“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
“The age I’m at now, you go from being a young girl to suddenly you blossom into a woman. You ripen, you know? And then you start to rot.” ~ Liv Tyler
“People think that their world will get smaller as they get older. My experience is just the opposite. Your senses become more acute. You start to blossom.” ~Yoko Ono
Today it’s Monday, gray and gloomy.
My antidote? Photos Zippy took a month ago.
“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~Pablo Picasso
(1) Zippy and Zebu were at the tail-ends of their colds when I got sick two days before we had to start our drive to Washington. Of course. We left on Thursday morning with a big box of ultra-soft tissue and the rental car trunk loaded with Zebu’s stuff. We’d chosen a 
Chevy Impala for its impressive trunk capacity and ended up getting one equipped with satellite radio. We drove many of our 1600 miles laughing at comedy routines and only once did I fear for our safety when Lewis Black had Zebu and me (behind the wheel) in tears. I highly recommend comedy for road trips.
(2) Zippy and I are now officially empty nesters (if you discount the two dogs and two cats), and I’m handling the transition pretty well. We arrived back home late Sunday night and while I did wash my face and brush my teeth on Monday, I spent the day in my jammies on the couch, watching 
movies (Party Girl with Parker Posey and Flawless with Philip Seymour Hoffman, pictured here with Robert DeNiro), some television (The Mindy Project and Californication), and staring into space. I’ve since roused myself, put on real clothes, and rejoined society.
(3) Now that we have Zebu settled at college, I can no longer put off finishing my YA. I thought my slow progress was solely due to feelings of trepidation regarding what happens when a manuscript is polished 
and ready to go (something that feels like the equivalent of putting my heart on a platter so that others can stab it over and over again), but a couple days ago I had an epiphany about my slow progress. I haven’t just been procrastinating in an act of self-preservation, but have been writing slowly because I was headed in the wrong direction. I thought I knew the ending, but I did not. Rather, I knew the final scene but had a few key details wrong. I believe my middle-office mind knew that and was patiently waiting for me to wake up to the truth of the story.
(4) I applied to and was accepted into the Rutgers One-On-One Plus Conference held next month, which is another motivator for finishing my manuscript. Yikes.
(5) I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, but as a result of all the preparations and then the emotional aftermath of getting Zebu off to school, I’ve largely ignored the fear-mongering and bloodlust dominating the airwaves. May I just say, for the record, that I am so very tired of the U.S. government thinking it can end fundamentalist ideology by bombing it out of existence? It hasn’t worked before and it won’t work now. Also? Not only is it stupid, this latest bombing is illegal. But, hey, we’re Team USA! However, . . .
I knew from the moment I read about Richard Linklater‘s latest film, Boyhood, that I had to watch it on the big screen. I was intrigued by the fact that he made the film with the same people over a 12-year span, and I couldn’t wait to see it. One of the reviews said it was a movie composed of universal childhood moments and emotions, moments and emotions recognizable to anyone in the world who’d experienced childhood. Hey, that’s me! I’m a former child.
Yesterday as Zebu, Zippy, and I walked into the theater, I was prepared for what I was about to see. Or so I thought. In reality, I’d overlooked some pertinent facts:
No, I didn’t bawl throughout the movie. Yes, I did tear up near the end with Zebu sitting between his father and me. Mostly, I was gobsmacked by how it felt as if our lives were playing out on the big screen. And that’s where those universal moments and emotions come into play. Because while our family dynamics have not followed anything like the film family’s trajectory, it all rang true because every single one of us on this planet is either a child or a former child. And if you’ve had parents and/or are a parent yourself, the film conjures up an additional whammy of recognition.
I’m grateful to ‘Boyhood’ for capturing the moments my family experienced over the past twelve years. While the faces and haircuts aren’t exactly the same, the feelings are spot-on.
Ellar Coltrane as Mason Evans, Jr.
I didn’t used to listen to music while running because I didn’t like how the earbuds force-fed my brain the music. The sound felt too close and too loud. Too much.
Then in January I began what turned out to be six months of PT that, for most of that time, kept me from running. And then once I could start running again, I ran on the one “flat” street in my entire neighborhood, the same street I’d walked twice a day for the past six months. Up and back and up and back and oh-my-goddess-am-I-really-traveling-this-same-stretch-of-street-AGAIN?
So I started listening to music while I ran. Fortunately, it didn’t feel as close and loud as before, probably because I knew the music was the only thing that could keep me motivated.
This morning it was Sly & the Family Stone. Even while slogging up a half-mile hill (today was my first day all year that I attempted running from the bottom of my neighborhood to the top!), I had a big ol’ smile on my face. That’s pretty damned impressive.
If you don’t own any Sly Stone, I highly recommend it. Smiles at no additional charge.
As I perused my photos, hoping to pluck an image or two from the obscurity of my hard drive, I came across a couple unsettling pics.
Years after this ash tree was photographed, it was attacked by an unidentified blight and is no longer in our garden.
(Just realized that the neighbor’s crab apple tree in the background was also cut down. Not to mention that the snow is also long-gone. HAHAHA! Ahem.) Then there’s this selfie for a passport photo from a “few” years back:
Those glasses, the dangling jewelry, the barely-gray hair . . . no longer. The only constant is my deer-in-the-headlights expression whenever a camera’s aimed at me.
Tracy Abell 