I bought the book “I’M DEAD. NOW WHAT?” the summer before COVID-19. I was in a general store in Bristol, Maine, and there it was, an 8-x-12 behemoth in the self-help section. It spoke to me. As if the eye-catching title were not enough, the subtitle, “Important Information about My Belongings, Business Affairs, and Wishes,” sealed the deal.
Read MoreThere’s a webpage that lands in my e-mail every day. Maybe I signed up for it. I must have but I don’t remember. It’s called Word Thirst (wordthirst.com) and I love it, not only because it has nothing to do with all the bad things happening in the world, but also because some days it introduces me to words I don’t know, like paraselene, (Definition: a bright moonlike spot on a lunar halo; a mock moon). It also includes a graph, which shows when the word was most popular (in 1811, paraselene was very popular); and if it is popular still (it is not).
Read MoreI cannot pronounce Luhansk and Lysychansk, because I have stopped watching television news. And because I no longer hear these names spoken, I don’t know how to say them.
I stopped watching the news every night because it is all calamity and conjecture interrupted by ads paid for by pharmaceutical companies, which would go bankrupt if, tomorrow morning, we all woke up well. And because the nightly news teaches me nothing I can’t learn by reading, I switched to print months ago.
Read MoreThe words always come. That’s what I tell myself when I can’t find them. I sit. I think. And I wait. And when the words still won’t come? I ask myself what it is that I am struggling so hard to say?
Maybe this time what I’m struggling to say is simply thank you. Thank you, world. Thank you, Canton High. Thank you, friends and relatives and neighbors and teachers and doctors and dance instructors and used-to-be strangers who have walked this road with us, sometimes many times, leading the way.
Read MoreMy friend Anne says do not compare. I will say that I am sad about something and that I shouldn’t be because what do I have to be sad about? Other people have bigger reasons to feel sad, and really I need to buck up, and count my blessings. Things could be worse.
And she will tell me this: Sad is sad. It is not a contest. Don’t measure it. Just acknowledge it.
Read MoreIt goes back to my mother. Almost everything does. My mother is why I love black-and-white movies and Rosemary Clooney and show tunes and big, gaudy hats, though I look awful in them. Why I make Irish bread with caraway seeds. Why I thought, and think still, that no one will ever take the place of Johnny Carson. Why I don’t put new shoes on a table. Why, to this day, I wish upon the first star.
Read MoreThe pan was not exactly a thing of beauty even when it was new, but it was comely, emerging from its box exactly as described: “perfectly balanced … premium materials … beautifully designed.”
My husband held it with both hands as if it were a chalice, then raised it over his head to admire it from all angles. It was a consecration. Only the bells were missing.
Read MoreI can see the Christmas tree from where I sit. It’s in the front hall, and because my office looks out on the hall the tree has been my companion since early December.
It’s artificial, of course.
Right now it is decorated for Easter, festooned with Peeps and chocolate eggs and small, fuzzy bunnies and forsythia plucked from a neighbor’s yard.
Read MoreMy glasses were dirty, they’re always dirty, and I was in a parking lot rummaging around in my ridiculously giant pocketbook for the little blue microfiber cloth, which should be where it belongs in the zipper part of my bag, but never is. That’s when my uncle, whom I went to visit last week in Florida and whose car I was driving, handed me a handkerchief.
He pulled it out of his pants’ pocket and smiled.
“You have a handkerchief?” I asked, as surprised as if he had pulled a coin out of his ear.
“I always carry a handkerchief,” he said. “I put a fresh one in my pocket every day.”
Read MoreIt was a long time ago, mid-last century. That’s when I bought the angel. Looking at her, you’d think, “Hmm. She’s seen better days.”
But this is the point, isn’t it? She’s seen thousands of days. I’ve had her most of my adult life.
Read MoreI have been away, but there is no away from this. The war I watch on TV is real, as real as the ocean in front of me.
I walk the beach. I am on vacation in North Carolina so it’s not warm. Not like Florida. But the air is soft and there is no breeze and though the day is overcast, the beach is long and wide and the waves are rhythmic and gentle.
But for the war, this would be a moment in paradise. It’s tranquil and remote, off the beaten path. You can walk for miles and hear only birds and the lapping of waves.
Read MoreNearly two years. That’s how long it’s been since the big bad wolf came huffing and puffing, causing us to batten down our hatches, forcing us to stay inside. Nearly two years ago life as we knew it suddenly stopped. Before was a different world. There were smiles you could see. Handshakes between strangers. Kisses among friends. Galas. Parties. Celebrations. Crowds without end.
Read MoreIt’s just weather, people say. What’s a little rain? What’s a little snow? You shouldn’t let it affect your mood.
But it does. It’s hard to be cheery on a gray winter’s day.
Think of it as silver, my granddaughter, Amy, says. Amy doesn’t need the sun to be happy. She is the sun. She’s away at college now, she left in September, but she continues to message uplifting sayings often written by anonymous someones to feed the world’s weary souls.
Read MoreEverything has changed since that day. The house in which I grew up. The neighborhood. People I knew. The music we listened to. The way we listened. TV. Movies. Manners. The way we communicate.
I picture the day. It lives in my mind. January 20, 1968, a Saturday. The wedding was at 3. My mother wore a long, teal green dress with three-quarter-length sleeves. My father wore a black tuxedo with a gray vest. There were six bridesmaids and six groomsmen. Do people say bridesmaids and groomsmen, now? The words feel antiquated, stale on the tongue. The bridesmaids wore red velvet gowns, fur hats, and fur muffs. It was very Doctor Zhivago, which was a style at the time.
Read MoreWhen my daughter Julie was 5, I caught a flu, took to my bed, closed the bedroom door, and told everyone to leave me alone.
Her older brother and sister, as well as her dad, were fine with this, but Julie kept slipping me notes: “I hope you feel bedder.” “Want me to make you a baloney sandwich?” “How about if I read you a story?” Each note was accompanied by a drawing of me looking sick and her looking sad.
Read MoreIt makes me happy to think about them, two people I don’t know, a man and a woman with whom I shared a waiting room for a little over an hour a few weeks ago.
There were six of us in the room, five waiting for the same doctor who’s been known to run a little behind, not because he’s on a break somewhere, reading a John Grisham novel, but because he spends extra time with people who need extra time. And don’t we all need extra time these days?
Read MoreI didn’t mean to fall in love with him. I came to Florida to rescue him. That was the first time. It was March and his wife had just died. And there were COVID-19 restrictions: No wake. No funeral Mass. No funeral. No friends stopping by.
Leroy, my uncle, was alone in a home he had always shared. And then his knee gave out and he fell. An ambulance raced him to a hospital. After a few days, he was given a cortisone shot. After a few more days, he was transferred to a facility for rehabilitation.
Read MoreIt had been 311 days since I’d seen my youngest grandchildren. We’d said goodbye the Monday before last Christmas in a parking lot in Connecticut. My son had rented a car for the occasion, and driven from Manhattan. His wife was back at their apartment packing. Two weeks later, they, their three children and Daisy, their dog, moved to Scotland.
That day in the parking lot of a strip mall, we spied a small restaurant, which was still serving food outside. It was a mild day for winter, but still chilly. We sat at separate, metal tables, with our jackets zipped and scarves around our necks. The kids ordered hot chocolate and chicken fingers. The adults drank coffee. All of us chatted about Christmas and the new year and what it would bring.
And we pretended to be happy.
Read MoreNext time, I will tell you what it was like getting to be with my grandchildren after not seeing them for a year. Next time, I will tell you about Euan, the 8-year-old, and how big he’s grown, how he is devouring Harry Potter books, having seen all the movies and how, as we were out walking one day he paused in midsentence to point out a single, pink rose. “Isn’t it beautiful, Mimi?” he said. Next time I will tell you, too, about the 12-year-old and the 14-year-old.
For now though, COVID-19 continues to steal the show.
Read MoreBefore I was an adult, I never heard my father swear. Not even damn or hell.
I’m sure he knew his share of curse words but he didn’t use profanity around me. Nobody I knew did except for my friend’s mother who said things like, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me patience,” and “Sweet God in Heaven, don’t make me have to come upstairs and get you,” which she claimed were prayers of intercession, not curse words. And my Uncle Frank, whom my aunt started to date when I was around 8, and whose language was salty because, my father explained, “Frank is in the Coast Guard,” leaving me to believe that the sea, which to me was Nantasket Beach, was as full of colorful words swimming about as it was of fish.
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