at the theater, the audience seems to have lost track of the distinction as well. Is it my imagination, or do people talk and text their way through movies on the big screen just as they would at home alone?