STEEPED IN A MISTY MORN OF MUSINGS...: June 2018

Friday, June 22, 2018

AFTER THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE...

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

BY EMILY DICKINSON

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’

And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –

A Wooden way

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –

First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

“It hurts when they're gone. And it doesn't matter if it's slow or fast, whether it's a long drawn-out disease or an unexpected accident. When they're gone the world turns upside down and you're left holding on, trying not to fall off.”

Friday, June 15, 2018

A LIFE OF CRAZY EIGHTS [AND ALL MINE!]

I was 8 years old when I first got my hands on a deck of 'Crazy Eights'; my sister Carole and I enjoyed playing it throughout the summer of 1965 (i.e., a year that, to us, seemed ostensibly innocent). It also appears that the number "8" has figured rather prominently no less than seven times in my past. Pausing to reflect on previous milestones has thus given rise to a personal trip down memory lane:

Though if I said I actually remembered the exact summer when my sister was born I'd be lying. However, there are a few pics of us in the falling apart album that I acquired after my mother's passing that indisputably make me wax nostalgically.

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Yet, I most definitely DO remember 1968 and would further opine that "it was a very good year". We were getting ready to move out of Detroit after the riots yet there was this magical, heady excitement in the air that insinuated "big changes were on the horizon"...and there definitely were!!!

Since I got married in 1978, I was likewise super busy that year [i.e., I was also in my last year of pre-med and studied like mad to graduate 'numero uno' in my class]. As such, 70s pop culture sort of escaped me altogether.

Nothing like being "self-made"!!!

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Truly, 1988 was a year that changed my life. I spent the latter part of the summer in Washington D.C. during a dreadful heat wave. What I experienced that year shall remain with me 'till I leave this earth. It's very hard to explain, nonetheless, but has a lot to do with growing up extraordinarily sheltered and naive. My daughter was eight and this was a very fun year for her even though she had to start Montessori with me still away. That said, my stories about how much I loved our nation's capital likely influenced her to make her current home in the D.C. area, as well. My parents were living on the Philadelphia mainline in 1988; life was beyond sweet ... Oh, how I miss those days!

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The year 1998 found me doing locum tenens and planning on building a new home somewhere warmer than Michigan... well, that was until the fateful night I was assaulted by Angel Maturino Reséndiz. The latter is burning in hell [I hope] and I am still alive. Having said that, such a horrible experience has left me looking over my shoulder forever more!

I also remember watching the very last Seinfeld episode after a very hectic day at the Imaging Center I was working at in 1998. "It's something unpredictable" was stuck in my head for days...

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I loved 2008! The world appeared promising and buoyant and I was also at the top of my 'A' game...

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Now, 10 years later, things are not so hopeful... and in large part because unwitting folks elected an a****** to the White House. I keep asking, "When will all this deception end?"