Another Place I Hoped to Never Be.


 

First let me say the bear photo probably has nothing to do with this blog. It is just one of the photos I have taken recently that Windows 10 has allowed me access to. And it is a photo of which I am very proud of. And which scared my sister because she thought I was more intelligent then to get this close to something that large and unpredictable. I didn't admit it to here but I was scared shitless after I took my photos.

Obviously sometimes my right brain gets in the way of rational thought. Like when the Hondo fire came over the crest within a half hour of my house in Questa and I took roll after roll of film with a 50 mm lens, not a telephoto, and was unaware of the sparks falling out out of the black clouds of smoke over my head until a week later I got the prints back. 

But there are events and emergencies in our lives we cannot hold a camera as barrier between it and us. Real life which is not even recordable when it is happening. But sadly I am gifted or plagued with absolute recall usually triggered by an anniversary, holiday, or sometimes even a song or a smell. Thanksgiving seems to have it all. Christmas too. And not good memories. Warning: I will be in the worst of moods between now and January 2021. Let's be realistic January 21, 2021.

Mom got breast cancer before Christmas and put off surgery until after the new year to not ruin Christmas. She recovered faster than I did. I blamed Christmas for years from the age of 12. She recovered and did not die until she was 67 and I was an adult and still scared of Christmas. Course, I had my head injury on December 24, 2011. Mom was again putting off going to the doctor to not ruin the holidays when she died on Thanksgiving. God will get you. It took years for me and my sister to recover from avoidance of Thanksgiving. It is next week and my sister has terminal cancer. Let me say I have absolutely no plans to ever embrace the holidays ever again!!! If I could go to deepest Africa today and not return until Epiphany I would.

And to this great history we add Dictator Trump (the Jim Jones of Washington) and his attempted coop. Covid-19 and its new horrid spike. And that I turned on my new computer this morning to discover my new speakers did not work. The scale telling me I regained three of the seven pounds lost. Not even whipped cream on my last cup of coffee is helping. My mind in times of trouble is a lot like me taking a picture of that bear. It focusses on the light on its face, not its claws. I have occupied my waking hours with the pictures of my prince of cats Windows 10 is holding hostage in Photos. Wednesday I was getting the flooring bought to be laid in the future AirB&B, making a dozen masks with matching scrub caps of my sister and her staff of nurses, buying new fabric when I already have tons, and cleaning up the messes in my house. Tomorrow is painting the apartment kitchen.

Covid means there are no invitations I have to make excuses to not attend. I am definitely not decorating for the holidays.

In the storage shed I have thousands of dollars of holiday ornaments I collected but I no longer hang. All were bought, one or two at a time, in an attempt to trap some fragment of joy out of the holidays since I was 12. I am holding my breath until Epiphany.

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysNovember 20, 2020 at 8:05 PM

    So sorry to hear that. I know your sister is fighting cancer but she is still working, how does that work?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JBinford-BellNovember 22, 2020 at 7:11 AM

      It is a day by day decision driven by the fact that if she quits work she has no health insurance to pay the medical bills. Don't you love our shitty country. to quit work is to quit treatment or choose to die sooner rather than later.

      Delete
    2. Ien in the KootenaysNovember 22, 2020 at 9:45 AM

      That is just so insanely wrong.

      Delete

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