Day In and Day Out

Today was quiet, which was nice. No pet tragedies, no family tragedies - at least that I know of yet - and the night is quiet with just a little humidity in the air and the sounds of insects somewhere in the dark but busy realm of our backyard coming through the window on a light breeze that smells a little of rain. Ross watches television quietly in the living room and I sit at the keyboard in the office/back room/sun room and type. I have so many things I need to tend to; my two novels, my poetry (I really should send some in to Oprah, maybe my Walmart poems), finding a job that will not interfere with the master's program I have been accepted into, although I do not know absolutely that the loan will come through OK, as well as various long overdue household tasks that have been on hold while I was working on my undergraduate degree. But tonight, I am just going to sit and type for a while. Maybe a poem will pop into my head, maybe I will just get to do little quiet thinking in preparation for tomorrow. It still seems a little strange, even though it has been more than five years now, to know my mother is no longer there because it still seems very natural to reach for the phone (maybe not quite this late in the evening) to call her for a little chat and family gossip. Mom would have enjoyed blogging, I think, but it was not really around much before she died. I realize that I think a lot about dying, but that also seems to be what God, nature, fate, whatever, has kept at the forefront of my mind for many years now. Perhaps it is merely that I am now middle-aged and more morbid, not having reached the point where I no longer fear death and can ignore it again, as I did when I was much younger. It is probably the single most terrifying fact of life - scarier even than sex and taxes - and it seems to have become too present in my life, the fear if not the reality. So I shake my head a little, repeat my favorite "proverb" ("I was put here on earth to accomplish a certain number of tasks. Right now I am so far behind I will never die!"), brush the night time flying thingy out of my nose, and carry on. My high school class is staging their thirtieth reunion this October and I have been wondering what it would be like to see everyone again, knowing how radically the years have altered each of us, and have been reflecting on the way old high school relationships might insist on playing themselves out in this, the beginning of our approaching and increasingly decrepit old age. (Will I ever like scotch? Will anyone show up dressed like we did then? Did that rotten man who taught _____ ever get in trouble for _______ after I talked to the vice principle?) There is such a rich supply of left over teenage, angst-ridden, guilty thoughts and feelings that can still be explored and exploited for writing material - hmmmm! On a more serious note, I hope all of my former classmates who are still with us are doing well. There have been a few losses but the pictures of children that have so far been posted on the class website speak of burgeoning life and hope; pride and familial love; triumph and courage. Well, if time and finances permit, perhaps I will make a day trip over to the south east of my current residence, across one of the two old bridges, down the mid-Cape highway, and back to the latter part of my childhood, because now, looking back, I can see that we were still children, although we were also rapidly becoming adults, too. With college, jobs, families, and travel - all of life, in fact - before us we had no reason to think about growing older, failing health, bad economies, and the rest of the baggage we have picked up through the years. We especially had no reason to dwell on the fact of death as a part of life. Hopefully this reunion will be a few moments in time when all of us, whether physically present or not, can relive the wonder and anticipation, fear of the unknown and the longing for new adventure and experiences, that were so present in our lives as we graduated from high school. I used to scoff a little at nostalgic older people but realize it was ignorance and youth: nostalgia looks better and better each year and helps make up for all of those wrinkles and flabby spots the mirror reflects while I sigh, feeling too young yet for such things.

Like a butterfly,
Life flies away
Fluttering and weaving
Drunkenly
From flower to flower
As I watch and envy
The erratic path
Of something as lovely
And impermanent
As a miraculous butterfly.