Notes From Another Side

Not going into the reasons I've neglected this blog, but they might be what you'd expect from an older person dealing with her own health issues in addition to her husband's. Enough on that.  A few days ago, my youngest son and his family went to the zoo and left their dog with us for the day. An old sweetheart, Jameson, almost 14 years old and showing his age. My son came to pick him up around eight that evening. As Brian lifted him into the back of the car, I peered into the backseat. Fifteen-month-old and five-year-old grandsons were fast asleep, but six-year-old Gracie was holding on. She had a dreamy/tired look on her face as she told me about their trip. Her eyes were like pools of starlight. Okay, perhaps not the best simile, but those earnest, sweet, magical hazel eyes just about did me in. Look at her, I said to my dead mother and aunt. Just look.

  And Then I Exploded ( Response to a writing prompt. You look at the prompt, whatever it is, and take it from there. No idea what I'm going to write until I start.)   And then I exploded, because the addition of a pair of ferrets to the five dogs and eighteen cats living in my brother Phil’s two-bedroom bungalow had passed the edge of eccentricity and was fast approaching the bona fide insane. When I’d moved in with my widowed brother the previous year, our household consisted of two long-in-the-tooth humans, three assorted mutts – Ebenezer, a gentle Lab mix, the hyperactive beagle Claudia, and Susie, a moody miniature poodle – plus four cats, Christopher, Alphonso, Mimi, and James. “You’ll have your own room. Private. No animals allowed,” Phil promised me. Which worked for a time. Phil took in more cats, ceding them his bedroom and sleeping on the living room couch as the three pooches snored at his feet. He prided himself on keeping the bungalow immaculate, so cle...

  Dream 1:  Boarding a jet to Paris. The jet's enormous, wide as a football field, and you can choose any seat you like. I settle in a cozy corner row, comfortable, but somehow but I forgot to bring anything to read.  I get up, wander till I find a rack of magazines. I grab one, but then can't remember how to get back to my seat. No matter; easy enought to find another one. The plane takes off so quietly that I hardly notice we're in the air. At times, the jet pitches low and we cruise through city streets before ascending back into the sky.  Maybe I sleep as we cross the Atlantic. I don't remember. We land in a tunnel that resembles a cave and troop out into daylight. This is France. A bus takes me into town. Lacking French currency, I wander about searching for a bank. I find one in short order. Don't know how long I will stay. Dream 2: Back in Rogers Park. I need diapers for my child, so I stroll south on Damen Avenue until I reach Devon. Rogers Park has changed....

The first line of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl"  published in 1956:  I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked ... Damned straight as we reach the end of 2024. Many of us baby boomers imagined that by now we'd be living (if we were still alive) in a technologically advanced, George Jetson-like world where the problems of hunger, poverty, war and discrimination would be greatly diminished, if not eradicated. Ha. Not so much. The poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, published in November 1920, seems eerily prescient. (Please note this poem is in the public domain.) The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the ...

Two friends and I often have coffee on Saturday mornings. Outrageous fortunes have hit each one of us, losses, illnesses, the whole gamut. Well, of course, that's the way life goes. I'm in my early seventies and my friends are in their eighties, which makes me the kid of the group. We talk about death sometimes, and it seems to me our attitudes are less fearful than when we were younger. We've been fortunate to make it this far, and we know the Grim Reaper waits patiently (or not) around the corner. Which is surprisingly okay, the cycle of life and all that.  Death be not proud , right? Apologies to John Donne. If there is an afterlife, he's one of the people I'd like to meet.

My husband forwarded a post of women gathered at the shores of Lake Michigan, screaming in unison to express their anger and despair over Trump's election. A few of them jumped into the lake to further demonstrate their outrage. Lake Michigan - I have to say, not my first choice of swimming spots at the end of November. Whatever demigod Poseidon appointed as Lake Michigan's overseer must be utterly puzzled. Why were these women screaming? Why did three of them brave the lake's bone-chilling waters? What did they hope to accomplish? Really, what the hell was going on? I'm thinking the demigod shook his head, further observed this rite, ritual, or whatever these women thought they were doing, and then gratefully sank back beneath the lake's silvery-gray waters. What fools these mortals be , he mused. Shakespeare had it right.