Got three reminders about appointments and lab tests that need to be done but none of them set me off the way a late night text can.
The news came in the proverbial drips and drabs and I began to assemble the puzzle pieces in my head so that I could try to understand what it meant.
Thought about my Grandma Cella who would tell you not to worry about trouble you didn’t have and heard Dad’s voice inside my head providing his own counsel too.
Took my usual deep breath and considered whether to wait to look at flights or to to glance at things just so that I had an understanding of options.
Not time to yell make a hole as I did when I made the big run from Southlake to LA 3.5 years ago but activity helps relax me.
Activity helps me find the eye of the storm and make smart, rational decisions based upon knowledge and not emotion.
There is an hourglass standing before me, not a real one though I own one, but a figurative one that I can see the sand moving in.
For the moment things are in stasis and I am mostly calm, but I feel the internal spring being wound a little tighter.
Taking it one step at a time is something I am better at than some people give me credit for, including myself.
Feels like it has been a while since I last wrote but maybe not so long, these two aren’t all that old yet,
It reminds of the eternal question about quantity versus quality and the discussions with people who say you ought not write unless you have something to say.
Except the bit about something to say is so damn subjective. I could say I like your legs and your lips or that you are smart and get different responses.
I could write about political activism and the steps I am taking to effect change on a local, state and federal level and get different responses.
So much of this is situational and circumstantial. You never know what will push people or move them in one direction or another.
Went to an online shiva for a fraternity brother who died a year ago and swapped stories and thought about dear friend.
Saw news about someone I knew only from Mafia Wars having died of breast cancer and thought some more about how tenuous our grip on this world is.
One slip and it can all change, but even then you just never know.
I still hear the echoes of the nurse at the hospice telling me how strong Dad was and how hadn’t begun to show the signs of slipping away in the time they had expected,
Can’t forget holding his hand and promising he could go let go because there were others who could keep going.
Felt like a gift and a betrayal.
Keep checking my phone for more texts with updates but know the silence is good and that I ought to consider shutting my eyes soon.
Except it is only 12:30 on a Saturday night and I rarely go to bed any earlier this and often later.
There are echoes of memories of Saturday nights in Westwood, Jerusalem, New York and a thousand other cities in which sleep wasn’t a consideration.
We were going to shut the bars down or walk for hours under a starry night talking about anything and everything.
“Make a hole” rings a soft gong inside my head and again I see that hourglass but it could be referring to so many different things.
****
Soon I need to go buy some more free weights for my home. What I have here isn’t enough and I am discovering my body remembers how it is supposed to respond.
Doesn’t always do it precisely as I ask, but it is doing it and I need to have more tools to encourage it.
Don’t quite recognize the face in the mirror but I know the smile and the eyes so maybe it is me.
I can see the impact of life in multiple ways and yet maybe not in others. A coworker asked if I have a skincare routine because I don’t look “as old as I am.”
Guess that is a compliment even if it sounds a bit like an insult.
Got thoughts and ideas about so many things but for the moment am still trying to work on the puzzle that was presented to me earlier.
It is kind of silly because I don’t have all of the pieces or the background to put things together with the sort of expertise I want.
Doesn’t stop me from trying because I am good at absorbing large amounts of information and making sense of them.
I know things and can put other items together by thought and feel, but not so much in this area and that is frustrating.
But somethings are what they are and there are times when you can’t do anything more with them than compartmentalize.
So that is what I am doing, putting things in boxes and waiting for more details before I take them back out.
No sense buying trouble I don’t already have so I’ll keep walking in the sunshine even I sometimes hear/see that damn hourglass.
