Queen Mary 2 Leaving Southampton

Small things can bring perspective to living. 

As I stand on my balcony on Deck 5, I know I am less than halfway up the ship's deck levels, nonetheless, I am looking down on a host of seagulls feeding on whatever has been churned up by the side thrusters pivoting this vessel 90 degrees in her own length. 

Looking down on birds gives me pause. I have never experienced bird flight from above them. Wow! I don't care that gulls are scavengers and are not noble birds. As they feather their wings to catch the updrafts enhanced by ship movement, they are objects of grace and delicacy. 

And, just when I am becoming accustomed to looking down at them. I am again jolted as one soars inches away, looking at me as I watch his brethren. (Good thing I had a tight grip on my camera!) 

As I watch these birds, I can't help but wonder what else I may have missed by living my life at eye-level. 

Today's lesson: some times you have to look down to look inward.

Coping

BLAST!!

I have been coping really, really well with Mom's passing: no crying jags, a few weepy bits as I began to transcribe her journals and stories,  moments of frustration when I began to call her. Mostly over the past months I have been sad/glad that she is in a place where she neither hurts nor suffers personal indignities. I have been grieving but not mourning and believing she would be pleased with this approach to the situation.

Then I saw a commercial for a Mother's Day bouquet. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks that this is the first year in my entire life that I have no mother to send a gift to on Sunday! DAMN!! It hurts!

This delayed reaction to personal loss is nothing new. Every time I have lost a relative or dear friend, I have appeared rational, calm, organized and unflustered until 5-6 months have passed. Then, WHAM! Some small thing ignites memories that overwhelm me for a while.  Five months after Daddy Fred died, I was walking down the stadium at a football game, smelled his pipe tobacco and fell apart before I got to the Ladies' Room!  Grieving for Baba came when I scented White Shoulders during a Christmas open house. I was poleaxed the day I found a Valentine card my Dad had sent me in college. Tim's mourning was prompted by the arrival of a pitcher of Budweiser at a sports bar. I realized Emmy was really gone when I finally had to throw away my too-cracked-to-use-anymore Bojangle's cutting board. EP's moment occurred the day I gave one of her angels to a friend whose troubles were overwhelming her.

The people I've loved and lost are still with me, part of me; they are significant to my ability to "put on my big girl panties" and go forward. To paraphrase George Wade from Two Weeks Notice, they are the people in my head advising, encouraging and consoling me . . . forever.

Scattered Thoughts

A former student sent me a journal because it had a Kafka quote on the front and she was reminded of the class she took in high school. I was touched by the thoughtfulness and the reminder that a teacher's influence seldom wanes.

I put the little book in the decorative box next to my big chair, thinking I would use it in the future. I opened it a couple of days laters when I had no paper and jotted a thought. That experience has become a habit. A skim of a few pages offers a look into me:

• Does hair conditioner really condition or does it merely coat hair?
• Why does Marty Stuart wear an ascot?
• I enjoy brief romances.
• Which is the more powerful song: "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" or "Amazing Grace"?
• When does rough weather become turbulence?
• I envy my friends at the same time I cherish them.
• Should you even try to fight Fate?
• What if fairy tales were real?
• I envy Barbara Machu Pichu, but not enough to go there. 
• How will TBBT end?
• Bookends are becoming scarcer.
• All the ads and interviews prompting dieting or bariatric surgery discuss the health benefits (undeniable) while ignoring the cosmetic/emotional changes necessary after enormous weight loss. What do you do with all that extra skin hanging everywhere? How do you cope with the increase of attention after years of hiding?
• Phone companies espouse great deals for families. Where are the ones for us singles? we are a huge demographic!
• The Legends of Dining connect of spot meals would make a great tv show - chefs cooking in places with no electricity, no running water, no power tools.
• I need to dust off the EOS and go take pictures!
• I just sent a pic to Robert Reynolds from his high school days. One of the joys of retirement has been sharing old photos. No wonder Barbara is taking her pictures out of frames and putting them in albums. Perhaps photo albums will return?
• I found a living sand dollar! How do they live anyway? I think they must east crabs as tree was a teeny, tiny crab caught in the one I found.
• Are we still a military-industrial society or have we become and informational one?
• Is it right to Goggle someone I just met?
• I really like a recent commercial for some makeup product where the woman announces "I will illuminate every room I enter." What a magnificent goal!
• I am not a Princess Grill type of woman.
• Alaska 2016 - what to wear? where to go? what activity level?
• I did not expect replacing my front fence to be such big deal? When did fencing become a landscape feature requiring more decisions than buying the house in the first place?
• What's happening to Daytona? Why is Junior saying it will never be the same?
• The Wrecking Crew - behind the scenes of rock and roll. What's the name of the musician Bill introduced me to when we met Stephen King? 
• What becomes of used books that can't be sold or traded?
• Why shouldn't reclaimed water be used to make beer?
• HUGE sound from micro speakers - will teeny become the next big thing?
• Is off-Broadway more influential than Broadway?

 NO doubt about it - I have a scattered brain! And I like it!