Oh for a time machine.
A comment to the last post got me thinking...
What happened to the days of peace and love?
Not that I would want to be that young again. I have accepted each age as it evolved. Each has had it's wonder and it's joy. If I could change this age at all, it would only be the losses.
This last decade has brought more losses than I sometimes think I can bear. The deaths of family and friends, loss of health, home, the material things I worked so hard and long to obtain.
The other side of that coin is new grand children, New great grand children, Time to do the things I never had time to do before. A whole lot less to move. and new friends.
Those dear people with whom I forged, life long bonds, remember the summers, hanging out at high bridge, together with a few hundred of our best friends and their kids. Rocking to the band on the flatbed truck, playing Frisbee, moving from group to group, sharing the wine and the gossip, good news and not. Seeing people missed the weekend before. Meeting new people who drifted through and perhaps stayed, or were not seen for long and were never seen again.
Those days of nothing, but sharing everything. The Christmas that Kathy and Robin went to Montana to get me the perfect tree, and Joel took my last 4 bucks and used it and his Christmas money to buy my kid the doll she wanted and I couldn't afford.
California dreaming, Big Sur, The Monterrey pop festival, San Francisco, the Napa Valley. and back home again.
Going back to school, gathering friends to cheese and wine and Saturday Night Live at our house. Fish fries that lasted for three days, Venison feeds after hunting season with a whole tribe of Navajos. Our framing crew and the weekend of blue oyster cult. (the lead man just phoned me to talk about a truck. He's family now.)
Girl friends and coffee around the big round table. Relationships that didn't last forever, 1 only ten years, and 2 thirteen years, and 1 again for six months, until all the reasons for not working raised their ugly heads again.
Girlfriends leaving for other parts of the world, and coming back only to leave again, but still close via phone and now the net.
Funny how the heart can push away the not so good and really bad things when remembering...
"It's a castle, it's a castle, it is a castle", she mumbled under her breath all the way to the kitchen. She didn't bother to turn on the light in the gathering darkness.
Years of getting up at night with children's bad dreams and fevers and later waiting for teens to come home, when they were past curfew and patience, teaches a person how to navigate a home in the dark.
The oldest grandchild blinded himself when he was almost thirteen. When he was released from the hospital he lived in this house. Things are not moved in this house.
Everything stays the same here. The chair in the hall, has been the chair in the hall
since before Justin shot himself. It's a landmark for so many things. A point of reference for Justin to find things for himself. The Q tips are in the cupboard on the second shelf by the chair in the hall. Leave you laundry on the chair in the hall for urgent washing if you need it no later than tomorrow. ( if you need it sooner than that, do it yourself.)
When the daycare was here the time clock sat on the kitchen counter near the door. the time clock is long gone but the cupboard by the time clock is still used to tell
where the sun screen is. It's where it will always be.
The day Justin shot himself was the worst day of her life. For all that has come after she has no real complaints. Justin lived.
Justin is only blind. Justin is still Justin, with the wonderfulness of what Justin is all about.
Helping Justin to become independent, to become, with out sight.... Oh, she fought.
When you love a kid and you know what's essential for them to live, the battles rage... She didn't give a bloody inch.
Later, when he was older, she learned he was hitchhiking to San Francisco, alone & went ballistic. Justin, on the phone, verbally patted her on the head, telling her how well he could get around with his cane and how she didn't have to worry, he was completely able to be "Independent".
She walked the floors in the dark until he called to say he had arrived safely at his buddy's home.
Drinking a soda in the dark remembering so many nights.
Walking the floor with her daughter in labor. Walking with a new grand baby so a new mommy could sleep, through colic, teething, ear infections and those times when baby wanted to party all night and sleep all day.
Waiting expectantly for the phone to tell her that someone had arrived at their destination here... there...
Into this world or into the next.
Almost always in the kitchen, in the dark.
Good and not so good. but the beat goes on. Peace and love.
A comment to the last post got me thinking...
What happened to the days of peace and love?
Not that I would want to be that young again. I have accepted each age as it evolved. Each has had it's wonder and it's joy. If I could change this age at all, it would only be the losses.
This last decade has brought more losses than I sometimes think I can bear. The deaths of family and friends, loss of health, home, the material things I worked so hard and long to obtain.
The other side of that coin is new grand children, New great grand children, Time to do the things I never had time to do before. A whole lot less to move. and new friends.
Those dear people with whom I forged, life long bonds, remember the summers, hanging out at high bridge, together with a few hundred of our best friends and their kids. Rocking to the band on the flatbed truck, playing Frisbee, moving from group to group, sharing the wine and the gossip, good news and not. Seeing people missed the weekend before. Meeting new people who drifted through and perhaps stayed, or were not seen for long and were never seen again.
Those days of nothing, but sharing everything. The Christmas that Kathy and Robin went to Montana to get me the perfect tree, and Joel took my last 4 bucks and used it and his Christmas money to buy my kid the doll she wanted and I couldn't afford.
California dreaming, Big Sur, The Monterrey pop festival, San Francisco, the Napa Valley. and back home again.
Going back to school, gathering friends to cheese and wine and Saturday Night Live at our house. Fish fries that lasted for three days, Venison feeds after hunting season with a whole tribe of Navajos. Our framing crew and the weekend of blue oyster cult. (the lead man just phoned me to talk about a truck. He's family now.)
Girl friends and coffee around the big round table. Relationships that didn't last forever, 1 only ten years, and 2 thirteen years, and 1 again for six months, until all the reasons for not working raised their ugly heads again.
Girlfriends leaving for other parts of the world, and coming back only to leave again, but still close via phone and now the net.
Funny how the heart can push away the not so good and really bad things when remembering...
"It's a castle, it's a castle, it is a castle", she mumbled under her breath all the way to the kitchen. She didn't bother to turn on the light in the gathering darkness.
Years of getting up at night with children's bad dreams and fevers and later waiting for teens to come home, when they were past curfew and patience, teaches a person how to navigate a home in the dark.
The oldest grandchild blinded himself when he was almost thirteen. When he was released from the hospital he lived in this house. Things are not moved in this house.
Everything stays the same here. The chair in the hall, has been the chair in the hall
since before Justin shot himself. It's a landmark for so many things. A point of reference for Justin to find things for himself. The Q tips are in the cupboard on the second shelf by the chair in the hall. Leave you laundry on the chair in the hall for urgent washing if you need it no later than tomorrow. ( if you need it sooner than that, do it yourself.)
When the daycare was here the time clock sat on the kitchen counter near the door. the time clock is long gone but the cupboard by the time clock is still used to tell
where the sun screen is. It's where it will always be.
The day Justin shot himself was the worst day of her life. For all that has come after she has no real complaints. Justin lived.
Justin is only blind. Justin is still Justin, with the wonderfulness of what Justin is all about.
Helping Justin to become independent, to become, with out sight.... Oh, she fought.
When you love a kid and you know what's essential for them to live, the battles rage... She didn't give a bloody inch.
Later, when he was older, she learned he was hitchhiking to San Francisco, alone & went ballistic. Justin, on the phone, verbally patted her on the head, telling her how well he could get around with his cane and how she didn't have to worry, he was completely able to be "Independent".
She walked the floors in the dark until he called to say he had arrived safely at his buddy's home.
Drinking a soda in the dark remembering so many nights.
Walking the floor with her daughter in labor. Walking with a new grand baby so a new mommy could sleep, through colic, teething, ear infections and those times when baby wanted to party all night and sleep all day.
Waiting expectantly for the phone to tell her that someone had arrived at their destination here... there...
Into this world or into the next.
Almost always in the kitchen, in the dark.
Good and not so good. but the beat goes on. Peace and love.
posted by Gem_with_faraway_eyes | 7:22 PM
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