Reporting In

It has been a rough couple of weeks.

I waver between “shake it off” and “ride it out.” In between, I obsess about everything. Covid, my age, not being productive enough, my floors (although the old man got me a new mop which is space age and amazing), my writing, the attic, endless winter, my insufficient volunteering, my shoulder, my kids, and this cat.

Today, I missed my writers’ workshop because I had a three-hour meeting listening to presentations to a Commission on Aging committee about aging programs. I weighed in with questions now and then but resolved to scatter praise among the vendors, as we say, since I know they are trying as hard as they can to do well in a bad situation. Covid has made it near to impossible to bring seniors together and the isolation is so damaging. It’s funny that I’m as old as I am and still regard isolated seniors as people I don’t know but feel bad about.

The writers’ workshop would have been a balm on my out of control lurching from one pitiable state to another. I could have listened to other writers reading their work. I love this more than anything. The love of my writers’ group’s reading makes me wonder if I am yearning for my mother’s reading to me while sitting next to me on my bed, the bedside lamp casting a goldenness on us that was precious and private or wishing for what never happened because she was tired and already gone to bed while I read myself to sleep or listened to the radio. I loved the radio in those days. What a gift it was.

I am not 100% but I am better than I have been. I don’t know why. Maybe I rode it out.