Sidetracked Charley

If I am going to be totally honest with myself I began to grieve for the loss of dreams on the day of Trump's inaugural address. And while we are being totally honest I did not listen to it. I read it. I have never been able to listen to him. The world he described was not one I welcomed. And one I began to fight the minute he was elected. I was mostly worried he would get us in a nuclear war. Instead he got us into a pandemic. One he refuses to admit to. Why do I think he chose this on purpose? If all the old people die he can eliminate SS and Medicare. And if it only happens in Democratic led states he can eliminate opposition to his re-election. All which should make me angry. Instead I just want to cry. Good I am self-isolating because I am crying and very unexpected times. Grief, a friend reminded me, is like that. Can you grieve for four solid years? Or is it a new grief on top of an old grief not yet moved beyond. But I accept this. This is the death of our nation. ...

I have one of those minds which seems to remember everything but where I put my keys or reading glasses. I can chimp back through visual images and recall exactly who I was with and what the joke was just before or after the shot was taken. Or remember word for word the song playing on the car stereo as I pulled over to capture that particular column of clouds. It's a gift or a curse. This morning driving south to feed two kitties there was a dead dog beside the highway. And images of the family dogs through the years clicked through my brain like a slide show. Then I identified this particular dog. I called her Ghost. A neighbor owned her and mistreated her. And another neighbor and I would feed her because she often looked close to starving. Not that he wouldn't or didn't feed her but that she was afraid to go near enough to him to be fed. One of the first things I did for Ghost was remove a choke chain from around her neck. It was way too tight and too small and ...

Memories can come tiptoeing in the early dawn or at dusk and totally knock me off my seemingly safe perch in these troubled times. It can be something as simple as pouring coffee and noticing the clock on the stove. It is around the time he would call when he couldn't sleep and he knew I was up. I loved our morning talks. And it is in the morning I miss him most. I miss his mind. And the wonderful hodgepodge of esoteric subjects we would discuss. Dawn and coffee and talk of politics and history and philosophy. A dear friend of ours, who visited our home frequently, once said we were the only couple she knew that considered debate foreplay. Intelligence has always been a turn on for me. And men that are willing to consider I am their intellectual equal I find very attractive. Mother used to tell me I would regret being intelligent. I really haven't, Mom, wherever you are. But I definitely miss those individuals where there has been a wonderful synergistic meeting of minds. I...