Everything was going smoothly, and then yesterday: bump, bump, bump.
By the evening, I felt like I'd fallen down stairs, emotionally.
Oddly, my neighbor Scott did take a nasty fall, for real: in the dark early evening, he had stopped to lean on a fence around a construction site, in order to respond to a text. The fence was not anchored––it was merely a suggestion not to go into the site––and he took a bad fall. Luckily he didn't break anything.
With me, nothing's exactly wrong... Some annoyances are even for the good---such as tearing up my kitchen corner (I live in a small one bedroom) to receive a NEW STOVE & FRIDGE!!!
I am, in theory, over the moon, but in the flesh, I am jangled. The guy who was going to hook the stove up to the gas line couldn't come last night, so he'll come tonight...
Meanwhile, everything's still out of place this gray morning.
(Bright spot: I have already hung my 2019 Star Trek calendar.)
I do LOVE my new fridge!
My old one was an ice-age behemoth. This is the first morning in a couple months the milk for my coffee wasn't an ice-slushy.
And the new one's so quiet!
I woke up this morning, however, to see I'd left the mayonnaise sitting out. (The capers too, but there's no way they're going bad in a hundred years.) I'm not too worried about food safety, and my apartment is quite cold overnight, (temps were in the teens (F) last night), but it was drilled into me as a child that eating warm mayonnaise will kill you, so I'm throwing it out.
Erggh.
Just another little annoyance.
One annoyance I brought entirely upon myself.
I post on the thrift store's Facebook page almost daily. The post from yesterday disappeared last night. I lay awake fretting about who might have removed it---top candidate is a certain someone in corporate, a woman I dislike without even knowing her.
She's a real person, but for my purposes, mostly she exists as a rancid figment in my head.
This morning, the post is back. (This has happened before--some glitch on FB's side, I think.)
Oops.
Never mind.
Good thing I hadn't fired off an accusatory email in the middle of the night, LIKE I CONSIDERED!
I have to laugh:
if I had any illusions (I didn't), this proves I am still far, far from being the patient, accepting type I keep thinking I'm going to turn into...
These are all minor, but on top of everything, I was inexplicably sad. I went out for a beer after work and actually shed a few tears of sadness––very unusual for me.
There are always a million things in the world to be deeply sad about, but I almost never cry. The source of the tears was a mystery to me.
Last night I realized, of course! This week is the anniversary of my mother's suicide in 2002.
I'd recently been thinking how removed her death feels. Sixteen years ago. Maybe this year, I'd thought, I won't even register it.
But I've noticed before, when the Earth tilts at this angle, and the light shifts just so, my body remembers.
P.S. Thank you, Michael, for quoting in your comment, "There's a certain Slant of light", by Emily Dickinson--it's perfect.
I put the whole poem in the comments, or it's online here.
By the evening, I felt like I'd fallen down stairs, emotionally.
Oddly, my neighbor Scott did take a nasty fall, for real: in the dark early evening, he had stopped to lean on a fence around a construction site, in order to respond to a text. The fence was not anchored––it was merely a suggestion not to go into the site––and he took a bad fall. Luckily he didn't break anything.
With me, nothing's exactly wrong... Some annoyances are even for the good---such as tearing up my kitchen corner (I live in a small one bedroom) to receive a NEW STOVE & FRIDGE!!!
I am, in theory, over the moon, but in the flesh, I am jangled. The guy who was going to hook the stove up to the gas line couldn't come last night, so he'll come tonight...
Meanwhile, everything's still out of place this gray morning.
(Bright spot: I have already hung my 2019 Star Trek calendar.)
I do LOVE my new fridge!
My old one was an ice-age behemoth. This is the first morning in a couple months the milk for my coffee wasn't an ice-slushy.
And the new one's so quiet!
I woke up this morning, however, to see I'd left the mayonnaise sitting out. (The capers too, but there's no way they're going bad in a hundred years.) I'm not too worried about food safety, and my apartment is quite cold overnight, (temps were in the teens (F) last night), but it was drilled into me as a child that eating warm mayonnaise will kill you, so I'm throwing it out.
Erggh.
Just another little annoyance.
One annoyance I brought entirely upon myself.
I post on the thrift store's Facebook page almost daily. The post from yesterday disappeared last night. I lay awake fretting about who might have removed it---top candidate is a certain someone in corporate, a woman I dislike without even knowing her.
She's a real person, but for my purposes, mostly she exists as a rancid figment in my head.
This morning, the post is back. (This has happened before--some glitch on FB's side, I think.)
Oops.
Never mind.
Good thing I hadn't fired off an accusatory email in the middle of the night, LIKE I CONSIDERED!
I have to laugh:
if I had any illusions (I didn't), this proves I am still far, far from being the patient, accepting type I keep thinking I'm going to turn into...
These are all minor, but on top of everything, I was inexplicably sad. I went out for a beer after work and actually shed a few tears of sadness––very unusual for me.
There are always a million things in the world to be deeply sad about, but I almost never cry. The source of the tears was a mystery to me.
Last night I realized, of course! This week is the anniversary of my mother's suicide in 2002.
I'd recently been thinking how removed her death feels. Sixteen years ago. Maybe this year, I'd thought, I won't even register it.
But I've noticed before, when the Earth tilts at this angle, and the light shifts just so, my body remembers.
_________________________
P.S. Thank you, Michael, for quoting in your comment, "There's a certain Slant of light", by Emily Dickinson--it's perfect.
I put the whole poem in the comments, or it's online here.
5 comments:
“A certain Slant of light,” as ED wrote.
Take care.
WOW, Michael, I don't know how I missed it but I have never read that particular poem.
And it's perfect. Thank you!
"There's a certain Slant of light"
--By Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Wow -- that IS an appropriate poem, isn't it? I hope the fridge/stove installation has gone (is going?) well. I learned from a friend in food service we don't need to live in fear of modern mayonnaise because it's made differently now, and can even sit out without danger. So you'd probably have been fine to eat it. But I understand the desire to be cautious. :)
STEVE: You have changed my life with that info about mayonnaise.
Really! People in my childhood treated mayo like a dangerous substance---and I suppose it made enough people sick to warrant some of that.
Wow, that is a great poem for the dark of winter and the despair it sometimes inflicts on us. I'd never read it before either.
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