Miscellany

Something not talked or written about much is the challenge of pulling oneself together after grief. And there's no time line allotted to grief, is there? It takes as long as it takes. Often it's delusional. We think we're adjusting nicely after, oh whatever length of time, and bam, it hits again out of the blue, a memory triggered by something small, something large, an old song, a beloved poem, a photo falling out of a book, a bookmark. And it knocks the breath out of the body. 

Another friend died during the past week and I feel a little suspended in time. Well, a lot. Little projects swept aside, a commissioned article I am unable to start, an editing job sitting in my files. I didn't know her very well but enough to like her when our paths crossed. She was outspoken and opinionated on her politics. And like myself, had no time for small talk. So we clicked. If we lived in the same province we would have made the friendship closer. Cancer is taking a lot of us. Frightening. Even for the so-called "clean" livers, the hikers, the vegetarians, the "honour the bodies".

I drank and smoked like a fiend for years. And yet here I am, cleaned up and sober now, and surveying the wreckage of other lives taken far too soon. The ones who would gently lecture me about my "unsustainable" habits, my "out of controlness."

I don't know why I'm jotting down these random thoughts here and now. But I'm happy, in a weird way, that the writing muse has struck me tonight in these ramblings. And maybe it will ignite the unfinished reams of writing around me.

I go through my bloglist now and it's looking mighty slim. I have an RIP section and it startles me as to the number on it. My old blogmates. Some vanish with no reason, some let us know. One sent out a bunch of postcards to us a week before she died with her photo on the front. 

But I wouldn't have missed the ride in blogland for the world and hope to continue and more frequently.

As I picked up my daughter from the airport I was astonished to see 3 RCMP officers on horseback, casually riding by my car as I waited. You will have to embiggen.