The sweet little girls were left briefly in my care. The baby would have none of it: she wanted her own mom and I wouldn’t do. Enter the entertainment committee, aka my sons. Suddenly both baby and her older sister (obscured by a flailing arm here) were enthralled.
The son on the left is the son who is visiting me this week. I inflict this all on you, dear reader, by way of saying that he is the reason I am not much blogging at the moment. I’m just trying to keep up.
When I write the first word of something, I have an idea what the last word will be. What a laugh. Writing has its own idea of where it’s going, and it’s rarely where I thought I was steering it.
Ten years ago, when I was 70, I promised myself I would do two things: learn how to bake biscotti, and start a blog. My writing mate Tamara graciously set up the blog for me, and I began, tentatively, intending to write mostly about caregiving, and hoping to learn how to tell a story. In August of 2015 Tamara prodded me to try photos as prompts. I was hooked.
So, as with all my writing, I did not go where I thought I would.
I’ve always been Oddment(s), but the themes have morphed from “Connections” to “Disconnections” to “Coping” to “Coping, but barely,” all reflective of my life and the life around me.
But the subtitled quest remained: In search of story. I can make biscotti, but I still can’t tell a story.
So I ask myself, “What at 80?”
Thus far, dear reader, I have coped by writing and by baking, two time-tested strategies for me. They aren’t working any more. A few days ago, we were bloodied once again through the reports of a terror attack on new babies and new mothers. That was one too many for me, awash as we are in grief and fear.
I’ve been sick, as some of you know. Nothing serious, just enough to keep me from being complacent. I don’t know that I had COVID; we still don’t know if my “presumed positive” son had it. We still don’t know much about COVID. “Don’t know” is the only wisdom we have.
Having seen my family only from a distance, unable to touch them, for two months, I think I have a sliver of understanding of what it might mean to die among strangers in Intensive Care.
I am disgusted and exhausted by the flim-flam.
I’m going to step away from the blog for a few days. Each of us has to find ways to stay human in this very dehumanizing time. I am looking for my ways.
Thanks for being with me in my blog. I worry about all of you and hope you endure.
Oddments 