A void and the Junk Guys

“We become aware of the void as we fill it.”
Antonio Porchia

Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements,
Where we are tortured and remain forever.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.”
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

(circa 1985 readers / Julie Cook / 2018)

What you see here is a pair of very dated readers…a pair of reading glasses that date
back to, oh say, about 1985 or thereabouts.

I found them yesterday in an equally dated Etienne Aigner cordovan leather purse.

Etienne Aigner was just one of “the” purses to own back in the late 70’s and 80’s.
It was a designer purse that didn’t totally blow the whole wad such as say a Louis Vuitton
or Gucci bag would have…

It was the type of bag middle American ladies could afford and still feel fashionable
without sinking a small fortune into a bag whose staying power would end by the following
fashion season.
Aigner bags were a bit timeless at this particular time.

It was the type of bag a woman like my mom would have had.

In fact, it was the bag my mom had.

I had something similar as well.
Mine, however, has long since vanished…Mom’s…not so much.

This past week, while I was up in Atlanta keeping a sickly Mayor, who by the way
has graciously shared her sickness with me–her chief aide, I arranged for
The Junk Guys to come to empty out, as much as they could in one day, the basement
to the house, the Mayor calls home.

A house and home that became my house and home in 1962.
I was almost 3 years old when my parents bought the 4-year-old 1958 stately
ranch house on a quiet cul-de-sac in the boomtime of America’s urban sprawl.

Up until then, we had lived in an apartment.
An old-school sort of apartment complex that still stands to this day in Buckhead…
a word that is now synonymous with all that equates to being uber chic and trendy
in Atlanta…a once upon a time simple place that was just merely a junction of a couple
of divergent roadways with a buck’s head mounted on a local watering hole.

It’s an apartment complex that is probably on the National Registry of Historic Places
as the complex has been around a very long time…

Whereas I can vaguely remember the apartment I can, however, remember almost every
nook and cranny of the house.
Recollections of the house that was…not so much of the house that is now.

In 1967, my grandfather died suddenly from an artery surgery gone wrong.
The company he started in the early 1930’s…a business he owned and operated
until his death, was then quickly sold by my dad, the company’s lone salesman.

On a hot humid June day in 1967, a huge Mayflower moving tractor-trailer truck
pulled up outside of our house as men quickly worked moving the contents of a nearly
40-year-old company to our basement.

When they were finished and the basement door was shut behind them,
time immediately stood still in that large section of our basement.
A visible physical reminder of death.

Large wooden desks, metal filing cabinets, metal chairs, leather rolling chairs,
wooden cabinets… all still chocked full of file folders, Rolodexes, business cards,
staplers, gem clips, tacks, hand stamps, mailers, postage stamps, pencils, writing pads,
office signs…all sat still and quiet, in the back half of a dimly lit basement,
collecting dust and cobwebs.

That was until this past Saturday.

Along with that collection of office equipment, a plethora of dinged up and dilapidated
antique chairs, one formal victorian sofa, a couple of vintage dining room tables,
a vast array of rusting tools, circa 1960 metal cabinets filled with
glassware and figurines in various conditions, stacks of vinyl albums dating to the 1940’s,
various beds, Dad’s childhood wormwood bedroom suit, boxes filled with musty books of all
sizes and subject matter, photos and pictures, early computer equipment with heavy monitors and
dial-up modems, cameras, jackets, boxes galore filled with a variety of junk and unsundries,
complete with two giant plywood model train sets had all come to call this basement home.

One family had slowly faded…two by death and one by choice as the lone owner remained…
eventually bringing in a new wife, a new life and new junk to this precarious keeper
of time.

Years, lives and the leftovers of family’s…families who had come and gone,
and all of their forgotten stuff…stuff stuffed down into a dark cavernous basement
left to sit…
But for what reason?

Sentimentality?
Hoarding?
Identity?
Moving?
Life?
Death?

Well, that was until Saturday.

With a new baby on the way…the much-needed purging of previous lives had finally arrived.

When one shuts a door to such a basement…what is in that basement is usually quickly forgotten.
The shutting of a door closes away that which is… as the ‘it’ suddenly becomes what was…
as in the proverbial ‘out of sight, out of mind’ sort of mentality.

Unused space being a prime example of a law found in physics…
a void will eventually be filled…or so it seems.

Before the Junk Guys arrived, I needed to look through a few things…actually a lot of things.
Yet time, this past week, was not my friend as I was needed to tend to a sick baby.
No time to rummage in a cobweb infested musty overflowing time capsule.

On one quick trip down the rickety steep stairway, down just long enough to find a somewhat
hidden away Lord & Taylor box, sitting out of sight in a long since sealed cabinet.
Lifting off that signature colorful box top, I found a box filled with letters.
Letters still in their original envelopes, all addressed to two parents,
who each now seems long gone, were written by their eldest child.
Letters that were written home from college…
written from me to them.

I quickly put the top back on the box.

Mother had saved those letters, yet I wasn’t ready to read over a bunch of trite angst-filled
letters that were written by a shallow self-absorbed younger and more foolish self.
Not yet.

In another cabinet, I pulled out a small box filled full of “do-dads”…
small trinkets that Mother had gathered over the years which had filled her ‘what-not’ shelf
that graced a wall in the kitchen.
Trinkets that were once considered tiny treasures.

As the cleaning committee arrived complete with heavy-duty gloves and boots,
I found the pocket-book.
That same cordovan Aigner bag that I immediately recalled seeing on her shoulder.

It was shoved back on a top shelf of one of those metal cabinets.
Dad had obviously brought it down here to the place where things came to stay,
not necessarily die, but to stay… caught in an odd passage of time and space.
A purgatory of such.
All being oddly caught in a sad surreal stoppage of time.

Everything remained inside, albeit for a wallet— untouched, just as it was on the day dad
rushed her to the hospital that 25th day of July 1986—

And yet she never came home to claim her purse.

I quickly brought the bag upstairs to the light of day, leaving behind the small army
of purgers in that overflowing basement.
I wanted to dump the contents out onto a table where I could actually look at what
a life stopped in time looked like.

Yellowed and faded bank statements, tuition notices for my brother, grocery lists and receipts,
a sterling silver tortoiseshell comb which was a wedding present from dad back in 1953 along
with a couple of pennies, two tubes of lipsticks and a small bottle of Tylenol
all came tumbling out…along with that pair of reading glasses.

Funny, I never remember Mother wearing glasses…only sunglasses.

Quickly I pushed aside the glasses, the comb, a couple of the bank statements and one
grocery receipt before throwing away everything else while carrying the bag back downstairs
to join the host of junk being hauled out to the two moving trucks that were eagerly
ready and waiting to carry away the remnants of the various previous lives that had all
called this house theirs, leaving open space for new lives taking shape.

It would behoove each of us to remember that our lives here on this earth are finite.
Lives that may be painfully short or generously long…
yet each life, regardless of allocated time, is limited…meaning that each of our lives
will be eventually ending…whether we like it or not.

We hold onto things in an odd twisted attempt to keep that which was.
All the stuff becomes the tangible to that which we have lost…
of which is simply fleeting and finite.

Dad’s basement is and was testament of that.
It was the filling of the void.
The proof of resting in purgatory.
Be it good…
Be it bad…
Be it sad…
Be it happy…
or…
Be it simply bittersweet…

All that we have and all that we are will pass away or perhaps worse, simply be discarded…

(a mere portion of the purging basement / Julie Cook / 2018)

Left to being eventually thrown away by The Junk Guys…

What, therefore, you ask, lasts… as we are a people who yearn to last…

Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?
C.S. Lewis

joy….to give or to receive…

“I don’t think of all the misery,
but of the beauty that still remains.”
Anne Frank

(the work of a day / Julie Cook / 2017)

Thanksgiving afternoon, I was complaining to my daughter-n-law, dreading the notion
of having to begin the yearly arduous ritual, of “putting up” Christmas.
Some people will go into a feeding frenzy of all things consumerism and
I will go into light mode….

“Why do we do this?” I lamented.
“Why do we work our butts off, schlepping stuff up and down from basements
and attics every year….

Why do we move all this stuff in while moving all the other stuff out…
making way for holiday paraphernalia…
just to turn around to then put it all away again in just a couple of weeks???”

I lament so because I am the one who pretty much does it all….
all the lights,
all the decorating,
all the tree,
all the buying,
all the wrapping,
all the cooking,
all the cleaning etc…
because bless my husband’s heart,
he runs a retail business.

Suffice it to know that our lives are not our own right now…
nor will they be…not until about the middle of January.

Neither my husband or I truly “get” this Black Friday absurdity that consumes
this nation of ours.
He does nothing out of the ordinary for it and I don’t even acknowledge it.
Something about the wantoness of all the materialism consuming this country of ours
just oozes of emptiness.

Why do people stand in line for hours on end when they should actually be
home just enjoying Thanksgiving, family, time off, being outside, being inside, being someplace other than a strip mall, a big mall, etc…
oddly preferring to scoop up “stuff”????
Stuff no one really “needs” to survive.

Places like Syria just keep coming to mind when I see cars parked 4 deep,
wrapped around parking lots, just so folks can buy a flat screen TV or clothes,
a mixer or whatever it is they think they JUST have to have in order to survive Christmas…
along with all the other trivial things no one really needs in order to survive.
Like I say, I just don’t get it…..

So my daughter-n-law reminds me, “well you know he really does appreciate it”
He being my only child and son who was born a week before Christmas.
Christmas is his official holiday….but certainly not his dad’s.

The night our son was born, oh so many moons ago, in the wee hours of a December Monday morning…my poor husband had to leave us shortly after the birth so he could go
open the store and work all day…after having been up all night.
Missing his only child, his new son’s first day of living…
He is remorseful all these many years later, but it was how he fed us,
and for that we give thanks.
Yet how does one ever get back time?
They don’t.

In this family of ours, there is definitely some resentment concerning the consuming madness of holiday shopping…. on all sorts of levels…
and yet our son just adores Christmas…what are those odds?!

Sigh…..

So as I was lamenting, my daughter-n-law tells me about a movie they recently went
to see —-a movie I would never ever consider watching.

They are only in their late 20’s—they watch things on television and at the movies
that I pretty much consider toxic—
of which I hope they too will soon realize as toxic…but until then,
I just pray….

My daughter-n-law relayed a line from the movie which actually resonated with me….

She said that in the movie the main character was grousing, much like I was, about
this whole Christmas business.
In walks the mother who deadpan responds….
“don’t you know, mothers don’t receive
joy, theirs is but to give joy” (a paraphrase)

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

An understanding as to what exactly a lot of this is really all about.
It hit in certainly not a martyresque sort of understanding…but a deeper sense of understanding.

It is an understanding that none of this is about me….never has been.

It’s not about what “I” can get,
not about what I can buy,
not about what I can have….
nor is it about what I want….
but rather it’s about what I can give.

It’s about the ability to give verses the ability to get and receive….
And that giving has nothing to do with stuff—not of things gathered
from a store, or from on-line or from any place else for that matter.
Nothing tangible….

It has nothing to with with savvy shopping, marketing strategy, deals, door busters
or the madness that has become what we know as Christmas in the modern world.
A time that won’t even allow most schools to utter the word “Christmas”
but rather “winter break.”

What this season is about…isn’t about all this decorating,
or about all this consuming, or about all this buying and wrapping of “stuff”….

It’s not about the amassing or consuming….or materialism.
It’s not about the biggest gift, the best deals, the nicest trip to some
exotic wonderland.
Rather it’s about what we can offer and what we can give…

Because the original notion of this holiday Christmas business wasn’t about
Black Fridays and sale margins…it wasn’t about cyber Monday’s or on-line surfing…

It was about a gift…. but not a gift in the modern mindset of what constitutes
as a gift…

It was a single tiny gift that was actually given in order to save…
to save both you and I, as well as all of mankind, actually from ourselves….

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything
we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.
This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time..
2 Timothy 1:9

what was

“I have always believed, and I still believe,
that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it
meaning and transform it into something of value.”
Hermann Hesse

(a once prized and regal chair now sits abandoned and discarded / Julie Cook / 2017)

this is a tale of that which once was….

Have you ever wandered through an antique store, thrift shop, rummage sale or a rarely
visited basement or attic….
finding things that harken to a different space in time?

Have you ever sought a treasure where others only saw trash?
Finding something of beauty hiding underneath the layers of grime, damage, neglect
and even abuse?

Have you ever wondered how something that was once so special and treasured
now sits shredded and torn, broken and sad, ignored and now forgotten?

I think we are very much like this chair.

Once upon a time we were energetic, full of beauty and grace…
Some of us were even stately and certainly noteworthy.
We were taken care of, kept clean, neat and ever so tidy..
Often we were paraded about by those who loved us
during those special moments of life.

We were treasured, cherished and the pride of others…

Then time and life took their toll.
And like this forgotten beauty, now broken, worn, tired and dirty…
we were passed over for things newer and shinier…
we had lost our luster and therefore were simply discarded, making way for the new…
as society deems us now less than….

But that is never how we are seen through the loving eyes of our Omnipotent Father.
Despite what the years of decay and dirt have done to us,
despite the brokenness, the raggedness, the age and wear…
He sees what was…
What was special, what was lovely and that which He had always intended…
that which was, and still is, beautiful….

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—
it is by grace you have been saved.
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:4-9

scattered pieces

“As long as they talk about you, you’re not really dead,
as long as they speak your name, you continue.
A legend doesn’t die, just because the man dies.”
Rod Serling

(Dad’s basement stairs / Julie Cook / 2017)

Que the scary music….

Now hear the Psycho shower scene music playing in your head as you open the old wooden door…
standing atop the small landing, staring down the overtly steep and timely worn stairs…

Make certain you hold tightly to the wobbly grey handrails, lest you stumble…
tumbling down into the ancient bricks of the fireplace…
this before making the left turn down the final short flight of steps leading into
the bowels of the raw and dimly lit 65 year old cavern…
otherwise known as the basement of the house.

And so this is where I begin…

Generations that went before me…
antiques, junk, trash, chairs, tables, chests, albums, empty boxes, tools,
circa 1945 office furniture, cameras, train sets, clothes, books, glasses, lamps,
photographs….pieces to the lives of those long past and one recently past.

Lives, homes, treasures and trash…stored, saved, discarded, forgotten…
yet waiting….

The “Your Junk Guys” came today and carried away an ancient refrigerator, mattresses,
boxsprings, computer monitors, two ancient recliners–one being my grandmother’s…
she died in 1986…
plus the ripped out carpet, carpet pads, old light fixtures, bookshelves, paint buckets…
as much as they could squeeze into the two large trucks.

They will be back.

All as I once again find myself running to the bank,
straightening newly discovered messes,
waiting on the flooring guys,
still waiting on lawyers and the court….
balancing how to pay electricians, painters, roofers…
while navigating the roadways…

Picking up the pieces…
of one who preferred just to leave things scattered on the ground…
and in boxes, and in bags, and on shelves, and under sheets…
pieces to all that once was…
his,
hers,
ours,
theirs…

Conveniently out of sight,
but oddly never out of mind….

God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!
Jeremiah 17:14

My Foe verses my Enemy

Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.
John Milton

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.
Napoleon Bonaparte

(“the enemy has grown bold in my neglect”—Julie Cook / 2014)

I come to you, lying in a pool of my own sweat, from somewhere on the floor of a cavernous basement.
The cement beneath me is hard, dusty but cool.
Flat on my back I stare bleary eyed at the wooden joists overhead.
“How do those cobwebs get up there and where do they keep coming from. . .”
These odd thoughts swirl through my mushy mind as I will myself to not give in to the overwhelming exhaustion.
I close my eyes.
I prefer not to see what I must clean.

Lungs and limbs alike now burn and ache.
I think I hear the sounds of angels, far off someplace in the great distance, singing.
“Is it help come to save me. . .?”
Oh, yeah, that’s my iPhone.
“Oh Bono, he’s still singing. . .”
“Bless his heart”
“He just won’t give up on me” a pleasant thought as a slight smile comes to my parched lips
The timer beeps.
“Must find water. . .” I hear myself mumble.

Not much has changed since I last met this nemesis, this foe of mine. Was it back in say late June or early July? We had been constant companions, it and I, for better or for worse–since Valentine’s day.
Day in and day out for months–as it promised to help me become the svelte mother of the groom.
We worked together every single day.
It never wavered.
I wanted to throw up.

Yet, my butt actually began to feel as if it could fit comfortably into my shorts.
My thighs no longer waved in the breeze.
My arms actually had a bit of definition.
My heart said “thank you”

The windows are still dirty.
The cobwebs are still hanging down from the ceiling.
Yet the robins are gone from the back yard only to be replaced with the summer resident catbirds.
The sun still shines through the lefthand window making me duly hot before I break my first bead of sweat.
As the elliptical just sits there, silently goading and taunting me. . .

The calendar has turned a page.
The seasons are changing.
My new leaf is ready to be turned over.
The excuse of Summer is no longer viable.
It’s time to get back to a healthier routine. . .

Which in a round about way, brings me around to the whole concept of “my foe verses my enemy.”
In my mind, I believe a foe to be a formidable opponent.
I find that we usually have respect for our foe(s).
We feel competitive toward this said foe.
We may actually develop an affinity for this said foe.
Be it the scales, the elliptical, the mountain, the wave, the mess, the deer, the cat’s litter box (digressing), the whatever it is that is staring us in the face and goading or taunting us to master it, to beat it, to out smart it, to clean it, to better it, to eventually better ourselves. . .

An enemy, on the other hand, is more sinister.
More callous.
There is no feeling of camaraderie.
No kinsmenship.
The enemy does not want me to better myself.
It does not wish me well.
It does not care.

Pondering this fine line of difference between foe and enemy, as I look off the back deck drinking my protein smoothie–yuck— I spy the small group of deer, who have been goading and taunting me all season long with my garden, boldly going where I have valiantly fought keeping them from. . .
Oooooo, they have now grown most bold and defiant as I have grown haplessly weary.
Daylight or dusk they now wander into the midst of my territory undeterred.

We went round and round, those deer and I.
And yet, I never truly wished them harm.
I simply wanted to keep them at bay, long enough for me to gather, literally, the fruits of my labors.
I did not mind sharing those “fruits.”
I did grow frustrated.
Even discouraged.
I felt challenged.
And yet I knew that they did not wish me ill.
They simply saw an opportunity and took full advantage of it.
And now that I have grown weary, as the garden has grown over, they have thrown caution to the wind and are enjoying, with gusto I might add, the lingering fruits of my previous labors.

Others in this world of ours are not so docile.
Foe and enemy gather round–just as the clouds gather over head.
They are opportunistic to our weariness, our ignorance, our self obsessions.
They are poised to take advantage of the “crack in the door.”

There are foes who will always seem to be the proverbial thrones in our sides.
They will preen and strut, taunting and goading us, yet truly they do not wish to witness our destruction because in the back of their minds they are smart enough to realize that our destruction would be their own.

There are also enemies who are secretly plotting and planning.
They remain often in the shadows, waiting and watching.
They are patient, cunning and ever watchful.
They, unlike our foes, do seek our destruction because in their minds they see our defeat, our destruction, as their glory.. .
. . .Despite the fact that that glory would in turn be their own demise. . .

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. . .
Psalm 13:3-5

Mise en place

“Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is.” Charles M. Schulz

(one batch of the boxes of fall decorations / Julie Cook / 2014)

Is that what all this is about? Ill fated attempts at making our lives, our homes, more interesting than they are??

Actually this is more of a tale about a boat load of crap, uh, I mean, gourds, pumpkins, colorful leaves, acorns, straw, nuts, etc. . .anything and everything to do with Fall, Autumn, the season of Harvest. . . or whatever you may wish to call the 3rd season of the calendar.

I like to call it my favorite time of year–and no, that is not Christmas as Christmas is just another word for consumerism chaos but that’s for another day.

The Thermometer is currently registering 90ᵒ–it’s not yet noon. The news is telling me it feels more like 96ᵒ as our high today will be 95ᵒ, meaning it will feel like 110ᵒ –give or take–but I’m sure it will be more like give, with the humidity ringing in around 87% currently–higher later–ugh—-and whereas this is Labor day weekend, Summer’s grand final hoorah, I, for one, choose to look ahead—as to something, say, a little more comfortable and inviting. As in I don’t wish to remain naked when venturing out of doors because I am tired of my clothes sticking to my body —picture flies stuck to fly tape and that’s me with my clothes.

Nothing is flattering about this time of year. Hair, no matter how hard a woman may attempt taming her coiffure–and trust me, I try awfully damn hard–digressing, it will either wilt, explode with puffiness or revert back to its natural wavy state the minute it is introduced to the out of doors.
Humidity + hair = disaster.
And of course any and all freshly applied makeup will soon be oozing down a sweaty oh I forgot, we women of the South do not sweat—we glisten— glisteny faces which are responding to the 87% humidity.

A friend of mine in Texas, sweet Natalie, replying to a blog post, told me how she sings daily praises to the man whoever invented air-conditioning. I must second that praise. Which brings me to an interesting observation— the Italians do not like air-conditioning. They fear it produces “bad air” which equates to respiratory maladies—things like the croop, pneumonia, Legionnaire’s Disease. . . you name it and they think it will pour out of an air conditioning unit waiting to strike down any and all, exposed to such air, with immediate illness and death.

The Italians are fretful when it comes to health. They take great precautions to stay well. So this is why, if you ever go on Holiday to Italy say in July or August. . . why you would do this I am uncertain as anyone can tell you that these are the two months you do not wish to visit Italy as the entire country shuts down and heads to the shore or high up in the alps seeking respite form the heat and the malaria (I’m telling you, über health conscious). . .I know this as I have made such a fatal mistake, but again, I digress. . .you will suddenly go into apoplexy upon entering your hotel room, say in Rome, when you find your windows wide open with nary a breeze and nary an AC unit in sight and it’s 100ᵒ out with 97% humidity.

Which brings me full circle back around to my picture of all of the Fall crap, uh, decorations sitting in the middle of the floor on a soon to be 98ᵒ day.
Rather than venturing outside today to enjoy the sun soaked (hot as hell day) Labor Day weekend, I’m preferring to say inside like anyone with any sense. . .yet my husband is currently attempting to plow his deer land on a hot tractor in the middle of nowhere in 102ᵒ, which in my opinion is asinine, but again I digress. . .I am opting to decorate my house with a more Fall-like theme—of which I am hoping will have a psychological effect, making me feel much cooler than I am in my tank top, shorts and bare feet. Surely twig pumpkins, fake squirrels, dried nuts, a bunch of gourds and colorful faux leaves will make me feel cooler, almost chilly, right??

Which brings my thoughts, as I schlepp this crap , these boxes of decorations down from the 150ᵒ inferno, aka attic and up the steps from the dungeon, aka, basement, as to why it is, why in the heck, do we, I, feel the need to decorate, seasonally, in the first place?! It must go back to some paganesque ancient druid need hiding in our / my roots. Lest we forget, I am indeed adopted and as I fear, there must some druids hiding in my background someplace—and no offense to any druids currently reading this —I’m just saying.

Perhaps it is our consumer driven economy and lifestyle. . .
The stores are, as I type, filling their shelves with boxes of fake colorful leaves, fallesque wreathes, cute fake little squirrels, dried gourds, indian corn, acorns, dried straws and sticks that we buy by the boat loads in order to “decorate” our homes and even workplaces—we set the mood so to speak. In my case, the mood to cool!!

And let’s not talk about how next month we will be riding the Halloween bandwagon. What was once a fun little excuse for young children to dress-up, going door to door trick or treating for candy has morphed into a really scary time which calls on us to lock up our cats–lest some cult out there decides to have a little sacrifice session, as we scan and have our children’s candy bags x-rayed at local hospitals for any signs of sickos who sadisticly and maliciously may have put razor blades in apples or cyanid in Reeses cups, to those who protest trick or treat all together because it is no longer politically correct as all the witches and satanist out there take offense (no offense witches and satanists), or the fundamentalists who fear it will turn our children literally into withes and satanists, which has all actually lead to this little “holiday” being the largest and biggest sales event excuse out there for adults to throw a party—hence why that diva of domesticity, who will remain nameless as I don’t want to get sued, is set to sell a myriad of magazines giving her, at the ripe old age of 73, an excuse to dress up in elaborate costume hawking her blood red punch and eyeball deviled egg recipes. . .yes, we’ve lost our collective minds. . .

Which brings me back to the boat load of crap , decorations sitting on the floor and of my having to now “put away” Summer, making way for Fall. . .and could someone please remind me as to why I waste, spend my time doing this. . .

Oh yeah, that’s right, because it’s 103ᵒ outside in the shade and I want to psyche myself into thinking I’m feeling cooler, much cooler—like Fall cooler—not that the Fall cool temperatures will arrive here, before, say Thanksgiving. . .which means it’ll just be time to schlepp out all the turkey and Thanksgiving crap decorations down from the attic and up from the basement. . .as the never ending saga of decorations and decorating, putting crap in its place, never ends. . .

Up, up and away…

“Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!”
― Dr. Seuss

(the persimmon Up band by Jawbone / Julie Cook / 2014)

“What is this?”
It’s an Up band.
“What is it for, what does it do?. . .”

So the other day a friend of mine, (and just so you know, I may be using the term friend a bit loosely right about now) told me she’d bought an Up band.
“A what?”
“An Up band”
“Why?”
“It monitors my steps throughout the day plus it monitors my sleep”
Ahh the kicker. . . She knows that I do not sleep well, nor does she for that matter. . .not since we’ve both reached that certain age—the age women reach when they don’t really talk about it any more.

Humm.. .
So she’s telling me that I need to go buy a bracelet. Some sort of bracelet that’s going to tell me how much I’m not sleeping. Why do I need to be reminded of my tortuous nights?!
“How much is this little puppy going to set me back” I inquire.
“A HUNDRED AND FITY WHAT?!” I practically scream over the phone.
She tells me there are a couple of versions but the one she had syncs to her phone wirelessly.
“I’m telling you, it’s worth it. You’ll be amazed tracking your steps and movements. You can log-in the food you consume and it’ll tell you how many calories are burned and turned into energy.. .”

“Is butter converted to energy” I feel my brain digressing.. .

Off to the Best Buy I go.

Walking into the store I immediately inquire as to the Up bands. The nice man points directly in front of me to the huge display. Wow!

They come in 3 sizes and 4 colors.
Hummm.
I quickly call my friend.
“There’s a size guide attached to the package” she explains “but you’ll want a small.” “People with chicken wrists wear a small” she quips.
My wrists are indeed the smallest thing about me—my husband calls them grasshopper wrists. I’ve always wondered what that means. . .

I choose a small band in Persimmon—they didn’t have the blue in a small so persimmon beat out the black or white.

I get home and quickly tear into the package.
I download the Up app to my phone inputing my data—age, weight—why does everyone keeping wanting to know those things?!
It tells me that for a female of my age (arg) that I need to average 10,000 steps a day.
Next I plug the thing into my computer to charge it up.
Once it’s fully charged, I put the band on my right wrist.

Off I go.

Sure enough it keeps pace with my steps. Alerting me to my idle burn, my active burn, my total burn—as in burning calories I assume. It alerts me to the percentage reached of my goal of the 10,000 steps and how many I need in order to reach the magic number.

Humm . . .

By 8 PM I notice I’m at 94 percent of my goal.
Ohhhh, I need to get a move on before it’s time for bed!
I begin running in place at the sink while doing the dishes.
“What in the world are you doing” my husband snaps as he rounds the kitchen corner.
“I’ve got to up my steps if I’m going to reach my goal before I head to bed later” I sputter breathlessly.
He rolls his eyes.
I than take a few laps around the house. ..

In the morning it tells me how much sleep I logged. Heavy deep sleep. Light sleep. How long did it take me to fall asleep. How long was I awake in the middle of the night.
Humm. . .this should be interesting.

“You woke 0 times”
WHAT?!
I’m sorry but when the cat jumped up on the bed, landing on my face at 2:45 AM and I had to make certain I still had both eyeballs in my head and was not bleeding profusely, and you’re telling me I woke up zero times. . .Houston, we have a problem!!

Ok, so I think it may be a little off.
I wake up all through the night, but I just lay there real still like, fighting my brain to go back to lala land. . .so perhaps it’s not registering movement, or whatever it needs, to alert itself that I am indeed a wake.
Trust me, I know awake and awake, on an off all night, I am.

Then there is the elliptical.
My nemesis.
Remember, there’s a June wedding in our future.
Have you forgotten my husband’s suggestion of duct taping my butt in place?
The elliptical and I are one each morning.
30 minutes of pure torturous bliss.

The band has a spot on the app for me to input a workout. It will measure my heartbeat and pulse, but it doesn’t seem to think an elliptical equates to steps.
Let me tell you one thing, if my knees are moving up and down, trust me, I’m stepping!!

So yesterday morning, I was working out really fast and furious.
I wanted the blasted band to be proud of my workout.
“Did she just say she wanted a plastic band to be proud of her?”
Stay with me. . .
I was huffing and puffing.
Up and down I went.
4.3 , 4.5 , 5.0 mph while coming up on mile 2. . .5.4 mph. . .
Faster and faster.
We should note that I like to put in a piece of gum in my mouth before a workout as my mouth gets so very dry.
Pushing to 6 mph as I’m moving my legs up and down, sweat is dripping down my face. I glance downward noting what looks like droplets on the cement floor. A small wave of panic. You must remember that woman of a certain age who have had children can have, well, accidents when jumping, coughing, laughing—-thankfully this time it’s just the sweat pouring off of my head.
Whew!

At this point, I have just 3 more minutes to go.
I push it even harder, practically hopping up and down.
I’m so tired I lean down onto the stationary handles as my legs kick into hyper speed.
I’m so out of breath by now that I’m sucking in any available air through my open mouth. . .when it happens.
Imagine a car barreling down the interstate at 80 mph.
A bug meets the car.
Woosh.
That bug is either splattered or is sucked into the the grill.
Suddenly the gum that was in my mouth is sucked down my throat.
Sudden panic sets in with the blink of an eye.

“Oh dear God, I’m going to die!!”
The gum is going to lodge in my windpipe (I think we call that a trachea)
I’m going to fall out right here, in the basement.
My poor husband will come home, many hours later, only to hear the odd sound of music rising up form the basement. He’ll go to investigate finding me sprawled out on the cold basement floor in a pool of now dried sweat, with Bono blaring from my phone as U2 is on shuffle mode—sadly it will be determined that I had asphyxiated on my sucked in gum.
All because I wanted the damned band to be proud of my speed. . .

Within the millisecond the gum went down my throat and my brain preformed my funeral, I’m relieved to realize that I am very much alive, sweating, sucking in air and still pumping my legs like a mad woman.
The small alarm sounds.
The 30 minutes are up.
I’m sweating, huffing and puffing, and wobbling on jello legs.
All the while as the thoughts of what happens to the a piece of swallowed gum circles my brain.
Surely I will live, right?!
How many pieces of gum did I swallow as a kid?
Does it digest?
Will it clog my poor pipes.
That’s just what my poor guts need, a ball of plastic stuck somewhere in the recesses of my feeble guts. . .

I look down at the band muttering. . .
“I hope you’re happy” I disgustingly tell the orange thing on my wrist.
A quick check the progress on the phone. . .
“you are at 38% of your goal”
“WHAT?!”
Damn band!!!

Where has the time gone Dad?

To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.
Euripides

I don’t know about that Euripides…I don’t think my dad would agree with you.
Recap of today’s visit…..
A knock on the door sets the lastest weekly visit in motion.
My stepmom ushers me in the house with a smile. Smiles are good.
We exchange pleasantries and I wander into the den. Dad use to get up and come into the kitchen when he’d hear me come in.
He’s sitting in his chair reading the paper…..

“Hi Dad”
“uh, hello”
“How are you doing Dad?”
“uh, I don’t know”
“What do you mean you don’t know Dad, you not feeling good today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad, are you feeling bad today? Are you sick?”
“No…uh…I don’t know—quit hassling me!”
“Dad, I’m not hassling you, I merely asked how you are today”
“Dad, do we have anything we need to do in the office today (aka my old bedroom)?”

Gloria intervenes…

“Don’t you remember, you were going to file away all that paper work and bills from last week.”
Funny how quickly I can forget the “fun” stuff…..
Gloria and I make our way up the hall, back to my old room, leaving Dad and his paper in peace just as he wants me to do…..

“I think he woke up a little grouchy”
“Don’t you think that perhaps it’s because he knew I was coming today?” I add chuckling a bit to lighten my own discomfort.
Gloria goes into her pursuit of the continued push to get Dad to embrace the idea of moving to an assisted living facility. How the filing cabinet needs to be purged–as she starts pulling some winter clothes out of the closet.
“I really like these pants but they’re too old and dated. I think I’ll take them to the tailors. The legs are too wide for flats, what do you think?”
“That’s a good idea. Are there any new file folders?”

Gloria wanders out with clothes in hand. I begin pulling out files that are really erroneous to the current crisis of bills and statements. A file for mother when she was our girl scout leader. A file on me when I was teacher of the month… directions to my house… printouts of my students long past winning various accolades for their art…. a file folder full of mini copies of the Constitution, always good to have I suppose…and then I find a couple of folders regarding my late brother. I open the file and find scrawled on the outside of an old envelop “happy father’s day to a dad who made a difference”

Are you kidding me? My Dad, each and every day, laments and mourns over my brother. You need to read a previous post Forgiveness one step at a time in order to understand those dynamics. Seeing this tattered old envelope I think how special that would be to me had I been the parent to have lost a child to such nonsense. Here was a small glimmer that a positive connection had indeed been forged…that to me would have been somewhat of the closure that Dad thinks has totally eluded him all these many years later—instead of holding onto that small revelation—he bemoans all that he must have not done causing the inevitable suicide. Yes he does have an obsessive sickness with all of this and yes he’s seen doctors regarding all of this business years ago– who simply prescribed anti-depressants. That’s all in a previous post……

I hear that familiar shuffle making its way down the hall.
“Hi Dad. I’m almost finished”
“Good, I need you to go down to the basement with me”
“OK Dad, let’s go”

I follow my dad down those awfully steep stairs that has all of us a little nervous over both of them traversing daily. He seems to maneuver down the stairs better than he does walking down the hall.

It’s a large cavernous unfinished room of a basement dating the house back to its inception of 1958. Here in this dark empty place resides the remnants of various peoples lives. Gloria’s previous lives. My grandmother’s pieces of furniture that Gloria decided from the get go were not her cup of tea. Mother’s things. Office furniture from my grandfather’s business that have been down there, gathering dust and rust, since 1967. My brother’s small scale train set, still set up and mounted on the huge piece of plywood board spray painted green and brown.

“Don’t you want to get this stuff?” he half asks and half tells me.
“Well Dad, you know my car isn’t that big. Maybe I can get a couple of the little tables.”
By now Gloria is down there trying to unload the entire contents of the basement on me at this very moment.
“You need a big truck”
Yes, well, not having one of those handy, I’m limited and try explaining that to her.

I grab some hand trucks and begin the hot push and pull through the yard up to the driveway and my unsuspecting car.
“You can’t do that by yourself” she commands.
Now she tells me…
“Go across the street and ask those yardmen to come help”
“Don’t worry Gloria, I’ve got this”
My dad is waiting by my car where he helps guide the table that I’m precariously attempting to lift into the back of my car. I like to think I’m still a bit strong, but this almost was too much for me to handle. My husband would be having a fit if he could have seen me.
The thought suddenly occurs to me that we must look like the 3 stooges attempting to lug these tables to and fro with nary any assistance from the neighbor’s yardmen; most likely providing a little entertainment.

“I’m going to fix us all a ham sandwich” as Gloria darts for the house leaving me and Dad to head back down to the basement. Lord please don’t let him (or me) slide in this wet grass in those slick bedroom slippers of his… I silently pray. Funny how he can traverse the yard and basement when the circumstance demand…….

“She says we’ve got to go”
“I know Dad, but it will be a lot less overhead for you to worry about”
“This is my home, I’ve been here over 50 years”
I know Dad, but we don’t have to sell the house”
“We don’t?!”
“No, you know Brenton and Abby, after they get married just may move to Atlanta, they’ll need a place to live….they can be the keepers of your house”
“Really?!” For the first time I hear his voice lighten.
“Dad, we don’t ever have to sell the house. They can live here, Brenton has always loved this house”
Which is something crazy to me because growing up in this house— I hated it…I always felt so claustrophobic in this house.

“Oh, well, that’ll be good”

For the first time since any of this assisted living business was first mentioned and the thought of a possible move hung over his head, Dad seemed to relax a little. He softened up, and suddenly, I was no longer the enemy….even though the move had been Gloria’s idea from the beginning…..hummm…
We head up to our awaiting sandwiches.
“Dad you want me to pass you the pickles?”
“You know I don’t eat pickles”
Of which I do but at last he’s finally responding to me happily as in times past, as he devours his sandwich leaving, as always, the crust behind…

No Dad, we don’t have to sell your house………..