Late start this morning. I slept in until 8 am – a true rarity. After the past two days of very little sleep and the intensity of the trip to Hartford and back yesterday, I was well and truly wiped out.
The weather was a huge factor in my drive yesterday. On the way to Hartford, it was foggy and hard to see. On the way home, at night, it was raining heavily and I could barely see the white lane markers on the highway. I was so tired and tense from the journey that my muscles ached when I got home. But I did get home and boy, was I happy to see my husband open the door when he heard my car in the driveway. It really feels as if I ran a race yesterday. The actual work, watching the run-through, taking notes, and talking to the actors, was relatively easy. The show is in good shape and the cast is doing terrific work. It was just the other stuff that was hard; trying to find a moment to eat something, the terrible weather, the long drive.
It’s done and I did it all on my own, despite an offer from Don to come with me. So I’m giving myself a little pat on the back. But just a little one.
I arrived home and Don shared the news that a friend of ours, Mike Kruglinski, had died. Mike lived in our town, was very active in politics (which is how we met him) and was one of the kindest men I’ve ever had the privilege to meet. His spirit was so joyful and positive. He had been fighting cancer. Mike’s wife, Diane, sometimes reads this blog. My heart goes out to his family. He will be sorely missed. Last year, we lost another member of our Democrat Committee, Barbara Sides. Too much loss.
Another of Don’s friends here in town is battling cancer. Another, back in California, has serious heart problems.
It’s all too much sometimes. Our prayers and thoughts are with all who suffer loss and who are faced with illness.
Don is reading Walden and he really loves it. I should read it again because I read it in high school, when it was an assignment, and I know I would get much more out of it at this point in my life. We spent this morning talking about books and the power of reading, the intimacy that comes with reading the words on a page – just you and the book and your reaction to those words. It’s such a blessing, reading. Especially in these times.
I’m almost done with Transcription and then I’ll move on to The Snowman by Jo Nesbø. Come to think of it, except for some small chores that need to be done, that’s how I’m going to spend my day.
Happy Friday.
I used to hate driving in fog or heavy rain. Luckily fog is almost nonexistent and we get very little rain here in the desert. We get a few monsoons. Even those have been mild the last few years.
I just finished reading “The Late Show” by Michael Connelly. I finished the book in about a day and a half. I couldn’t put it down. Really liked the new character he introduced. I love all his books.
I loved that book and that character. She is now a semi-regular in his books, Olivia.
Claudia, I’m so sorry to read about the death of your friend. He sounds like he was a terrific guy.
He was. And he was only 70. Heartbreaking. Thanks, Jeff.
Driving in adverse conditions is extremely tense. It’s no wonder you were sore afterwards. Best rest up today with a good book, and maybe a catnap or two.
We are off to a Garden Expo this afternoon. It’s never too early to start planning, and it will be nice to hang out with other like-minded people in our community.
Enjoy your day! ;)
Have fun at the Garden Expo, Donnamae. I woke up today thinking in great detail of how the garden looks in May!
A big pat on the back from me – well done. Enjoy your calm day in your sanctuary.
As others have said, I am truly sorry to hear about your friend. He will be mourned and missed, but I am sensing he had a life well lived,
Wish I could join you for a coffee and a talk about books
Siobhan xx
Oh, I do, too! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Take care, Siobhan.
Damn cancer. We got a lot of losses here too. I loved Walden very much. I read it many years ago and thanks for inspiration, gonna read it again , its next on my list. We got a lot of rain all over Europe. After two days of spring-feeling we have a forecast of very heavy storm from the North Atlantic. Maybe this will switch the weather into spring!
Take Don with you whenever it’s possible. It’s such a comforting feeling driving side by side (even when the husband is driving mainly, ha).
So much rain here, as well. It looks like we’re going to get even more of it next week, Helga.
Thank you!
I have so many friends going through so much at this time. Next time, take Don. I have fear of few things, but I know what it is like driving at night alone in the fog and rain. Glad he is enjoying Walden. I knew he would-we know him through your blogs…maybe you can read it again and enjoy also. Have a good day. Rest and relax.
whew … glad your hard, hectic week and that tense driving trip are over!
especially … condolences to you and don on the loss of a friend. hope you can take it easy this weekend.
we’ve had teeny snowflakes falling for hours and they are beautiful … but also turning icy and lowering visibility (and hopefully not heading your way). i am ready to start the weekend early and go home!
happy, restful weekend to you.
kathy in iowa
Claudia
I read your blog from a few days back about not understanding peoples viewpoints and all the divisiveness and hatred that seems to be infecting us. Your blog is about YOU and Don and should never be a source of negativity from readers.
You talk about your home being a place of refuge from the world. And how you love that second cup of coffee with Don. It made me think about the song ” Then you can tell me goodbye” by the Casinos. That coffee is always sweeter with a morning kiss.
Now you just got me thinking about that quote in “Walden” which says to be aware of any endeavor that requires new clothes!
To end this rambling I will just remind you that Little Z’s smile could solve the entire energy crisis. Megawatt.
Sorry about your friend.
Best wishes from Best Bun.
Thanks so much for your support, Best Bun. I must admit the negativity is frustrating, especially when it is directed to my readers. I really don’t want that here and if it continues, I’ll have to block. But, hopefully not.
Oh my gosh, that boy’s smile! I’m crazy about him. I’m also very jealous indeed of his thick black eyelashes!
I’m so sorry about your friend. Seeing more and more losses at our age is a challenge, especially when they were people who made a real difference.
It must have been heaven to return to your haven. I love the photo. Well done, that miserable drive both ways. I’m glad you made it back before too much snow. And great news about the show.
Thank you, Jeanie. Right now, we’re getting a lot wind after a very rainy morning. I think we’re headed into a cold spell.
Glad you made it back home safe. Driving in the rain is scary. Isn’t it nice to discuss books with others. My sisters and I love doing it with our sometimes different opinions. Sorry about your friend Michael. May he rest in peace.
Marilyn
It is. I’ve had so many good discussions about books! It’s lovely that you can do that with your sisters, Marilyn. Thank you!
Glad you got thru the rough day, back home now, sleep of exhaustion; hope you got in a nap this afternoon, too.
We’re at the age now; losing a lot of people; HAVE lost good people from our lives. My husband ran into an acquaintance yesterday at the grocery store; she’s ten years younger than us; battling breast cancer, scarf on her head due to chemo; tears springing to her eyes; so brave but so fragile, yet strong in that she marches on; is still working at her full-time job; continues to care for her young-adult child at home who has a disability. Too many folks out there toting a heavy load.
I was preoccupied with the passing of years yesterday (odd things can raise to the surface of the brain when you’ve got the calming scene before you of lovely Pacific Ocean, few humans on a weekday and instead all that ‘nature’; swaths of wide, hard-packed wet sand to walk at low-low tide, circling around little temporary, shallow lagoons of sun-warmed water; flocks of shorebirds in their element, the healing sunshine sparkling on the cornflower-blue sea; gorgeous SoCalif afternoon at the winter beach, the almost-full moon rising to the north & east, all white & round on more pale-blue of sky nearly the same color as the ocean below it; the mind wanders with the rhythm of the waves, so flat yesterday they were, a gentleness to them, lulling you to a different consciousness).
Anyway, years … sounds so cliche, but seems like only yesterday, I was just a kid; what happened between then and now; where did all that time go? It slips away fast. Too fast.
I look back at my mom’s address book, where she entered names in pencil so she could erase any changes. By the time she died, approaching her 90s, she too had lost a lot of people; there were so few names left in the book; the pencil scratchings are fading now; an ending.
I think we just have to live for the new, small beginnings; fresh starts in everyday life; maybe nothing earthshaking yet positive; changes that are good; find ways to renew ourselves. Live as well as we can for, not just ourselves, but indeed for those we’ve lost (who’d want us to).
And, speaking of, I’m sorry for your loss and Don’s this week. I’m glad you have each other in the shelter of your ‘cocoon’.
And, you know, before you can blink an eye, Spring will come, Claudia; it’s good to have these things to look forward to in the cycles of our lives. I’m re-potting succulents tomorrow; it’s time to bloom and grow around here.
It’s a particularly hard time for us and, I suspect, many others out there. It isn’t always an ‘age’ thing, but we are feeling the loss of friends that, though they are in their late sixties and early seventies, have died too young. Mortality. I’ve lost many friends and relatives over the years, and unlike Don, I lost a few at a young age – one a classmate who died of an asthma attack when we were in junior high, two were children I babysat in high school; a girl who died of a brain tumor, a boy who died of leukemia. Another friend died of suicide. One of my students in the MFA program was murdered before he could graduate. Another student in the program at BU died suddenly of a heart attack. And then there are all of my friends and colleagues who died from AIDS – and there were many. And my brother, of course.
All this is to say that losing loved ones and students and friends is not something new, but now it hits closer to home in terms of age and time and the remaining time we have left here on Earth. May all of them rest in peace. Thanks, Vicki.
You’ve suffered some awful losses, Claudia. I’m sorry.
I dunno. I guess when younger and idealistic or clueless, did I think everybody around me was going to live forever? I wasn’t prepared for a life where people started dropping off.
Like you might have, I came face to face HARD with aspects of my own mortality when my brother died completely unexpectedly, out of nowhere, of a sudden, fatal, instant-immediate heart attack. We were both in our 30s. He didn’t even have a family yet; never got to be a husband or a dad. I had to write his obituary and be the one to deal with the mortuary and coroner (autopsy because he hadn’t been under recent medical care; he was supposedly young and healthy; he’d just been backpacking in the mountains a couple of days earlier; was an avid hiker); I had to pinch hit for my mom and dad, as they were nearly comatose, understandably, with shock and grief. I had to be the one to scatter his ashes and I’d never done anything like that before (I confess to say I’d really never even read an obituary at that age, death being the last thing on my mind). You never get over it; ever.
It’s when I knew if he could die, so could I. It rattled me to the very core. It made me feel so vulnerable, yet I already felt vulnerable without him; we were close (in recent years, he’d even lived temporarily with me at my house; he was always ‘there’ for me, my folks, his friends, his neighbors and others in need). Then, he left me an ‘only’ child to two crushed, bewildered, utterly-shaken parents.
I voluntarily attended some grief-counseling sessions with a family therapist ten years later (I had suffered miscarriages; I was mourning; I wasn’t going to be able to bear a child) and she said she also felt I’d never come to terms with my brother’s death. She was right. Ten years.
We get to this age, if we’re the survivors, and definitely bear some scars. Loss triggers memory of loss; that’s a key thing I’ve learned of myself (had heard the expression but never knew quite what it meant). Before I’d suffered loss to this degree (speaking to my brother’s passing), I couldn’t quite relate to the depth of other people’s despair and grief when they were hurting due to a death of someone who meant something to them. After it happened in my family and with me, I felt other people’s pain much more acutely. A different understanding about it.
I guess until it happens to any of us, we can’t really fully understand the permanence of death … the total stop of a life here on Earth, in the flesh. Maybe with age/maturity, with experience; personal experience. My cousin was killed in a horrendous truck accident in L.A., right about at the junction of the 405 with the 101 freeway (his father had to learn of it via the radio, and it was all over the L.A. TV news stations, so the horror was magnified for us), just a couple of weeks after his high school graduation; I was sad but, as a preteen, I couldn’t begin to comprehend what my mother (his aunt) or his mother was going thru. In an opposite way, I can’t imagine what it is for a young child to lose a parent. But every scenario is anguishing. You get older and more time goes by, and the list of those you’ve lost gets longer.
I think, over the many years now, I’ve been surprised and disappointed as to just how hard life can sometimes get. I was under the illusion when younger that it would be easier. Some rose-colored world where nothing bad would ever happen, at least not to me. Not blaming them, but I think my parents worked a little too hard to shield me from an imperfect world.
Anyway, I can relate to what you’re feeling and saying, Claudia; how it aches when you start to lose people one by one, and it’s especially difficult when it seems to start when we’re all yet too young.
My parents did the same. When our neighbor died, they told me it was because he was accidentally asphyxiated. It wasn’t until years later that I learned he committed suicide. For whatever reason, they felt they had to shield me from that. They did that out of love, so I don’t blame them either.
Thank you, Vicki.
The only good thing about a night without sleep, is the knowledge that I will soon be making up for it!
There is nothing good about cancer. My sympathy for those you’ve lost. I used up my year’s allowance of curse words today when we got bad news about our DIL.
Carpe diem. Enjoy the hominess this weekend.
I’m so sorry you received bad news, Roxie. Thinking of you and yours.
When Don (and you) are reading Thoreau, I believe you will relate as you live together-two not one of course-in your lovely little cottage…living as we choose to live…I loved the references to Greek lit…I taught parts of Walden and of course, The Odyssey, to which he references…Greek Myths also…although my specialty and first love is Shakespeare…these are fun also. I will be eager to hear what Don liked the best about the writing…and if you reread, what resonates with you.
Will do, Brenda. Thank you.
I’m very sad to hear about your friends.
Thank you, Nora.