Well, no avoiding it. Get it done. That had become her new motto. She had gotten it done for her husband. Children. Work. Now it was time for her to get it done for herself.
This, if anything, proved that she could not wait. COVID-19 had interrupted. Age was interrupting. Nature. No doubt. “Get it done.”
Coffee was first sipped. Comfort drink. And for fortitude. Then she pulled up Excel. Opened BucketList.exl. Found ZZ Top. She’d always wanted to see them. Her husband had seen them three times before dying. So when they’d been scheduled for the Britt Festival this year, she’d jumped all over it. Get it done.
Now the bassist was dead. Dusty Hill. Original. Sure ZZ Top would go on. But. Like Cream. She’d hoped to see them but Cream only had Clapton left. At least she’d seen the Beatles. Stones. Pink Floyd. Jethro Tull. Heart. Journey. Foreigner. All thanks to her husband. Get it done. Because time didn’t wait. She’d missed on The Who. Had put it off. Then. Moon was dead.
She would still go to the ZZ Top concert. Wouldn’t be the same. Just like with the Temptations. They’d done all the music but not with the members she’d known growing up.
The sun also ‘rises’ and then it ‘sets’. That’s our perspective. From this perspective on Tuesday, July 20, 2021, that happens at 5:52 AM and 8:41 PM.
Wildfires continue. Heat continues. Drought. COVID-19. Politics. Climate change. Battles for social justice. Equality. Equal opportunity. Efforts to deny those continue unabated, too, usually under the flimsiest of logic.
I was up after midnight last night — not unusual. With the wife in bed and the cats usually hanging on the front porch or back patio, after midnight is when I get my alone time. Midnight is featured in many songs. Bunch traveled through my head. One took it by storm, though: “Living After Midnight” by Judas Priest, from waaayyy back in 1980. FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO. An OMG moment that made me laugh.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Her life. She had such a life. All centered on her children. Now. Had been different. Career. Charity work. Volunteering at the Guild and the Food Bank, delivering meals to shut-ins, meeting with the garden club and the book club.
All gone with her macular degeneration. Reducing her life to her children. No, her grandchildren. She and her daughter ‘did not get along’. Saw politics differently. Education. Fashion. Manners. Daughter blamed her for – “Whatever,” she usually explained, too limp to delve deeper into words and emotions, too worn to extricate and untangle the relationship to the satisfaction of anyone outside of it.
The grandchildren, though – twins. He, dyslexic. Energetic. Masculine but wary. She, in the forefront. Quick-minded, always watching, pausing to see. Cowboy boots – red – and sparkling tutus. She, ordering him on what to do, when to do it. How. Correcting him. He, obeying, sometimes with frustration, which the girl child – they were only eight, miniature people, perfect little unblemished slender human replicas – soothed with whispers and touches. She could not see their future. That worried her.
Then him. His life. No life. Writing. Living to write. Brooding, apparently writing in his head. Reading. Walking around, sipping coffee, staring at walls, floors, windows, always there but never there. Her son. She could no longer connect with him at all. He was a house that couldn’t be entered. Curtains on the windows. No doors in nor out.
Phone rang with an old-fashioned tinny sound reminding her of the happy times at her grandmother’s home. Her daughter was calling. She didn’t want to answer. Probably about money. Usually was, when she called. She put a smile into her voice. Shook off her weariness. Must not upset the princess lest she cut off access to the grandchildren. But she would not do that, would she?
Not a chance to be taken. “Hello, honey,” she said, fake happiness in her voice, pressing forward with her life.
The rotations continue, no matter what is done, sunrise, sunfall. 5:46 AM, 8:47 PM in slice of world in southern Oregon. The revolution continues, despite what is done, carrying us through summer, speeding us toward autumn.
Today is Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Wildfires continue catching and growing. Two are contained, five more start. Smoke doesn’t fill the sky but bleaches the blue into a yellow-tinged gray haze. Fine grey granules, almost white, sprinkle cars and the land. Think of how they coat skin. Get into airways. Spread into lungs, interfering with body functions like breathing.
The smoke is a cooling shade, keeping temperatures from rising over one hundred F but unable to keep us from experiencing high nineties heat. Green has been dried out of the grasses. They turn into a sandy shade of brown.
But, you know, good news. COVID-19 vaccinations appear to be helping, where people are allowing themselves to be vaccinated. As disease variants rise, the unvaccinated and vaccinated become positive, but it’s the unvaccinated who are typically hospitalized and dying.
The other good news is that people are shedding their masks, unless they need it to deal with smoke (at least out here in the American west). Stores are opening. Restaurants. Movie theaters. One can again attend movies. Isn’t that good news? And the All-star break is underway. Good news, right? Good news.
While drought spreads in the west, places are flooding in the south and east as hurricanes and tropical storms strike. Did you see the photos of the flooded New York subway and roads? Places are also experiencing power outages. Sometimes from storms, sometimes because power is cut off due to wildfires, sometimes because the wildfires burn power lines. Melbourne, Australia is locked down again but the NFL is looking forward to full stadiums. There’s a water shortage growing in America but a housing boom is underway. The stock market has never been better, and look how that economy seems to be recovering. Also, the Emmy list has been released. That’s good news, isn’t it?
An ad on an Internet page seems it all up for me. Showing a pristine red and white Chevy Corvette from the early sixties, the ad informs me, “Jag EType” (that’s how they put it) “in any condition, nationwide.” While showing a Vette. Makes sense to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an optimist. Hopeful. Hell, I keep grinding away on my writing routine. Must believe some future exists for it. Which brings me to the music.
Here’s the Pretenders from 1986. They do an homage to an old television show, “The Avengers”. My wife and I quite enjoyed that series as children. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax. Cheers
Thursday began at 12:01 AM but the sun didn’t show up until 5:40 AM. Many don’t think the day begins until the sun arrives. Midnight is part of last night, not very early morning. Which side do you fall upon? Depends upon what you mean by ‘day’ for many.
Ah, well. Sunset will strike 8:49ish PM. Cooler weather prevails in the daylight hours, high of only 90 being called out. Morning was delightful, with a chilly 58 degrees when the sun brought its golden presence to the stage.
By the way, today is July 8, 2021. On this date in history, what will you do?
For music, I’m playing “Creep” by Stone Temple Pilots, aka STP, in my head. From 1993, Scott Weiland, STP vocalist once said in an interview that it’s about a young man caught between being a kid and becoming an adult. Yet, as we age, we often lament the same thing: I’m half the person I used to be. Half the energy. Half the memory. Half the ambition, etc. So, this song could be flipped to being about a young person becoming an older person. Funny, when we’re young, we’re searching for who we want to be, striving to become someone…something. Older, we remember who we were and strive to remain relevant and be someone…something. Many as they age complain of ‘becoming invisible’. Especially women.
Yeah, thinking too much, aren’t I? And not expressing it well. Should shelve it until I get some coffee in me. But no, press on, yeah? Stay positive, right? Test negative. Wear a mask, when needed, depending upon the situation and the variants. Get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 