Top to toe in taillights, red lights all around

 

Howdy, all you Blogbots, merry ho ho. I hope you are celebrating the season safely, pandemic-style. I'm doing fine in the Love Shack, thanks for asking. Isolation is nothing new for me. I've had almost a year to get used to living with a cat ghost. I have a new song for the season, which some kind soul looped in an hour-long YouTube, so I'm immersed in a repetitive ditty with an insipid soothing rhythm and bland lyrics that remind me that yes, I used to drive home for Christmas. Every now and then, I see a shadow and think it's Eddie, a spirit from Christmases past. 

I didn't feel sad or lonely until I read comments on the YouTube page under the static picture of a decorated tree. I'm not the only one finding refuge in a soothing song with a catchy beat. People from around the world are posting comments. Some rave about the song and wonder why they haven't heard it before, even though it was written in the late 1980s. Some are reminiscing about past holidays being with loved ones now gone. Some send well wishes from lockdown and hope wistfully for better times coming soon. Stay safe, they say, the standard greeting of 2020. Who knew? Nobody says "Have a great day" anymore, do they? Illness and death lurk outside our doors. 

Covid has given new resonance to the term Swedish Death Cleaning. In the interest of leaving life with minimal mess for my brother to shovel into a dumpster, I've destroyed almost twenty-five years' worth of my journals. I tore out a few drawings from each, most of which you've seen in this blog, and cut up the rejects. I'm trying to say so long to my past creativity. I'm making room for something new, which might actually be a vacant space, depending on how things go with Covid and Mom. However, the stack of drawings is two feet tall—thus, I admit, I have more culling to do. 

The past two nights have been cold and windy, so no outside visit with the maternal parental unit. We visited through her window using the baby monitor. I pressed the button and spoke into the tiny hole: How's it going, Mom, over. Ha. No, I don't say over, that would just be confusing. We're two feet apart, separated by a pane of glass. She reads lips and so do I. It isn't hard to have a conversation. We sang Let it Snow, as many lines as we could remember, which took us to Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. We grinned at each other. She looked happy. 

There's no Christmas for me here anymore, at least, for me, no day deserves any special celebration or attention. If no day is Christmas, then every day can be Christmas. Every day she lives, breathes, sings,  and smiles is a gift.  

Welcome to another stupid cold holiday season

 Hello, happy holidays to my seven blog readers. You sly anonymous folks, you know who you are. I've been anonymously writing this blog for some years now, hiding behind the moniker of The Chronic Malcontent (like about a hundred other bloggers). Now we are all living anonymous lives, hidden behind plaid and paisley masks, or tasteful cotton chambray, perhaps. Or maybe you use one of those disposable things I see lying on the ground in the Winco parking lot. Whatever we are covering our faces with, we are all hiding, waiting for this stupid cold Covid season to be over. 

I'm done trying to figure things out. I'm taking things as they come. You want to be stupid? Go right ahead. You want to complain? Right on, go for it. I support your right to be loud, stupid, and annoying. 

I'm taking my cue from my mother, living in the moment, not looking behind me, not peering ahead. She's the Zen Master of the Senior Vista Villa, or whatever the place is called. 

"How are your fellow inmates?" I asked a few nights ago as we sat outside the back door under the porte-cochère, six feet apart, me masked (plaid), her bundled in fleece blankets against the December chill.

"Those idiots are so dense!" she said with disgust. 

"Why, what are they doing?" 

"They do it all wrong," she complained. "The contract gets moved, and then everything goes haywire." I nod in agreement, even though I have no idea what she is talking about. 

"Are they messing with your puzzles?"

"You have to keep your eye on Vivian," she said. "She will try to get out the door if you aren't careful."

"You mean, she'll try to make a run for it?" 

"Yeah, she's a real pistol. Sometimes she tries to sit in my place." 

"At the table?"

She nodded, lips pressed tight. Clearly, the drama does not fade once we hit the nursing home stage. It's just like junior high all over again, only the mean girls are toothless and wear house slippers. 

"Well, if she takes a swing at you, you scream bloody murder. Erin won't stand for it."

"Yeah, she runs a tight ship." High praise. Moving Mom to this care home was traumatic for everyone but almost three months later, she's doing better than fine. She's happy and thriving. 

So, what about me? Thanks for asking. My life is no more precarious than it has ever been, hence my strategy of living in the moment. Nobody controls the future, nobody can determine outcomes. I try not to be stupid but hey, I'm human. Sometimes I don't wait as long as I should for the vents to clear the fog off my windshield before I tentatively drive the eight blocks to the care home. 

Every day brings new opportunities to remember that the Universe does not care what I think or feel. Gosh. I wish I could go back in time and have a little do-over. All the energy I have wasted whining about things over the years could have been spent writing ten novels or painting fifty portraits of my cat or planting a garden or waxing my car or my upper lip. Combined! I've been operating as if my complaining about how unfair life is and how mean people are and how stupid everything is has one tiny bit of influence on the Universe. The Universe does not care. Now I know. It's not about me. It's never been about me. I'm glad I figured that out before I catch Covid and die gasping in my bed.

The great benefit of living in the moment is that I'm free to pursue what interests me. I wish I'd done that back when I was eighteen, instead of doing what everyone else thought I should do. Oh well. All those choices brought me here. What a long strange trip it's been.