Digging through my “treasure chest” of old things from Mom tonight, have no idea why….and found this hand written on a scrap of paper. Seems appropriate….
“I am not afraid to die- I believe in reincarnation. I think that a very few would be sorrowful but I, only too well, know that time buries sorrow. My conscious world would miss my “things”, books, music, collectibles etc. but I wont be “Susan Conscious”- Ill be me in soul only. Maybe next time Ill learn to play the piano, (please God, longer fingers next time), read faster and be able to have my ears pierced so I can wear really large gypsy sized hoops. I wonder if Ill miss my few dear ones. I suppose not as I wont be aware of their actual existence. But there will be a familiarity, an essence of them since love resides in the soul.”
I cant believe its taken this long. A world map out of potato chips. This comforts me some how. Knowing there is a person out there under the same stars as I am…. quietly making geographic records out of snack foods.
“…until the sun is long since gone. Until time loses all meaning, and the moment comes that he knows only the positions of the stars, and sees them whether his eyes are closed or open, until he forgets his name, and the place where he’d once come from. He lives, and he lives, until all of the lights go out.” – Don Hertzfeldt’s animated short film trilogy.
It was the summer of heat and fireflies and of course, the virus. It was the summer of anger and divides and anonymous faces behind paper masks.
Maybe it had happened before but I dont remember it. Tonight I sat in my garden and watched the heat lightning in the distance and wondered if there would be thunder later.
I read a book recently about an ancient tribe who marked their years with whatever the major happening was and this was how they recorded history. “The year of the flood.” “The year of the births..” etc.
And so I thought it made sense to me to do so.
It has been heat and fear …and yes fireflies.
The news showed videos of people screaming in each others faces and pepper spray and bullhorns. Glass breaking and gunshots. Are we really that far apart now?
Are some people just BORN irritating? Pulling in to the grocery store. A woman slowly moseying right down the MIDDLE of the parking lot so no cars can get through.
In the grocery store, I turn my cart down an aisle and there is a woman with a basket parked SIDEWAYS across the aisle so no one can get through.
At the cheese counter.. a woman wanted a sample of all 6 million kinds of cheeses and olives before she buys.
At the checkout- a woman wants to pay for half her groceries with cash and half with a check and then decides she needs to separate all the items into two piles to make sure she has them in the right group.
Then she questions the price on every other item.Fascinating thing? It was the SAME WOMAN.
I dont have any particular fondness for statues in general though I do appreciate their beauty as art and their reminders of our history, both good and bad.
I was told that the recent tearing down or defacing of statues was first about police violence towards black communities. That didnt make a lot of sense since none of these people memorialized were police and Im not trying to over-simply this issue but what does that have to do with the police? Then we heard the focus would be on Confederate statues.
Now that makes a little more sense as the Confederates fought to keep slavery in place, but wouldn’t we want them to remind us of our past as well as how far we have come? And with all our flaws, no one can argue that we haven’t come a very long way from our early history. Next we saw the destruction of Union soldier memorials but those people fought and died to end slavery so again, thats confusing. We read that the mayor of Baltimore agreed to take all their statues down but even that wasn’t good enough.
Later this week it was announced that the statues must also be completely destroyed. Now, almost nightly, we are seeing random statues toppled, destroyed, vandalized or demand that they come down including The Jefferson Memorial, Teddy Roosevelt, Christopher Columbus, the Confederate Soldier frieze at Stone Mountain in GA and even the Emancipation Memorial with Lincoln that was introduced by Frederick Douglass.It seems to me this statue removal has no longer become about police violence or even Black Lives Matter but about any statue the mob turns their eyes upon.
This is the problem with mob rule. Where does it end? Where do WE end it? Do we destroy all our monuments? Shall we erase our history, both good and bad? Surely we all recognize that if the lessons of our history are “vanished down the memory hole” we are most certainly destined to eventually repeat them. If some statues in states need to come down, let it be by a vote of the people of that state. If they dont want it there, remove the statues.
But our federal statues should be preserved and people who damage or destroy them should be prosecuted. A better solution than trying to erase history would be to call for new statues put up alongside the old ones. Statues of people of color and indigenous people who have positively contributed toward our progress- and there are plenty.
Promote books that celebrate them… Put them on our currency… Continue naming more streets, buildings etc. after them, make more holidays to recognize them. This combination of old and new, side by side would provide both a cautionary tale as well as hope for our future. If we destroy our history in marble, when do we start burning the paper books? When do we abolish the names of states, flags or raze named buildings and schools?
What about our money?If ever there was a “slippery slope” we have certainly started on that downward slide and frankly, I find it appalling.
Rant warning: Im old. Im an old woman and Im clearly out of touch with the rest of the world so take this rant as such. I realized this finally, new years night 2020 while flipping through the channels to all the NYE live shows while drinking a very good Sancerre.
Instead of the usual Times Square metal people-barricades, there were little “pens” with planet fitness logos all over them for the few VIPs who were allowed in. Times square was basically empty except for those 8 guys paid to don the Planet Fitness gear and wave their PF swag around in the cold.
I usually spend new years eve and new years day watching the Twilight Zone marathons and then switch to the “ball drop” right before midnight. But I do remember growing up watching the Dick Clark special. It was music and people in Times Square and fun till the big count down. We liked the show back then, didn’t we?Thursday night, I started with the “Dick Clark” special and just couldn’t do it for more than a few moments at a time. Lets start with the sponsor, Planet Fitness.
Ok, we are in a pandemic so instead of happy New Yorkers and partiers from all over the world, we settled for a larger field of inflatable PF “fitness” noodles flapping in the cold wind with their logos a-blazing. Certainly none of the people who actually LIVE in NYC would be allowed to attend, after all, it is their city. We were told by Mayor de Blasio that it wasn’t safe and people should stay home. Irony was not lost when we were later treated to watching him and his wife sharing a giant stage and slow dancing at their own little private NYE party, Planet Fitness air noodles in attendance.
Switching over to Fox, I was looking for Steve Harvey who is usually hilarious but instead got 2 guys Ive never heard of. Who are Joel McHale and Ken Jeong anyway, and why were they on my television? They were doing this odd thing where every bad joke was clapped at by guest “stars” beamed in from other locations, perhaps because no one live would have clapped? I dunno.JLo who is pretty awesome did a good job but does she ALWAYS have to take a run at the stage and slide her crotch directly into the cameras? Maybe. Maybe she does. Her costumes were cool but what was that silver thing on her head? A cage? A ball? Im old.
I love Cyndi Lauper but holyshit her singing was so awful I had to mute the sound! It was a train wreck so bad, I didn’t want to watch it, not even in slow motion. A tragedy in one part. Cyndi is now older than we are and has clearly lost when it comes to pitch. Maybe Cyndi’s performance was the one 2020 deserved.
Of course, we had to have the freshly scrubbed Bidens do their schtick from their basement because, of course. Here is a man who claims he got more votes than the most popular President in recent memory, (Barack Obama) while being unable to draw more than 17 people at a time in any major city. I think it was a perfect, appropriate and telling sign that their NYE confetti popper was a dud. It reminded us all of when we awkwardly, cringingly looked away all year when Biden mumbled and bumbled to massive campaign crowds of 6 and 7.
But, here we are. Flipping back and forth several times, I came back to see someone called, “Megan Thee Stallion” prancing around in nothing but a flesh colored bodysuit. The “show” amounted to us seeing her constantly rub her lady bits, peer into the camera, grind and lick her fingers. Its a no.
Over on CNN everything seemed to be in order with the usual Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen drinking heavily and trying to be festive so we could forget our not insignificant 2020 troubles. While they have been funny in the past, they seemed desperate to appear happy that night. They spent the evening slamming shots, making faces and chatting with Snoop Dog about all the public places he has gotten high. Martha Stewart was no where in sight.
When “Tiger King” Carol Baskin popped up with a stuffed tiger, I had to take a break, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I did like seeing Patti LaBelle in her kitchen, so there was that.
On an only slightly higher note, we saw Mariah Carey faking a smile during an interview while hearing JLo singing in the background. Well, that was uncomfortable. Then it went downhill when Mariah forgot the words to Auld Lang Syne because, well, it was 2020 after all.
Flipping again, to see the Dick Clark show in New Orleans, we are treated to someone commanding the stage named Big Freedia. A quick google search showed that she actually is from New Orleans which is a plus. I was pleased to learn that she doesn’t care which pronoun is used to refer to her- nor do I. She was born “Freddie Ross” and learned to sing in the church choir. Let me say that Ive experienced many a fun evening watching a good drag show so I appreciated Freedia, all 6’4” of her towering over the stage but again, watching this made me feel like I was an alien watching from another planet.
I get it. Im old. The world has moved on and I have not. I suppose its time for me to retire the TV and learn cross stitch or do puzzles but hey, at least I had good champagne and we get to start all over again for 2021.
“What will we leave behind but words and laughter?”
I think when people leave our lives we dont immediately recognize all the things we lose. We lose them physically, yes. We lose the touch and scent of them. Sometimes we lose the things that came with them like a laugh or a phone call or even just the pure feeling of knowing they are here.
Lately Ive been thinking about the things we lose that come quietly later and sometimes surprise us.
I used to get an email from Mom every night. It was a recap of her day, whether bad or good and usually a description of her dinner. Sometimes we would discuss books or TV or music but she loved to write so much more than she loved to talk so that was our connection. Before she got a computer, she wrote me letters, long ones- even though she lived near by. I saved them all. These are things I’ll never lose.
I was trying to remember who my second grade teacher was and why I liked her so much. Her last name started with a P I think and I am stressing trying to remember. I have a photograph of my mom coming to school with me then and a faint memory of her being a “class mother” for the day. Did she know I was so very proud of her? I thought to call her up and ask her about it when I realized this was a thing I lost.
I have a photograph of me, my Mom and sister camping when I was about 5. Mom was lying on a blanket reading a book and looked young and really happy. I want to know what the book was and why did she like it? Have I read it and would we have read it together had we the time?
I remember lying in Mom’s lap one night on a patio covered with trees, with my sister and Dad talking softly near by. My Mom stroked my hair and was quiet. We listened to the cicadas and I was so close I could hear her heart beat. Where did we live then? How old was I? Was she as happy then as I was?
There is a photograph of her and her brothers and sisters which would have been in the 50s. She wore a beautiful dress and a hat. Its a face of hers I dont know and never will. She was young and beautiful and I want to know what she was thinking as she smiled to that camera. Did she buy the hat or was it a gift? Did she know how elegant she looked?
Here is an old photo of her when she was a teen. Its a bit wrinkled but I come back to look at it again and again. Who were her friends and what were their names? Where are they now and do they remember her? Did they share secrets? They were laughing and I wanted to ask her why. Who were the people loading the car in the back? Had she kissed a boy yet or fallen in love? I always meant to ask her.
We keep lots of things when people go. I hung on to all her cookbooks. I have a big box of photos and letters. For the longest time, I kept the sound her voice on her answering machine in my head but that has since faded. She left us with so many wonderful things but I wonder tonight, if she knows the things we lost.
There are still stories she didnt have time to tell me. There are books she read and people she loved and things she saw. We ran out of time and I wonder would we have rushed to share more, had we known? Would we have talked and laughed more even about seemingly meaningless things? Would she have typed faster or written me more letters?
Would I have called her with a list of things she couldnt leave without telling me first?
Maybe, just maybe- I wasnt meant to know everything. Maybe some of these photographs were left behind so I could imagine what I wanted or needed from them. Maybe her smile in one of those photos was because she knew Id come back to it one day, needing more from her. Maybe she knew Id get old, but she wouldnt and so she only shared the important things.
Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes we think we know but we really dont.
Its only later, when things are finally quiet within ourselves that we fully understand the things we lost.
Men have not found the words for it nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music. Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real.
Let me see the answer to the promise of that music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain.
Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers–show me yours–show me that it is possible–show me your achievement–and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.”
Being Alexus 