Ho, ho, ... why?

Are there others among you out there who approach the Holiday Season with greatly mixed feelings, or am I the only one? For years it has seemed to me that anything after about November 15 was a run up to massively unrealistic expectations and bruised feelings. As someone once said to me, why do we have such silly ideas about "family holidays" spent with people we make an active choice not to spend time with the rest of the year? Then there is all the stressful expectations about holiday decorating (for which I hold Martha Stewart, Pottery Barn, and all the Lifestyle publications directly responsible), parties, parades, ad nauseum. However, having whinged about all that, I now need to put on my Big Girl pants and face what's out there anyway.

Because I completely and besottedly adore my Grand Kids and daughter-in-law (her husband's pretty cool, too, but he's staying home to earn money while they are here), I have made plans to do all that stuff that I usually run-don't-walk from in other years. Also, because I haven't been able to arrange any really dramatic excuses (the darn eye doctor says he really can't do the lazer surgery until February ...) this year, I have agreed to play for several holiday excesses. The music is saved this year by The Leader of the Band selecting lesser known and older pieces appropriate to the Advent and Christmas season. I flatly refuse to play 'Up On the Rooftop', 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Jingle Bells' ... and I'm old enough that I can't be forced to do so! And, for myself, I've enjoyed learning new/old pieces that are simply lovely to play. I stopped by a friend's house this afternoon to ask about singing/playing a book of music by Hildegard von Bingen (12th century Anno Domini); he was helpful and the music is great. Not a jingling bell to be heard!

We'll go find a needle-shedding tree to bring to the house and there is a tree-trimming party in the works with already-extended invitations, so I can't back out now. We're off to do the Candlelight Tour at Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (complete magic, that one) ~ tickets are already purchased, and I'm just cheap enough that I will go for that reason, if no other! Actually, I love the estate and have gone to the candlelight tour for several years running; it's always lovely and, if there is snow, it is breathtaking. The photographer is booked for the holiday portraits (I have threatened the G-Kids with all manner of unpleasantness if anybody shows up with a black eye; that was one of their father's party tricks in his salad days ...). The Grand Daughter and I have a date for cookie making before the aforementioned tree-trimming hoo-ha. I'm trying to get my head around that one. Let me state for the record: I do not bake. I cook. Baking is just too much like chemistry and I believe in leaving it to them as what likes that nonsense. However, the light of my life (one generation removed) bakes, so I shall attempt it. Grand Daughter is coming to music ensemble rehearsal with me (she has begun to play one of the instruments in the group, so she is calling this a job shadowing opportunity). Both Grand Kids are coming to court with me the morning of the day we leave for North Carolina. Their mother is off to the Salon de Beauty for running repairs and renewing friendships while we dispense justice in Decatur. I have extra judicial robes, we'll have to see how it goes ...

When they leave, I shall cry a great deal, then I will go to bed for about a month to rest!

The rather marvelous thing about all this is that we have no particular history for this occasion, so no expectations. This may be the first Christmastide we have spent together so we're making it up as we go along. We shall miss having their father and grandfather with us, but that may be the new normal, too. As I have learned to my cost, the only constant is change, so get used to it.

I'm off to Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow at Best Friends' house, with people to whom I am not sanguinally or legally related and who I love dearly. I give thanks for them, for the family I grew up with, for the life I have now, and for the blessing of the wonderful memories of the life(s) that went before. I have loved and have been loved; and that is the greatest blessing of all and I am thankful.

Best of the season to all of you!

"Did everyone see that? Because I shall not be doing it again." (from On Stranger Tides)

You Agreed to do What ...?!

This is one of those weeks that I bit off way more than I could chew (an unlovely but appropriate folk term). Hosting a party on Friday for a wonderful young friend to celebrate the publication of his article in a professional journal. I don't pretend to have read it, much less understood what he tried to explain to me, but we're really proud of the acknowledgement of his expertise in print . Thank goodness that best friends, Emily and Mike, are co-hosting because I'd probably run out screaming otherwise. Nothing fancy, but one more thing on the calendar. Then I said I'd play for an open house on Saturday evening. Again, nothing fancy, but one more thing on the calendar. I rehearsed with the other harpist yesterday and felt like throwing the harp out the window afterwards. I'm fine doing solo work, but I pretty much suck right now playing the harp in ensemble. My woodwind stuff is quite fine, thank you very much, but I sort of suit myself with the harp. That doesn't work with an ensemble. And I have no earthly idea when I'm going to sit down with a metronome and a harp between now and then.

Additionally, I'm finding it harder and harder to hump the big harp around by myself. However, it has such a lovely tone, I guess I'll keep trying until I drop it or it falls on me! I suppose I should give some serious thought to just how much I use those bottom strings and see if I could convince myself that the middle harp would work just as well for schlepping about. It's not so heavy and the case is a whole lot easier to hang on to. The lap harp is just cute as a bug's ear, but I think of it only for taking somewhere when I have something to work on between other stuff. It's a really pretty thing, but has the limitations any lap harp has. About the time my back is screaming and my shoulders are on fire, I think, "Gee, a harmonica is looking really good right now."  I suppose it wouldn't be such a bloody expedition if I didn't have to haul all the impedimenta along with the harp; bench, music stand, floor drape, floor lamp, music books, tuner, tuning wrench, ad nauseum. It's as bad as a baby or a little league ball player! I see some of you murmuring, "Choices, Jayne, choices." Alas.

On a brighter note, I want to take a moment to give thanks for small blessings. At the end of my road, as one leaves the neighborhood, there is, across a field and state highway, a ridge that rises straight up. It is covered with all manor of trees from base to ridge top. For several weeks in the fall it appears to be aflame. The trees are all the different colors of the fall and it can take your breath away in the morning. It is lovely again in the spring as the trees come on in every shade of green possible (after they bloom). These undeserved gifts are such a blessing that I don't want to neglect to mention them. There was a huge and windy storm this afternoon before I left court. As I was driving along a street doing errands, I noticed some of the trees still clung grimly to some of their blaze orange leaves and, in the sunlight that came intermittently through, they shimmied and glittered like something the other side of gold. Just lovely.

I asked him what he was going to be for Halloween and he said, "A pencil." I said, "How can somebody be a pencil?"

"At my age, taking the easy way out is not to be despised." 

Install Software, Update, Watch Everything Go Pear-shaped ... (sigh)

Sitting here for a small eternity waiting for all the iOS5 carnage to be "updated" and "restored from backup." I hope there is a special circle of Hell for the people who design these things and then have the unmitigated gall to suggest that they are User Friendly. OK ... I think I'm over it for the moment. At some point, all the stuff will be back on the iPods, the iPad and the iPhone. Thank goodness for my ratty old PC that functions as a big ol' tote bag full of stuff, because that's where all this nonsense has to be replaced from. I understand there's an iCloud out there for idiots like me, but it confuses me and I'm withholding my opinion. (and why does it always say that it can't restore Faure: Requiem, Op. 48 - 4. Pie Jesu, but then always does anyway)

In the meanwhile, I slapped a Windham Hill Christmas playlist on the ol' Bose and I'm trying to psych myself up to start practicing for the Christmas rush. Unless I can come up with another surgery this year, I guess I'll have to play. A couple of requests to play already, so I'd better dust off the books and see what I can remember. Yes, I know, it's not even Halloween yet, but unless you're playing for the Catholics, Anglicans, or Methodists, you have to have all this nonsense ready long before December 25.

Life has been beyond goofy lately. I got my mom signed up for Hospice care this morning. As Emma Thompson wrote: "There is a very great difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty." The woman who did the interview with me, then a second evaluation of Mom, was kindness itself and her generosity and gentleness was much appreciated. Mom isn't on the verge of dropping off the twig in the next 20 minutes, but her decline since Dad's death has been rather precipitous. She still has moments of some sort of lucidity ~  this morning I was pushing her in her wheelchair in the garden at the place she lives and I asked her to pick up her feet so they wouldn't drag; she mumbled something about eyes and legs and I said, "Well, don't put your legs in your eyes." She looked up at me and said, "OK," and laughed. It probably sounded like something my dad would have said. Or my sister or my brothers ... oh, Lord, the whole family is like that! I think we will be all right with the Hospice concept once we all get our heads around it. She does need an enhanced level of care now and I'm just so glad it's available. She will be taken in her time, but we want her to be as comfortable as possible until then.

Glorious Daughter-in-Law (and that's pronounced to rhyme with "laughter") and the perfectly Grand Kids are coming during their Christmas break. What fun!!! They will be here long enough to play with but not long enough for us all to get sick of each other. I find that I'm more entertaining in small doses. I have purchased tickets for the Christmas Candlelight Tour at Biltmore for us. (see earlier post) This year I should be able to ambulate around the house without gritting my teeth and scaring small children and the horses. Fortunately, my grandchildren pay no attention to Gram's funny faces. I suppose this also means that I will have to do something about a Christmas tree. I keep threatening to buy a wonderful fake tree in August every year, but always end up with a cut tree and pine needles all over the living room. Ah well, it keeps the cats amused and once the dogs understand that this isn't bringing the beauty and grace of the forest into the house (read: to be marked), we all get along reasonably well. The wonderful, sentimental ornaments at eye level and above; the sacrificial ornaments down where the cats can bat them around and think they are getting away with something.

Oh, huzzah, hurray ~ it appears that the last of the small electronic devices has been restored to it's new, improved self. Or something. So, having downloaded two movies onto the iPad, I shall now throw my cape over my shoulder and sashay into the bedroom with my pack of hounds in close pursuit. Oh, one last image to take away with you: I was organizing my scarves, wraps and capes in the closet this evening and my tatty old mink neck-piece fell off an upper shelf and nearly scared the living daylights out of me. I have watched all the X-men movies lately and I probably thought a mutant was jumping out at me ...

The universe probably doesn't conform to the views of ~ how did Chesterton put it? ~ "a slightly sleepy businessman after lunch." It's bigger and stranger than that. Still, I've never doubted for a moment that it makes sense. It follows laws we can grasp if we once get hold of them.

 (Judith Eubank) 

Of Crones and Whippets ...

In a moment of cyber-hysteria I added another "lifestyle" blog to my Flipbook application on the iPad. "Why not?" I thought innocently, "This one is about an integrated, healthy life plan." However, I have started looking at the articles and they all seem to be directed toward lithe, supple, willowy whippets. Whippets is a term I use for those crazy young women who leave the YMCA at 6:00 a.m. in the morning to run, in packs, along the sleepy streets of Athens. These blog articles actually have the term "20's & 30's" in the titles.  And those are the article about "aging!" I can only assume that I am no longer 'aging', I am now in some sort of ancient, eternal stasis ...

Girlfriend Emily and I purchased trial memberships in some fancy new athletic facility in Chattanooga. I think we have five visits which we have to use  before Christmas. We bought them in a fit of enthusiasm when we got back from the Mississippi bike ride, when we were feeling quite full of ourselves and ready to start testing our bodies again.  Sadly, reality has set in with a vengeance at the chemical plant and the courthouse, and Em and I have yet to make it down to Chattanooga with our workout gear. For myself, I have to confess that, while my titanium hip is doing just fine, all the original equipment around it is still ... well, original and, as such, not cooperating with the strategy to become lean and hungry again.  I'm off to see the orthopedic surgeon again in the coming week but I have a feeling he's just going to remind me that he told me before all this cutting and replacing started that I would still be an old lady when he got through with me. Alas.  I may just give up and join Gracie on the couch ...  

And wasn't this the stuff of nearly all the world's poetry, the transitoriness of life and love and beauty, the knowledge that time's winged chariot had knives in its wheels?

P.D. James

There's an app for that ...

I have a love/hate relationship with my computers. In this I am, I suspect, not unusual. My life seems to be infused with computers these days and it sometimes worries me. My desktop PC, my laptop, my iPad, my iPhone, my iPod(s). Then there are all the little computers in the electricity-run appliances all over my house and in my car. There is even a little computer on each of my bicycles. Because I grew up in an era in which we actually learned to write with pencils and pens, and we learned to do research with real books with actual paper pages, I sometimes assume the smug attitude that "kids these days" don't know the "real" way to do things. I suspect that coopers, wheelers, smiths and thatchers probably thought the same thing in their day.

While the intricacies of working in a computer-driven world often escape me, I think I am less goofy about it now than I was even a few years ago. I used to live with Someone who appeared to know all about things computerly, and I allowed myself to become almost totally dependent upon his ability to set things up and to straighten out my messes. An early purchase after his departure was a new computer; I wonder if this was some small act of reclaiming myself. The boffin who made the computer for me and transfered what I deemed essential from the old to the new suggested that I keep the old one for a bit "just in case I needed to take something from it and put it on the new one." You know, that old computer is still taking up house space and I don't think I've ever had need to move anything from old to new. So, it's probably time to wipe its little memory clean and consign it to the big Small Electronics box at the recycling center. Just as it's probably time to properly inventory the garage and get rid of all that stuff I moved with me to my New Life and haven't looked at since. But I digress (which is something I do well ...)

I have, in my dotage, discovered the world of applications, or "apps" in kid-speak, for my portable computers. I can check on all sorts of things without stirring from wherever I happen to have alighted. While there is no guarantee of the accuracy of any of the information I am pulling from the ether, it seems rather mighty and amazing to be able to do so. While I'm waiting for something to happen (an occupational annoyance in my line of work), I can alter a photograph, read a book, check the news, look for recipes for dinner, and all manner of unrelated and joyful nonsense. This greatly appeals to my magpie brain, but I'm not sure how much more productive it makes me. I will note, however, that the day I got half-way to a rehearsal and recalled that I had forgotten to stick the tuner and the tuning wrench in my harp case, the next thing I did was buy an app for a tuner so I know I always have one with me. Small victories, but victories nonetheless. There is a room in my house with bookcases on all the walls and much information for the taking. So much is on the computers these days, though, that I'm not sure when I last purchased a paper-paged book that wasn't a cookbook (they're just not the same on an e-reader). I have hundreds of e-books and lots of apps that take me to news sources. I have to wonder, though, if I have lost something in not reading more paper books, newspapers and magazines. I suppose the readers of the time thought the same thing about Herr Gutenberg's monstrous machine.

Alas, I see that all of my Apple products have now finished synchronizing themselves with each other. How lovely to have family. However, this also means that it's time to stop maundering on about things electronic and get about the business of the day. Surely there's an app for that ...

"I love a bit of anarchy, so long as it doesn't harm the undeserving." (Christopher Fowler)

May Day 2011

Several of my cyber communicants have said, "I need to check your blog to see what you're up to." This acted as a sort of cattle prod to get my bum onto the chair in front of the computer and actually say something. As an act of full disclosure, however,  I'll also admit that I'm doing almost anything legal to avoid going back to grading final exams and research papers for my graduating seniors. You know; vacuuming the refrigerator coils, waxing the cat, alphabetizing the spice jars ...

We weathered the tornadoes last week without any particular harm, for which I am deeply, deeply grateful. There was horrible damage and even death around us, but we were, by grace or the serendipity of weather, spared. I'm not using the imperial plural here, I mean me and the furkids. I usually don't pay a whole lot of attention to the imaginings and threats of the National Weather Service unless I'm going bike riding and don't want to get seriously rained upon. That and my favorite coping skill of focusing on what's going on right in front of me leave me particularly vulnerable to quixotic weather happenings. I had to be in Knoxville on the day, which meant that the hour-long drive up there was liberally spiked with dire warnings on the car radio of things to come . It absolutely poured buckets and bathtubs all the way along the freeway. This is to say that it didn't start until I got on the freeway and stopped when I got off. Wonder if it would have worked better to take back roads? At any rate, motoring along an interstate freeway in a Mini Cooper in a drenching downpour is like sloshing through a really dirty car wash. There's the rain, but there's also all the wake spray from the monster SUV's and the long-distance semi-trucks. And I'm convinced to a moral certainty that the drivers of those behemoths can not see my tiny little dark green car in the waves they are creating. That may just be my well-honed paranoia, though ...  The rain let up for most of the rest of the day in the places I happened to be. By the early evening, however, the deadly weather began to arrive. By now I was paying attention. Thunder began to rumble and the wind took it in turns to lie still or rage furiously. At the risk of sounding completely frivolous, I decided that the best thing for me to do was go about what passes for my normal routine and hope for the best. After all, there is no "safe" place in my house if a tornado decides to visit. So, I gave the canine furkids tranquilizers and sat watching movies so that the feline furkids could drape themselves about me. When the roaring of the wind got so loud that I couldn't hear the film soundtrack, I actually did look out the window and was amazed at the scene. The ridge behind my house is fully forested and it was waving about the like the Forest of Fangorn when the Ents finally decided to go to war. I was watching Avatar at the time and I wasn't sure which CGI was the more amazing; the screen or the view from the back doors. I confess to being more scared then than I have been in a very long time. But we all survived and, miraculously, had no significant property damage. I called the place my mom lives and they were as hunkered down as possible and dealing as well as they could with a population of elderly folks who require assisted living. Other than the effects of the stress, Mom came through well, too. I can't chalk up my survival to clean living, so I'll just offer up a prayer of thanks for grace. And remember to pray for those who didn't fare as well. The following day was a glorious spring day with blue skies, only the gentlest of breezes and occasional fat clouds drifting by. Go figure.

The Vita Comp

I am finally back on my bicycle. A friend loaned me his daughter's bike to put on the trainer for the last few months. After the winter surgeries I wasn't able to throw my leg over the bar on my bike in the accepted fashion, so I needed a bike with a step-through frame. Let me say here and now that bike trainers just suck. While I'm glad they offer an opportunity to get the exercise indoors (or, in my case, when you don't trust your body to keep you from falling off the bike), they are simply nothing like riding a bike outside. After a long, involved conference with my bike junkie, I have purchased a new bike that should better suit my new requirements. I love my old Allez dearly, but I just can't keep hunching over those drop handlebars anymore. The new bike hasn't arrived yet, so I'm riding my old Expedition. It's a great bike for boardwalks and shady suburban lanes. It's not so great for the hills of East Tennessee. It weighs about 8.6 tons and has vast, chunky tires that positively claw at the road. However, it has an upright silhouette and no clips on the pedals. That means my hip joint angle is not compromised and I can put my foot on the ground quickly without worrying whether the whole bike is going to go over with me. I have every intention of getting back to clips, but all in good time. I have been out on some hills and on the river ride in Chattanooga. It's marvelous. I have no stamina yet, but I have no pain either. The stamina I can work on. The new bike should arrive shortly and I can really get to work on final prep for our ride along the second half of the Natchez Trace at the end of the month. What fun!

Transplanted Southern Belle

Life with Mom continues to be a joy and a challenge. As mentioned earlier, she weathered the storm last week, but it was difficult for her. The protocol at her assisted living facility requires that the residents be moved to a "safe place" during any hazardous weather conditions. That translates to a long interior hall well away from windows. Dining room chairs are lined against both sides of the hall and the residents remain there while the danger is present. Unfortunately that was from about 3:00 - 11:00 p.m. last week. I think everyone was exhausted by the time they were allowed to return to their apartments. Her goofy little dachshund worked the crowd as a therapy dog, so that helped. Since then we've tried to get out with some regularity to assure her that things are back to whatever passes for normal any more. I've been reading a book, which I recommend to anyone sharing their life with and caring for an aging parent, Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother by Meg Federico. While the experience she describes is not exactly like mine (or probably like anyone else's), you'll recognize the similarities in how one feels dealing with a parent in this stage of their life. Bless 'em, Lord.

Well, I'd better give up and go attend to those exams. All classes were canceled on the tornado day, which was, of course, our last class before exams. Then the department head called me to tell me that she had just been advised that the grades for graduating seniors were due on Monday. Um, that's fine, but our final exam isn't scheduled until Wednesday and the research papers aren't due until then either. So we scrambled around trying to reschedule exams and papers for the seniors so that grades could go in timely. While I usually prefer being out of any loop that's going, sometimes it causes problems. However, all my glorious little seniors came through and got things taken care of. Now it's down to me to finish grading ... (possibly my least favorite part of teaching).

Beneath the sober appearance society demands of us, most of us are daily going a little bit out of our minds, which in itself should give us cause to hold out a hand to our comparably tortured neighbors.  (Alaine de Botton)

The Vapors ...

While I am fairly certain that I am not actually on Death's door (although you just never know ...), I did feel perfectly ghastly all weekend with the local version of The Plague. A throat that felt as though sprinters had been doing practice runs in it while wearing cleats. A head that seemed to be stuffed with eels. A chest that sounded like nothing so much as a bass drum full of marbles and custard. It was all very unattractive. Why is it that physical illness seems so much less purposeful when you are slogging through middle age than when you are seven?  At least when you're seven, there is someone else to check your temperature, fix your soup and provide clean pajamas to wear. When you're a hundred and ten and living alone, you're on your own for straightening out your own sheets, punching up your pillows and finding something in the refrigerator that doesn't look positively revolting.

NOT using the elbow cough ...

When it was borne in upon me that I was slithering down the influenza slope again, I betook myself to bed and lay there pretending I was in England in 1348 and waited for The Watch to come paint a black cross on my front door. A friend recommended massive doses of anything remotely legal that would knock me out for the duration. That's when I realized I had about a half teaspoon of NyQuil and one measly little packet of some variant of TheraFlu left in the house. I longed to be in England NOW so I could hit up the local chemist for some super over the counter product, not available in the U.S., that would fully mask my symptoms until the disease had burned its way through my body. I'm a big fan of avoiding feeling ill. However, I was here and the grim reality was that I was going to have to climb out of bed, nasty as I felt, and drag myself to the local Piggly Wiggly store for American symptom maskers. One of the joys of small town living is that the local market has limited hours and limited inventory. I twisted my hair up under a ball cap, pulled on the least ratty of my watching-movies-with-the-dogs sweatpants, layered on an old t-shirt Someone had left behind, an Eddie Bauer sweater that is older than most of the kids I see in Juvenile Court, and headed out for The Pig. It is an axiom that, the worse you look, the more people you will run into when you're out. So, there I was, sloping along the edge of the grocery store, trying to grab the respiratory remedies I needed and get out, and every second person I see addresses me by my professional title and asks how I'm doing. This is yet another blessing and curse of small town life; I have no idea who most of these people are. Did I put them in jail? Let them out? Divorce them? Take their kids away? Evict them from their home? But they all seem quite friendly, so it was probably just my fevered brain.

Obviously, I survived. Back at work today I tried valiantly not to actually cough in people's faces and to attempt the currently popular "cough into the elbow" ruse. My clerk finally gave me a box of Kleenex - that elbow thing just does not work when your standard outfit includes big Zoro-cape sleeves.

I was not the only one in my family who had a rough week. In fact, my week was probably a whole lot better than hers. One of my very best and dearest friends (who just happens to be married to my son and related to my grandkids) was in the hospital all week with pneumonia. I was very worried about her, but, for several reasons, in no position to do anything practical about it. I very much wanted to be there to help "take care of things", but could not be and was deeply frustrated by this. My mother wanted to come and "take care of" me during my own illness. For several reasons, though, she was not in a position to do anything practical about it. It took me a couple of days to make the connection between Mom's frustration and my own; I hope I learned some compassion for her (and myself).

There's a week of rainy, sunny, windy, and very March-like weather ahead. There is work to be done and blessings to be counted. I shall, in all probability, sound rather like a leaky pipe organ for a few more days, but then I shall be fine. All I have to do now is try to convince my body that we are through with this sleep as long as you can and wake up when you want to schedule!

Long Ago in Bristol and Verona ...

It's been a tough day for getting my head around the concept of aging gracefully. The exercises the chipper young physical therapist gave me to do between appointments are leaving me gasping in horror at just how much recovery is going to be necessary before I am "good as new." New in which decade, I wonder. This afternoon I limped gamely out the front door and down my six zillion front steps to confer with my yard guy about the trees that need to be pruned before they start to bud again in the spring. While I was out there I continued my hobble all the way down the driveway to the post box to see what fresh hell might be lurking therein. Much to my delight, however, a DVD I had ordered from some dodgy 'art house' distributor had arrived. I stumbled on to this particular bit of film history at the end of an internet trawl through 18th century choral music, down a side track to Beatles and Rolling Stones tunes of the late 1960's and then a sharp left turn to a film I've often thought about over the years but haven't actually seen since 1964. One is able to get a DVD with this cinematic offering from a strange little place in New York, so I ordered it. What can I say; it was late, I was tired. I can still remember most of the words from the theme song of the movie (although I am completely incapable of remembering code citations for most crimes). I was curious to watch not only the movie, but my reaction to the movie all these many (many ... many) years later. I can still recall the theater in Walnut Creek where my sister and I saw the movie originally. I recall thinking that the characters were so glamorous and foreign when I saw it (never having been out of California at that time). After watching the film and watching myself, I popped Franco Zeffirelli's 'Romeo & Juliet' (c.1968) into the DVD player and tried to remember watching that for the first time, too. The story is not only chock full of all the nonsensical and dangerous ideas of "true love", but the first time I saw it I was the same age as both of the lead characters and the young actors who portrayed them. 

It's so curious to try to remember what something was like for the first time when you revisit it with vision obscured by decades of life experience. All of the characters in both films looked so very young and vulnerable (well, shoot, they're half the age of my child now!). Cheeks are so soft and pliant; hair so glorious and thick; young lips still so full and bodies still so lissome. And how do I see these characters today? So serious in their desperate concerns about love and life. I have to curb my impulse to lock them safely in their rooms until they grow some sense. But that's not what life and living are about, is it? Romeo and Juliet continue to kill themselves. The kids in "Some People" go on, after the film ends, to the difficult life of post-war England. And I go on with my life. We all married, for better or worse, some of us repeatedly, and for the most part none of us killed ourselves or each other. That was what life and living were about. 

Romeo & Juliet today

When I have enough energy I'll pop in "A Man For All Seasons" and "Becket" and see if I can relive the awe with which I first saw those films (both in San Francisco). I'll try to recall how I remembered the films and those amazing lives when I later read several biographies involving both men. And I'll look at the contemporary photographs of the actors who played all these characters and find some peace with the girl/woman who looks back at me from the mirror and age gracefully.

"Things die, too, you know. And so, if they too have to die, well there it is, it's so much better to let them go. That has much more style about it, apart from everything else, don't you agree?" (Giorgio Bassani; The Garden of the Finzi-Continis)

Celebrate Recovery ... as long as it may take

Recovery is a strange concept. Our friends, Merriam and Webster (not to be confused with the household gods, Owen & Webster), advise us that the term's earliest known usage is in the 14th century in Middle English from the Anglo-French recoverer, from Latin recouperare, from re + caperare, from Latin capere "to take", more at "heave" (a transitive verb with the obsolete meaning "to elevate"). I can tell you from the current viewpoint that my recovery certainly has elements of elevation about it; humorous and physical. Nearly a month out from surgery, I have developed a distinctly seafaring gait that someone referred to as "Peg Leg" would probably recognize. I am assured that this will resolve itself in time and that my body will accept and compensate for the various insults and injuries done to it in the name of Repair. We'll see. I'll be content when every task doesn't have to be considered in terms of how many steps it is going to involve and whether I'm going to have to bend over at any time during the task. The dogs have figured out that, if I have to bend over to pick up something, it's going to be an extended process so they watch for their main chance at snatching whatever it is that I'm bending over to get. In a letter to a friend I was bemoaning the fact that putting on bed socks involved an entire series of discrete actions that included the hope that the dogs wouldn't decide the item in question was a soft toy, grab it and make away with it before I could put it on. Alas.

I saw Gracie striding purposefully across a counter yesterday with a sodden tea bag in her mouth, which she must have rescued from the kitchen sink. I'm sure she thought it was some sort of exotic small rodent, what with that long, string tail and all. I snatched the tea bag from her and deposited it in the trash bin (yes, I know, I should have done that in the first place). In a fit of feline pique, she went into my bathroom shortly thereafter and pillaged the pottery dish on the counter for transportable trifles. She settled on one of a pair of earrings a girlfriend had given me for Christmas and removed it to the floor, where she had more scope for destruction. I found the gutted remains of the poor trinket later and gave it and its sister a decent burial. Yes, I know, I should have put them in the jewelry box as soon as I took them off. There is, however, a certain atavistic charm in coping with domestic wildlife in one's daily affairs. I just wish that they weren't so much faster and sneakier than I. At least, after more than a dozen years, old Scooter and I know what to expect of each other and comport ourselves accordingly. These young ones, though ...

The snow that has been our constant companion for the past week is finally showing patchy. The river rocks in my dry stream have reappeared and the mess the local teenagers made of the playing fields in the park across the street is now much less ugly. It is unusual for so much snow to stay around for so long in this part of the world. The snow and ice, the cold temperatures and the physical situation of my house rendered me housebound for a week. My deathly fear at the moment is falling. That has primacy of place on the list of things my surgeon said I must not do. My house sits at the top of the property and everything then slopes down to the street. My driveway would do service as a bunny run at a ski resort and it was lavishly covered with lots and lots of fluffy snow, which then packed to lots of snow and ice. I discovered that even going out into the garage to let the dogs in and out for routine airings caused a great deal of discomfort to the entire area that the surgical team had been messing with. I have no idea how well or poorly titanium conducts heat and cold, but I do know that it hurt like stink by the time I got back into the house! There were no snow plows for two days after the first snowfall (it is The South, after all) and the street in front of my house more closely resembled an ice rink than a thoroughfare for motorized vehicles. This did not, I note, hinder some local yahoo from tearing up and down the street in his beat up green pickup truck at about 30 mph towing a plastic sled behind him with small children on it. I was appalled but saw little point in attempting to explain the physics of that stunt to the bonehead (even if I could have gotten out of the house); the children on the sled were traveling as fast as the truck and ... had no brakes. I still don't know how they managed to stop without death or disfigurement because there isn't really anywhere on the street for them to turn around without making a 3-point turn. Oh well. I didn't hear any emergency vehicle sirens and the Life Flight helicopter didn't have to land in the field in the park, so I guess there were no tears before bed. I heard later that several of my acquaintances had also engaged in this behavior themselves, so I suppose it's a rural nonsense. At least my friends were doing it out in open fields where the driver could spin the sleds out behind him to stop ... that's what I'm telling myself, anyway. The day I finally was able to go back to work, a large and sturdy detective came to collect me and held on to a large handful of my coat all the way down the driveway to his car. We figured my dignity was of less importance at that point than the real possibility of taking a header off my crutch. I suppose that, if I wasn't in my current state of disability, I would have found the snow and its attendant weather more invigorating. As it was, though, it was just a great thumping nuisance and I'm glad it's scheduled to head out. I see in the extended forecast, however, that they are guessing there will be more by next weekend. Somebody explain this global warming stuff to me again.

"The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you." ~ Will Rogers

Cotton, Flannel and River Water

This shirt is old and faded
All the color's washed away
I've had it now for more damn years
Than I can count anyway.

* * *

This shirt was the one I lent you
And when you gave it back
There was a rip inside the sleeve
Where you rolled your cigarettes
It was the place I put my heart
Now look at where you put a tear
I forgave your thoughtlessness
But not the boy who put it there

* * *

This shirt is a grand old relic
With a grand old history
I wear it now for Sunday chores
Cleaning house and raking leaves
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try.

These are some of the lyrics to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, “This Shirt.” I’m thinking of them today because I’ve been sloping about in a perfectly ratty old flannel bathrobe that an ex-Someone left behind with all the other things he didn’t want. I bought the bathrobe for him when he was in hospital with one or another of the various surgeries I nursed him through. I suppose I keep it around because you just can’t have too many ratty bathrobes when you reside with a pack of corgis and a couple of insistent cats. And since, during my recovery and rehabilitation from my latest hospital outing, I can’t lean forward when I’m eating, I either wear ratty old bathrobes or one of those big, plastic pelican bibs we used to put on the kids when they ate in high chairs on plastic throw cloths.

This solitary recovery is beginning to get me down. The furkids are marvelous company, but one can only stretch the intellectual conversation so far with them. When I checked on Owen today because he did not answer with the others when I called, his only excuse was that he had his head so far in the cats’ litter box that he didn’t hear me. So much for living on a higher plane … I can’t seem to get my Dr. Doolittle act together. The text messages and emails are entertaining, but not the same as the sound of a human voice (other than my old friends on NPR) or the touch of a hand.  I shall have to find a way to get back to humanity before they come looking for me and find my mortal remains in the laundry room with the radio blasting in the kitchen … (waggery only).

A friend contacted me today asking if he could give my email address to a woman who is looking for someone to help crew her sailboat on the river. I was suddenly taken back years to when I lived on another planet with Someone who loved to sail and the ocean was minutes away (he is not to be confused with the Old Bathrobe Someone). I have toyed with the idea of a small sailboat for years, but the reality of the maintenance required put me off. A bicycle is so much easier to deal with. But, if I could just be responsible for crewing, that would be grand. The woman and I made contact and we’ll talk more when I’m not hobbling about on crutches and can lean over when I eat.  How glorious to have the possibility of doing the things I wanted so much to do but chose not to because I thought I had to do things with somebody else. All I have to do now is figure out how to divide time between the bike, the boat and the music. What a marvelous problem to have!

My ratty old bathrobe, with a grand old history, is calling to me to put it back on and feed the dogs. It’s good to have faithful friends about; animate and otherwise.