There Is Still Everything Else

The end of August and the beginning of September are just flying by.

Blogging has been difficult for a while. When life seems depressing, I'm inclined to just not mention it. It's far more fun to write about toads with Global Positioning Systems, or write about flower pictures -- or even rant about the latest issue of Vogue with which I've tortured myself.

This sunset on September 3rd was unusually spectacular, and of course, I really couldn't take a good pic of it as we were zooming along in the car with fifty million jackasses on our tail, all of whom were more intent on going 60 in a 35-mph zone than in appreciating the glory in the sky.

My mother and father taught me to stop and look around me to see what life was about. I've tried to remember that, and I'm trying harder than ever to remember that life is about the air we breathe, the miraculous nature of our existence, the love apparent in the intricacies of creation ... but it's been heavy going lately, because my mother has stopped practicing what she preached.

I downloaded Skype, which currently allows me to call free of charge to any phone in the US -- and thus allows me to call Mom every morning at 6am. She's 81 now, and still maintains by herself her 4-bedroom house and property. Well, except for mowing the chunk of land where she and Dad had their nursery business. A friend of ours mows it every few weeks, which is good to know, as the property is on a hillside and pretty tough to traverse on Mom's huge riding mower.

Mom has refused to call me for about 18 years, because I got an answering machine to pick up if I wasn't home. Well, now, she has called me a couple times: to tell me that my father died, to let me know my sister was in the hospital, to ask me to bail her out of some scam she'd got herself into. Three times, is that it? Yep. We wrote letters instead, and I'd call her when my worrying about her became overwhelming. This past spring she stopped writing back.

So anyway, the Skype thing is timely, I suppose, because Mom certainly sounds like she needs me to check on her every day. She's withdrawing from life bit by bit, retreating into memories that are more like dreams, with characters changing roles and voices, time slipping backward and forward. I don't know how she's managing to keep up with the world, frankly. I just say "Good morning, Mom!" and then listen for the next hour or more to the same memories, complaints, regrets, and bitterness ...

Bernie reminds me that the person I remember from 20 years ago is already gone.