I took this picture from our friends’ deck over the weekend:
When I looked at it later I noticed the color was pretty washed out…most of the tones were kind of neutral. Then I noticed the reflections…and when I rotated my phone 180°, at first glance it was kind of hard to tell that anything was upside-down about it.
Right? If you look quickly it looks like just another lake picture. But if you look carefully, you won’t be fooled.
So anyway, I took the two images (the original and the flipped/inverted one) and put them together to create this blended black and white image:
I include it here mainly because I see the image as a visual representation of life in so many ways and on so many levels, and it’s something that seems particularly appropriate as a new year stretches out in front of us. Reflection. Illusion. Distortion. Confusion. Connection. Continuity. Light. Dark. Stillness. Motion. See what I mean?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the end of one year and the beginning of a new one is the Universe’s way of cranking up the sound of the ticking clock of life and forcing us to pay a disproportionate amount of attention to how we optimize the days ahead, regardless of what we desire, regardless of what verdant pastures or bomb-riddled landscapes lie in our pasts.
I try to drown out this sound (sometimes by sticking my fingers in my ears and babbling nonsense like “I can’t hear you ticking clock and even if I could you don’t scare me”), mainly because I’m acutely aware that I’m in a footrace with Father Time (we all are!) and I’m trying to make the days count. I don’t need any added pressure to be anyone or do anything superhuman, thanks.
So here we are at the start of a new year and while it’s all supposed to feel brand new, everything is the same except for the date on the calendar. I’m still out of work. I still go to the gym on my (now imaginary) lunch break and grind it out like an old lady. The rhythm of life is steady, with the usual January mile markers and other annual (and new) milestones (like my mom going to FL for the winter, Pond Hockey in a month, the Super Bowl, etc.), yet both possibility and uncertainty live and lurk around every corner, in every crevice, and in every dark space. Life is, and will always be, a mystery.
I guess it’s true that the more things change the more they stay the same…but it also changes really fast…and I know I need to be frequently reminded that there’s so much beauty to be found in many of those ever-changing nooks and crannies of life and I need to slow down and pay closer attention.
Anyhow, here’s where my head’s at today:
Annual mile markers. Dropped my mom (and aunt and uncle) at Logan Airport for their snowbird pilgrimage yesterday morning. It was smooth sailing from door to door—84 minutes all told. Boom. And this included the time spent on the emergency job mom texted about first thing this morning—she realllllly needed her new Kindle cover put on before she left. “I know you just popped it off when we made sure the new cover fit but I can’t for the life of me get it off today.” What I can’t for the life of me understand is why she didn’t just leave the new cover on the damn Kindle several months ago when we determined it was in fact the right size. 🤦♀️ After drop-off I tend to have watery eyes on the way home and this year was no exception. A piece of my heart goes with her when she leaves. Every. Single. Time. What can I say? She’s such a special person and she’s fun to have around.
Annual (and new) milestones. I need to get this piece written and shipped so I can get (back) to the airport with a very packed car to pick up my sister and niece, whose flight arrives from DTW at 9. It’s move-in day at NU, and my niece is scheduled to settle in to her first semester on campus today after having done her actual first semester in Glasgow (an experience that was—by all accounts—amazing). My jobs have included procuring (but not stocking 😂) the dorm fridge, cobbling together enough cleaning supplies to get things up and running, and then going to our other sister’s house where everything else had been shipped to borrow and load up her big car (my car is big but not *that* big). Today I have airport duty, unloading and room setup, and then I’m on call for anything else thrown at me over the coming days. It’s a huge perk of being unemployed—ready availability to take part in big and small things that mean a lot to someone else. And I’m really happy to be part of such a special day for my niece, and I like the idea of her being nearby—I’m confident in my substitute-mom skills. My sister who loaned the car has to work today and we were laughing that I’m the one on duty today. She has three kids, I have zero—so her dorm move-in IQ is astronomically and exponentially higher than mine. And the packed car with almost 200K miles? I was sent on my way with these words: “She’s a good one but she makes a lot of noises; just ignore all of them.” (Thank god for AAA; peace of mind has a price worth paying.) (Also, I just texted my sis inquiring about the clearance height on the car—I definitely don’t want to get “Storrowed” if I have to garage it. (🤣🤣🤣🤦🏼♀️))
Bait and switch. Anyone else get annoyed over the holidays after entering your email to save 15% and then getting the “oh by the way we need your phone number before we can set that tiny discount free” message? Drove me nuts. No one gets my phone number. Harrumph.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? When I was stretched out on the floor listening to albums at my aunt and uncle’s old house in the mid-1970s, Chicago IX frequently was in the mix, so I heard a lot of this song. I didn’t know what time it was, I didn’t care, I didn’t get it, I didn’t get much of anything, and my 8-year-old self was fixated on two things, the next song (hoping upon hope that someone someday would in fact color my world) and whether or not a sleepover invitation would be forthcoming…but I digress…as I so often do. Anyhow, fast forward 45+ years and COVID hit, which changed my perception of time and space completely. I rarely knew what time it was. I certainly didn’t care. But when COVID’s in the house, the day and time matters. What day are we on? Is it a test day? Am I in the clear? All this came up during Kerri’s COVID battle before Xmas. Then after Christmas I got absolutely walloped with a head cold. In fact I’m still fighting the last of it off over a week later. And I’ll tell you this: I may not know or care what time it is but I sure as hell am attuned as hell to the 15 excruciating waiting minutes while the at-home COVID test processes my nasal goop. Anyway, after lots of testing (I know. The jury is out on testing. But I am nothing if not consistent and I still don’t want to pass it along and inadvertently kill someone.)…anyway after lots of testing and a lot of running upstairs “just to check” on how the test was progressing, I’m still negative. “Just” a cold. But those 15 minutes of waiting. Brutal. Every time. Also, if you haven’t listened to Chicago IX in a while, have a go:
Speaking of COVID, tangentially. We were watching MNF and saw the collision that almost (🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼) took Damar Hamlin’s life, a play that wasn’t particularly noteworthy until he fell flat on his back right after getting up. The minute he collapsed to the turf, we could tell it was bad. Something felt really heavy about it. I couldn’t sleep much that night, stayed up too late watching coverage, awaiting word. Sick to my stomach at the thought that I well may have just witnessed someone dying on national TV, in a GAME. A sport. Something that’s supposed to be fun. When we sit down to watch a game or set out to do something fun, are we worried about seeing someone die, or about dying ourselves? Nope. After what I saw Monday night, I’m re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-thinking how I’m going at this thing called life—and it’s definitely time for some (more) adjustments. And the fact that some people had nothing else to do in the moments immediately following his collapse but to start twitching blame about the COVID vaccine causing this tragedy is equal parts disgusting and absurd not to mention 100% reflective of what is wrong with the f-cking world right now.
The breaking point. In the wake of COVID, we’ve noticed the shrinkflation phenomenon with increasing frequency. And I get it. Businesses need to make money. Chokehold on the supply chain. Inflation shooting skyward. Salary increases stagnating. Something’s gotta give. I get it. But given my aforementioned head cold, my need for a decongestant, and then the subsequent (de-)hydration issues, I had to have Gatorade. Picked up six 32 oz. bottles at Shaw’s only to get home and find out that the f-ckers are only 28 ounces now. Come on. Do I need to drink 64 fluid ounces a day or do I only really need 56? Such b.s. (And yes, they ate still the 32 oz. price!)
Coulda fooled me. It really wasn’t the man flu—I’m not overdramatizing my symptoms. It was a legit doozy of a head cold. And just as I needed the decongestant and the Gatorade I also needed sleep and thus I needed Breathe Right strips. Which—very interestingly—rendered my face unrecognizable to my iPhone. My face would not unlock the thing. Glasses. Sunglasses. Bed head. Morning eye bags. No matter what state of disrepair my face is in, the thing comes to life regularly, stat. Stretch my nose across my face and the camera seizes up like I’m an alien from another planet. Crazy, right?
Unsolicited advice, nothing new. One way to jumpstart change in your life is to say “yes.” Lots of reasons why, including this one: if you say “no” too much, people will stop asking you—eliminating countless (potentially amazing) possibilities from your life. This time of year seems like a good time to re-share that reminder. That’s all.
It’s not “just” a book. When a package that I know contains a book arrives from Amazon and it’s in one of the plastic envelopes and not a box, my heart skips a beat, and not in a good way. Surely I’m not the only one who gets a little sad when a brand-new book arrives with an imperfection. Bent cover or random dog-eared pages get you down? Or are you one of those “bend-the-pages-as-a-bookmark-underline-things-and-write-in-the-margins” kinds of people? (And if so how is it that we even are friends?)
Holla! Guess who ran the “Ageless Diana Ross” Jeopardy category on Friday? I’ll give you a clue: “This author of the famed online newsletter The Pedestrian Pundit does double duty as a Diana Ross-savant.” Still not sure? 😂😂😂 I knew a) that she started out with The Supremes, b) that Tracee Ellis Ross is her daughter, c) that she once had a ginormous concert in Central Park, d) that she played Billie Holiday in her big-screen debut, and e) that “I’m Coming Out” is a big LGBTQ pride anthem (duh). Holla!
Speaking of TV. I am glad Al Roker is feeling better. I’m glad he’s feeling well enough to come back to work. That said, I really enjoyed the mornings without him, and I wish he’d take a little more time to recover. Why rush it?
The biggest loser. Seriously, is there a bigger loser than Kevin McCarthy? Turns out the egomaniacal narcissistic power-hungry pandering sycophant of an elephant has no friends. Honestly, when you can’t get enough votes in SIX tries, wave the white flag already. But he still thinks he can win. Matt Gaetz is against him—never thought I’d saw a case when Matt Gaetz isn’t the biggest loser. And if you think it’s a good idea to bring out the Cheeto to cheerlead for you? FFS. Just go home. There are so many morals in this story and I have to get on the road, so let’s sum it up thusly: don’t be a dick. And my unsolicited advice to the pols on DC is simple: don’t let the bastards wear you down! Come one. Who doesn’t want to see him forced to move out of the office he prematurely moved into???
Well, to paraphrase the B52s, “I’ve got me an Armada, it’s as big as a whale, and it’s about to set sail.” I wish myself a bon voyage (as it were), I wish you all a fantastic Friday Eve, and I send you my sincerest thanks and most heartfelt appreciation for choosing to spend this time with me.
Love you too.
Stunning photo!
Love you back!