Stories Are For Eternity

Thoughts of baseball…

I’m of an age that baseball could never be a dream for a girl. Girls played softball and they weren’t taken very seriously. Now there are women coaching baseball in the minor leagues. I was very good at throwing and catching but I never played softball in high school because tennis was also played at the same time and it was expected I’d play tennis. And I did.

Tennis treated me well but I was a bit undisciplined and relied on my power. Strength is good but it doesn’t make for a complete skill set. Secretly I wanted to be playing softball. Never fleet of foot, I excelled at catcher or first baseman. There is something fun about the dirt and grass of a baseball field. You’re responsible for your own position but you’re also part of a team.

I could also throw. In high school I could throw a softball 60 yards on the fly. That was never having received any instruction. I’d grab it and let it fly. In tennis, I had a hard, flat serve and hard, flat groundstrokes. I was a part-time tennis instructor for thirty years. I’ve had each shoulder scoped as a result. I’m no longer able to throw a ball with any force. My arms work just well enough to be able to swim.

I digress as usual. Back to baseball. Baseball is a romanticized sport. It has a long history, most towns had teams by the turn of the 20th century. There were innumerable minor league levels of ball from the 1870s on. On the maternal side of my family, one of our relatives from New Haven, CT, played minor league ball from the mid 1890s until roughly 1910. One of his daughters married a major league player named Johnny Cooney.

There are some great baseball films like Eight Men Out, The Sandlot, Field of Dreams, Bang the Drum Slowly, and A League of Their Own. My favorite is The Natural. I had an eccentric college professor when I took some summer classes. He was an interesting man who painted his car with house paint. He lived in the Bennington, VT area. His weekly poker game included the great writer Bernard Malamud. One of the books we read that summer (1980?ish) was The Natural. A wonderful, if not schmaltzy, plot. And it was loosely based on a real life situation.

In the late 1940s there was a good baseball player named Eddie “Ted” Waitkus. He would play for the Cubs, Phillies, and Orioles. His nickname was “the natural” and he was a two-time National League all-star. Waitkus missed three years in the 1940s because of WWII. In the late 40s, he was shot in the chest by a deranged fan. She’d stalked him. Though she was never tried for the crime, she did spend some time in a mental institution.

As for Eddie, he spent three months in Clearwater, FL to get back in shape. While there he met a young woman from Albany, NY, who was vacationing there with her family. They married the next year. I live outside of Albany so I’ve always enjoyed that connection. Eddie returned to play baseball for another five years.

The book was made into a film in 1984. And what a film it is. The cast, featuring Robert Redford, Glenn Close, and Wilford Brimley, is excellent. It presents viewers with a true Romanticized baseball story, complete with mystery, gambling, and a rags to riches story on many levels. I’ve spent many a sunny, sleepy summer afternoon listening to a game on the radio…baseball in its purest form.

If you’ve never read the book or viewed the film, I recommend both. You don’t even have to be a baseball fan!

Michael “Mike” Doherty, my 2nd great-uncle

Memories of decades…

I used to listen to music more than I do now. The other day different songs popped into my head and I realized it was like a mental travelogue through the decades. Some decades are less defined than others. As a young person, my tastes were fairly vanilla…not Vanilla Ice, just drab vanilla.

Let me further qualify my blandness by confessing that I never played a musical instrument, other than the piano half-heartedly for a year or two. But, my brother was a musical whiz and could play the piano by ear. My grandmother was also an accomplished pianist. We had loads of records in the house…Broadway musicals, Big Band, Mitch Miller sing alongs, etc. So, even though I was never moved to play an instrument, I’ve been a consumer of music all of my life.

Playlists in my day consisted of a stack of 45’s that played one after another. And there was always AM radio. People of a certain age still remember scrambling to hit the record button on the tape recorder when a favorite song came on. There was a small shopping center in our town and one of the stores was Woolworth’s. We’d ride our bikes there to buy a new 45 and to pop a balloon at the lunch counter to see what discounted treat we might get.

Major tangent coming up relating to Woolworth’s…the summer of my 14th or 15th year I was in Woolworth’s with a friend. The style that summer was halter tops, a slightly dangerous tiny garment that was sexy in that it hinted at what was covered by the skimpy material. Both my friend and I were good candidates for halter tops. We filled them well. We were standing in an aisle looking at a display. I’ve always been an observant person and I detected some boys skulking about. Something told me to put my hand behind my back and over the string that tied the top shut. My friend didn’t notice. They untied hers at the top behind her neck. The material fell and the girls popped right out. An exciting afternoon for those boys.

Back to tunes. My first album was Honky Chateau by Elton John. I was a dedicated Elton John fan for a few decades. His best album was Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Most every song was good. I remained a pop music fan and never entered into the world of FM radio music until I was in college and never listened to college radio stations.

High school years were dominated by a variety of songs. School dances typically featured “China Grove,” “Jumping Jack Flash.” “Color My World” and “Stairway to Heaven” were for slow dances. “Suffragette City” was a required house party song. We always danced the 5-step or 7-step to that song. But I also remember “American Pie” and “Taxi” from those years. “Black Water” was popular during a dating situation and I have particular memories whenever I hear it.

That decade closed for me with the addition of the Eagles; Earth, Wind, and Fire; CCR; Boz Scaggs; Led Zeppelin; Springsteen; Peter Frampton, and some, but very little, disco. As I thought of different songs, I also thought of all of the lyrics we thought we knew but screwed up on a regular basis.

Unless you bought the sheet music, one learned lyrics by listening to a song over and over. Many times we “misheard” lyrics. I’m the first to admit that I thought Jimi Hendrix was singing, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.” The real lyric is “while I kiss the sky” which makes far less sense than kissing a guy. Whatever. “Bad Moon Rising” was a popular song by CCR. Some fans thought a line in the song was “there’s a bathroom on the right.” Actually it’s “there’s a bad moon on the rise.” Makes sense given the title but the bathroom line works for me, too.

For the car fans, a cover of “Blinded by the Light,” by Springsteen, yielded the line, “wrapped up like a douche (deuce), another rumor in the night.” Doesn’t really make sense but I sang it. I think I just liked the sound of saying douche. The real line (the car guys know), “Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.” I’ll leave you with one more from the decade of the 70s. “Stairway to Heaven” was a bit of a conundrum. It was in English, but it was British English. Vocabulary doesn’t always cross over. “If there’s a bustle in the hedgerow…”. I sang it correctly but had no earthly clue what it meant until years later. The song starts as a good slow dance song but then goes haywire, leading to awkward dance floor moments. One classic misheard line is “There’s a wino down the road.” It’s possible, it could happen. However, the correct line is “and as we wind on down the road.” I rather like the wino line.

I could go on and on. But I won’t. I will tell you I smiled the entire time I wrote this. Happy memories are food for the soul. I apologize in advance for not properly formatting names of album (that’s for you, TGC). They should be in italics. But I’m typing on my iPad and it’s too much of a pain (see also, I don’t really know how). And always remember, “If it ain’t paradise, then put up a parking lot.” Even I know it’s “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Don’t be upset if random songs now run through your head. Go with it and smile 😊.

N.B. In making a correction, I accidentally discovered how to do the text formatting. Just pretend stuff is in italics for this one occasion.

The miracle of a day

One interesting thing about life is that each day begins anew and gives us the opportunity to learn. I work hard not to dwell on the past. Some of my happiest memories reside there as do many of my darkest hours. The rough draft for the book I’ve written about the history of our school district is mostly complete. I’ve been immersed in research and searched old school yearbooks for a few years now. I often wondered if many of those students achieved their wishes for their futures.

Did you ever talk with your friends when you were young about where you envisioned yourself five years from then? Ten years, etc? It makes me laugh. I never had much of a vision. I don’t know why. I wasn’t one of those girls who always had to have a boyfriend. In fact, dating was always a mystery to me. Despite being attractive, I didn’t get asked out much. It seemed important at the time. It wasn’t and isn’t. I’ve achieved success in life, on my own.

I was also a teenager who detested babysitting but did it to make money. I was never able to envision myself having my own children yet I loved teaching them. Due to female woes in my early 20’s, it’s unknown if I could have had them anyway. Life is funny that way.

On Twitter the other day, one member was talking about sad songs from our past and asked which could still make us cry? Immediately I was skipping down Memory Lane as tears collected. I was stuck on a few songs that can still make me cry in varying degrees. Growing up, I knew when one of my friends was depressed because she would play “The Best of Bread” album. Over.And.Over. I dare you to find a cheerful tune on that one.

I spent a great deal of time alone as a pre-teen and teenager. Yes, I had friends but they had lives. My life back then just presented the reality of my being alone. ‘Nuff said. And there were many times, due to said reality, I found myself crying over stuff that was out of my control. It was those times I’d grab our dachshund and cry my eyes out while listening to “Shannon” by Henry Gross. The song was a one-hit wonder in the early 70s. “Shannon is gone I’ve heard. She’s drifting out to sea.” I was 14 and didn’t know who Shannon was but it was clear she wasn’t coming back.

What makes it worse is the song was about a dog who drowned at the beach. Introduce an animal into the mix and the emotionality increases exponentially. Another lonely anthem of my teen years was “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan. “It seems to me that/there are more hearts broken in the world/ that can’t be mended.” It was my first real breakup and I’d been dumped. Didn’t matter that this “relationship,” now that I look back on it, wasn’t a relationship at all. It was a bunch of dates, phone conversations, dances, and the usual making out. Because of my skewed home life reality, it devastated me nonetheless. And it unknowingly set me up for a series of these in the future.

No matter because my inner warrior emerged. I’d get along on my own. Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart understood me. “Till now I always got by on my own…”. Yes, indeed, I can do this living thing on my own. But I’ve always carried “crushes” since I was a kid, and still do. “You don’t know how long I have waited/And I was going to tell you tonight/But the secret is still my own/And my love for you is still unknown/Alone.” This is a “thumb my nose” song for me. One of those “you don’t know what you’re missing” moments. Mostly it’s a strong female vocal expressing angst. Very therapeutic.

A song from the 80s that spoke to me was “Look What You’ve Done to Me” by Boz Scaggs. “Hope they never end this song/this could take us all night long/I looked at the moon and I felt blue/Then I looked again and I saw you.” Looking back I see the dawning awareness of my love for language and for when I gave myself permission to play with it as I wished.

I’ve unleashed my inner warrior, and child. If I’d ever projected being a poet and writer into my future, I’d have laughed. Now I embrace it. It’s a large part of who I am. And all of the yearning, “crushes,” and despair over failed relationships are just some of what makes me roar. Don’t forget, stories are for eternity. Roar some of your own.

An oasis in the tumult…

Whenever things get too much for me to handle, lately it’s the state of our society, I retreat and fall into things that give me respite. Often it’s as simple as looking skyward. Stopped at a traffic light the other day, I glanced up and beheld a hawk circling and catching updrafts. Such a majestic sight, so calm and soothing. As long as I don’t think about what happens eventually, the downward plunge to spear its prey.

And yet, this is all a part of the cycle. We soar, we fall. We achieve, we lose. We are joyous, we are sorrowful. Yes, there are silver linings in dark clouds. But finding them is a journey of survival.

I became aware of hawks when I was in college. One of my professors was a great fan of the poet Robinson Jeffers and waxed eloquently about the poem “Hurt Hawks.” I was still developing a maturity to understand poetry so didn’t really get it when I read it to myself. What struck me was the amount of emotion my professor conveyed when he talked about it.

That caused me to think about the word ‘passion’ and I began to understand what it truly is. And it struck me that passion was far more than lust between lovers. I became aware that there were times when I was outdoors and was overwhelmed by what I was observing. The movement of leaves in the barest whisper of wind, the drum of rain on a roof, the tide coming in with a crash.

I do become lost in moments that I find so remarkable and beautiful, moments that fill me with wonder and awe. I tend to feel things on a grand scale. While I love all kinds of music, at times I need to hear strong music. Don’t confuse strong with loud. They can be mutually exclusive.

As to our societal merry-go-round, I give you a bit of Robinson Jeffers to ponder. “Let boys want pleasure, and men/Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,/And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes/to be duped./Yours is not theirs.” From “Be Angry at the Sun”

I’m not going to discuss what this means, I leave it to your interpretation. The last two lines are what is important to me at this point in time.

A sample of some strong music, sung with passion, is an excerpt from “The Eagle and the Hawk” by John Denver. “And all of those who see me, all who believe in me/Share in the freedom I feel when I fly.”

In these stormy societal times, take some time to fly. I hope it brings some ease to your mind.

March Madness saved me…

It’s funny to think of that one year when March Madness saved my sanity, but it did. In fact, it has enriched my life in a few ways.

In early March of 1987, I was working in banking (a whole other story, mostly unpleasant). Our bank was undergoing a software conversion and my department was responsible for training the bank’s employees on how to use the new system. We were working 70+ hours a week. Consequently, I guarded my Sundays as a rare treasure.

On that particular Saturday, I’d worked a mostly full day. As tired as I was, I pushed myself to go to the grocery store that evening so I could have the entire day free on Sunday. It had snowed lightly a few days prior to this so there were little snow mounds in the parking lot of the apartment complex from where we had brushed off our cars. A hint of spring was in the air as it had been warm enough that day to melt a little of that small amount of snow. Just remember, snow melt may create black ice.

I returned from the grocery store, in my 1983 Subaru hatchback, to find the parking lot full. I’d have to park across the street but to save time and effort lugging grocery bags, I let my car idle in the fire lane to be closer to my apartment. I’d unload my groceries and then park across the street. A moment of brilliance in my thinking proved to be my undoing.

As I made my second trip from the car to my ground-floor apartment, my world literally turned topsy-turvy. My right foot went out from under me. My ankle turned. The toes of my right foot headed to the left and the rest of me launched to the right. Our bodies are not built to withstand that sort of torsion.

I crashed to the ground and grabbed my right ankle as though to squeeze everything back into place so it wouldn’t hurt so much. As I looked around into the darkness, I realized I was sitting in the driving lane of the parking lot near the only entrance. If someone pulled in, they wouldn’t see me sitting there. I must move, I thought, and I was obsessed with moving my car from the fire lane so it wouldn’t be ticketed.

I managed to stand. My right foot felt weird and wouldn’t cooperate. It felt disconnected somehow. Hopped to my car and got in, thinking I’d move it across the street. My right foot rested against the accelerator. It would not do anything else. Since my car was a standard I really needed two feet. Later I would learn my foot technically wasn’t connected and all it could do was flop.

Long story short, my neighbors moved my car. I called my mom and told her I needed to go to the hospital. I’d had numerous ankle rolls in my past and I knew there was something very wrong, not a simple sprain. On one foot I put away the groceries and changed my clothes. My ankle was so swollen it cascaded over my sneaker. I kept moving because I knew if I sat down, that would be it.

One week later I was ensconced in my childhood bedroom, my casted right leg propped on a pillow. I was too weak to go back to my apartment. I’d broken my ankle. Worse than the fracture was I’d torn all of the ligaments. They screwed the piece of bone back on. My tibia and fibula were also screwed together to allow the ligaments to heal. The foot was still very swollen. My foot was in an extended position because it would not return to a normal 90 degree position. I wasn’t allowed to put weight on that leg. The pain was palpable.

Sleep was fleeting. I had a 19” black and white tv in my room. There was no remote. I learned quickly to do some modified gymnastics so I could hang off the end of the bed and change the channel. Then I remembered it was the first weekend of March Madness. I watched obscure games well into the middle of the night for the next few nights. It distracted me from the pain. It was addicting and I followed as many games as possible. The tradition of watching the tournament continues.

As for me, one hugely positive thing came out of this experience. I was forced to sit for 10 weeks which gave me the opportunity to ponder my future. I knew it didn’t lie in banking. I investigated the possibility of a Master’s degree in English Education through the local state university. As soon as the screw was removed from my tibia and fibula, I could put weight on my leg. I started night classes a month later. I was blessed to be able to teach for over 25 years. I loved it. So even though I have permanent damage in my ankle, limited range of motion, and difficulties with flexion, I was able to secure my future. It was far more satisfying and happy than what I’d been doing.

N.B.—-I was wearing my favorite sneakers when I slipped on the black ice and destroyed my ankle. I couldn’t bear to wear them again 😢

A Watery Sun…

It’s the beginning of March here in the Northeastern US. March is as fickle as any month, probably more so, meteorologically speaking. One day rain, the next snow, or even freezing rain. It could be 60 degrees or 12. The sun was out today, always a welcome sight, and breezing past me on a local road was a car with its top down. A quick glance at my dashboard revealed the temperature was 39 degrees. Brrr!

March sun is diffused. It’s recharging and getting ready for the splendor that is summer. My mind thinks of it as watery. Sort of a negative term implying something isn’t full strength, not giving its all. I see it as somewhat positive, almost like revving an engine in preparation for peeling out (is that still a term?). The sun is doing its best, it’s just somewhat hampered by sun angle, planet alignment, our unforgivable sins, Poor Richard’s Almanac, or whatever silly reason one might use. There’s the real trick. See it as YOU wish to see it.

It’s a hint of “the best is yet to come.” It’s a hint of future splendor in the grass. It’s a hint of hopefulness. Now, Edgar Allen Poe was not considered a writer who inspired hope. However, it’s all about how you wish to see his work. Tragic, yes. Depressing, much of the time. Passionate, always. Remember that passion doesn’t just refer to physical love/lust/desire. Passion is about strength of feeling in many different ways.

I’ve always loved reading Poe. His feelings are omnipresent in most any of his works, especially his poetry. “You call it hope—-/that fire of fire!/It is but agony of desire.” This is a line from Poe’s poem “Tamerlane.” Individuals may interpret this many different ways. I choose to think that desire doesn’t always have to end up in agony. For me the passion of spring changing to summer may lead to less than stellar feelings but I keep that in perspective so as not to be dismayed when things don’t go so well.

Watery sunshine may be perceived as weak, filtered, not full-strength. I choose to see it as a glimmer of promise. It’s similar to the thought process prior to making a decision. The watery sun may be construed as indecisiveness. Each of us has experienced that in life.

“I understand about indecision/But I don’t care if I get behind/People livin’ in competition/All I want is to have my peace of mind.” “Peace of Mind”. Boston. Hence, the watery sun should take its time to unravel itself. It may not shine as nicely as people would like but it will do it in its own time.

Another moody song I like when I’m feeling mystical, nostalgic, confused, is “Harbor Lights” by Boz Scaggs. Boz has a voice that can sound like he’s sung in too many smoky bars. It’s raspy, a little nasal, bittersweet. All like the watery sun or its cohort, the filtered moon. “Sailing shadows reds and blues/Curtains drawn but I saw through/The window to your soul And I found you.” We can muddle through the watery sun. There’s hope on the horizon. If we choose to see it.

Renaissance men…

Was speaking with a former colleague in a funeral home parking lot the other day. We were there to pay respects to a longtime educator. My fellow teacher left me with this remark, “those guys were Renaissance men. They don’t make them like that anymore.” That thought has been swirling around in my mind ever since.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the phrase was coined by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) and meant “a man can do all things if he will.” In other words, men should try to develop their own capacities as much as possible. We are used to using the term in relation to men, but it also relates to women.

My colleague and I were thinking of the teachers we’d had through the 1960s and 1970s, individuals whose knowledge went far beyond the subject matter of the discipline in which they taught. These folks were teachers because they had a joy and respect for disseminating knowledge.

Not only did they love teaching, they embraced their fields of study. Teaching was not at all lucrative during those decades. Those teachers often maintained 2-3 jobs to provide for their families. They worked well beyond the normal school day attending workshops and classes to enhance their teaching skills. When they could, they traveled to enrich their knowledge of what they taught.

Also important to them was their sense of community. Many volunteered with service organizations, local politics, community theater or music organizations. They were anxious to be a part of the whole. They worked hard to allow us to be better people. They exposed us to ideas we were unable to conceive at a young age. They gave us the capabilities to become Renaissance people.

An individual who exemplified these ideals in every way left us for Heaven this past week. I paid my respects to the shell of the once robust and vital man I had known. His loss has affected me far more profoundly than I would have guessed.

This man inspired me to work harder as a student. I wanted to please him and have him respect my effort. He caused me to want to learn beyond just the basics of American History. And that was as a high school junior. It laid a foundation for my eventual love of American History.

Fifteen years after high school graduation, I began my teaching career at my alma mater. His was one of the first of many familiar faces I glimpsed on that inaugural day. He beamed at me and said, “Oh my God, they allowed you back in this building?” I hoped it was said in jest so I played along and replied, “they said I’d finally grown up.” A hearty laugh was followed by, “that remains to be seen.” Though it took me two months to feel comfortable enough to call this man by his first name (I was 32), this was the man I came to know as a mentor and friend.

Fast forward another twenty years and we’d become neighbors. We spent many a quiet morning at the community pool swimming laps, reading, and sharing conversations. After a few summers he announced he was moving to Florida and my heart sank, knowing I would miss my swim buddy terribly.

Add another five years. He’d returned to the area. This past summer he attended a cocktail party at the pool. Due to my COVID fears, I did not attend. Add several months and the shocking news appeared in a Facebook post. He was gone. He was unique and truly a Renaissance man. He was a father, grandfather, husband, teacher, administrator, mentor. But that was just a tip of the iceberg. There’s just too much to list here. He was an inspiration. I’m proud to say he was my friend. I will miss his strong presence, his hearty laugh, and his interesting stories. I’m so thankful to have known him on so many different levels. He is now reunited with his lovely wife whom he had missed desperately since her death many years ago. They have a lot of catching up to do.

Be well, Dom, until we meet again. You were the epitome of a Renaissance Man.

Dominick J. DeCecco 1936-2022

“I am the soft stars that shine at night./Do not stand at my grave and cry;/I am not there. I did not die.” Mary Elizabeth Frye

I wrote it, didn’t I?

I’ve had those moments when I’m driving and I’ve forgotten where I’m headed, I’ve gone to a room in my house and didn’t remember why. For me it’s my cluttered thoughts, but it’s so dang annoying.

I’m almost done with the rough draft of a book I’m writing. Some extra research produced more material. Looking at the last chapter on the computer today, I couldn’t understand why the newest information wasn’t in the chapter. I remembered writing it, didn’t I? In my head, I could visualize writing the info. Why wasn’t it there?

In a mild panic, I rifled through pages of writing. I’m old school and hand write before typing. It’s pleasing to feel my hand slide across the page as the words squirt out of the pen. I could not find the pages I’d written. Didn’t I write them?

My method of writing has always been to think about all of the information in my head. I may spend a few weeks organizing and “writing” stuff in my mind. I’ve never been one to jot down outlines or drafts. One challenge is to recall if I transferred the work in my head to the written page.

Though I could visualize writing it on paper, I believe I never wrote my ideas out. I found a few pages of notes taken from various newspaper articles. I will search once more tomorrow and then sit down to write if I can’t locate the pages. Because I wrote them out, didn’t I?

“I shuffle through my mind
To see if I can find
The words I left behind
Was it just a dream that happened long ago?
Oh well, never mind”. Who Wrote Holden Caulfield? Green Day

“Some are born to move the world
To live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about
The things we’d like to be”. Losing It. Rush

Sliding sports, yay or nay?

The Winter Olympics has begun. I’m a fan of sport and enjoy watching most any. I have to remind myself that each of us has a different definition of sport. Having watched the Olympics over quite a few decades, I never fail to be in awe of what the athletes are doing today.

I enjoy watching biathlon, the crazy combination of cross country skiing and shooting. It has its roots in Scandinavia and may be representative of hunting while on skis. Who knows. I find it compelling to watch. Watching them skate on skis is beautiful. I learned to cross country ski as a mature adult and never achieved the skating technique. I didn’t work at it so no surprise. Just imagine target shooting after you’ve been racing on skis. It’s like a set up for failure.

Any alpine skiing events are thrilling to watch, either men’s or women’s. As a young kid living in Vermont, I skied along with my family. I basically got off the lift and did my own version of the downhill. It’s one of my regrets that I didn’t continue skiing. Snowboarding would have been fun to try. Snowboard cross would have been my event.

Though I enjoyed ice skating throughout my youth, I never had any delusions that I could have been a figure skater. Hockey would have been my choice. Skating fast and hitting things hard is more my speed. Ice dancing is one of my favorite things to watch, it’s so graceful and there is such a connection between the partners. But I also love the speed skating. The short track stuff is intense but I prefer the classic version.

Mixed feelings about the sliding sports: bobsled, luge, and skeleton. As a kid I loved watching the bobsled competition, waiting for an epic crash. I just don’t get the luge and skeleton. Those people have a death wish. And there’s two-person luge! It’s like a double stack burger on a flexible flyer! I mean, seriously!

And there’s curling. It’s amusing. I do watch.

Twilight, not always vampires…

Twilight is technically the time period between sunset and full night, but it can also be the time between sunrise and full light. I’m thinking of the evening twilight. That time when the day becomes smudged before the curtain of darkness descends.

I find that time of day to be intriguing and, for me, somewhat sad. I’m always reluctant to let go of the daylight. With daylight comes hope. The temporary death of the light throws a weighty anchor around my shoulders.

My mom is in her “twilight years.” Whatever that means. It’s true. In her early 90s she is facing the multiple indignities of a long life. Now it may entail moving to assisted living, a discussion we’ve had over and over in the last several months. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose that feeling of independence. Her peers have pre-deceased her. Her only son left this realm more than twenty years ago, her beloved brother left seven years ago. She’s not ready to leave.

I’m not ready for her to leave. I will be the last living family member. Kind of daunting but thankfully I have wonderful friends. I know my mom can’t be here forever, some of her is already gone. Watching the decline is so difficult. A once proud and vibrant soul is now a shell of what she once was. I absolutely despise this process. But it’s life. I have to accept it. Gives me a new perspective of twilight, I can tell you that.