thisnewday

A few weeks ago, just before her birthday, I'd seen a large, probably metallic ring wrapped in thick strands of red and white nylon cord at the Michael's craft store near where I live. Attached to the ring were three different lengths of the same red and white cord, each with a hand-crafted, tubular-style bell hanging from the end of it.

I thought the bells were quite artful, in their rustic fashion, not fussy or showy but functional and durable as well as melodic.

In fact, I thought they were nearly perfect except for the decorative cords which adorned the ring and attached them to it. Because, although they were in tune with the season, that really wasn't what I'd been looking for. Instead, I wanted something that would remain appropriate beyond the season--along with surviving the winter weather.

The LAST thing I wanted was something which, come springtime, would look like one of those sorry decorations that someone had neglected to take down and store for a future holiday. And so I left the bells where they were hanging and chose some golden-yellow straw flowers instead. Because that shade of yellow had been her favorite color.

A couple of weeks later though, after I'd finished the rest of my Christmas shopping, I thought about the bells again.

But this time I drove to the Marshall's Home Center, which is in the same strip mall as Michael's, and began perusing their somewhat randomly-displayed goods. And there, I found another strand of bells. Two, in fact. One in bright gold, the other in bright silver.

They were more traditionally-shaped than the tubular ones, but were also hand-rendered from sheet metal--which I sort of liked. But they were hung on something like the baling twine that I'd seen during haying season on my grandparents' farm. And the finish on them looked like it came directly from the spray cans we'd used to "customize" our bikes when we were kids. (Our fathers said we'd "ruined" them.)

But now it was the day before Christmas and I was desperate. I continued through the store, searching even the disheveled "sale" tables for a chain that might be substituted for the baling twine.

Then I thought about the tubular bells I'd seen previously at Michael's. If I could bother to re-hang the sorry pieces of bling that I'd found at Marshall's, I could surely do the same with the ones I'd really liked at Michael's. If they were still there, a day before the holiday.

So I walked a couple of doors down to Michael's and found my way back to the now sorely-depleted section where the Christmas decorations had been.

I located the rack where the tubular bells had hung but found, in their place, dozens of what looked like over-sized sleigh bells instead. Once again I went trekking through the store, this time hoping to find a strand of bells that had perhaps been misplaced in the holiday frenzy and was thus serendipitously awaiting my return.

But alas, no such luck.

Drifting a bit aimlessly now, I found myself back in the section where the remaining bells still hung. With desperation setting in again, I looked more closely at the sleigh bells--trying to decide between them and the artificial bling next door.

Suddenly, at the very back of the display, I caught a familiar profile. Pushing the sleigh bells aside, I found three sets of the tubular ones. The way they were hidden, I wondered if maybe a store employee had been trying to save them for a friend or was just hoping to scoop them up after the season. (On the other hand, it could also be that some harried stock person was simply condensing the leftovers in the quickest way possible.)

But now I had another problem. How the heck was I gonna move all the bells that were hanging in front of the ones I wanted? Should I call someone from the checkout line--where they're totally slammed with last-minute shoppers--or should I attempt it myself? Because, if I dropped those suckers, it was gonna be hella noisy in there for a minute.

With the holiday looming, and needing daylight to complete my plan, I started pulling them off the long rod they were hanging on, finally managing to hook all twelve sets of them over my left thumb.

With the three sets of tubular bells finally within reach, I noticed that one of them in the nearest set had a slight ding in it. I immediately thought of the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back--and wondered if the same idea applied to sleigh bells and thumbs. As it turned out, I did manage to remove the damaged set so I could get to the second-to-last one on the rack.

And then, adding a second miracle to the one celebrated by the season, I managed to get the others back on the rack without mishap.

Next, in a nearby section of the store, I found a length of metal chain--which somewhat matched the bells--and a packet of mounting rings to secure them to it.

Then I went home, removed the bells from their red and white cords, and gathered up a few tools to take with me for the on-site part of the project. But before I left, I texted my daughter that I was heading to Eastwood to do a "craft project" for her mom. (She likes me to keep her informed, especially when my whereabouts happen to be in the city.)

Upon arriving, I found that the gate where I normally enter was already closed and locked because darkness would soon be falling. So I continued on to the far gate and then slowly made my way through that quietest of all neighborhoods.

Beside her marker is a white ceramic angel that I'd gotten before the permanent marker was in place. And it was on this angel's out-stretched arms that I'd decided to hang the bells. Which is why I had to finish the project on-site. To, you know, be sure that the chain was cut to the right length and that the bells would hang just right once they were in place.

By the time I finished, the light was beginning to fail and I was getting cold. But when I got back to the car, I discovered that my daughter had texted me, thanking me for letting her know what I was up to and saying that she'd like to hear about the "craft project" when I came for Christmas dinner the next day.

So I got back out of my car, which was backed into a seldom-used service road, and walked back to take a picture of her mom's angel with the tubular bells. Because, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And this time, before I left, I told her that she'd be loved--and remembered--by everyone at the family table tomorrow... 

LPK
Dreamwidth
12.27.2019 

As she walked through the house, she carried a lit cigarette, casually, as if it meant nothing.

She was with someone else, one of their daughters, perhaps, who seemed oblivious, as well, to what was happening.

When he followed after them and said she couldn't be doing that, it wasn't clear how, or if, she had responded. Like a ghost, perhaps, whose own presence was like the smoke drifting off into the air from her cigarette.

He told her that he couldn't be with her, if this were how it was to be, that they both needed things to be different. That he'd thought they could be.

Afterwards, when there was nothing more to be said, he felt his love flow out to her, enveloping her, and hers flowing back to him.

And then they both disappeared, like the smoke, as in a dream...

LPK
Dreamwidth
7.18.2019

This afternoon, I drove into the city to the house on Mooney Avenue. I shoveled the sidewalks and front steps, which had the 14" of snowfall on them from earlier this weekend.

Following Martin Luther King Day, today, school will be back in session tomorrow and I wanted the walks to be cleared, at least in front of the house I own, for the kids returning to class.

Because there was ice on a lot of it, I opened the 5 gallon bucket of sand on the front porch and only then remembered that I needed to refill it.

Which meant taking a break and going to Lowe's, a couple of miles down the highway on that side of town.

After sanding everything down, I took the back way home through the city. Which took me past the cemetery where we'd had my wife's one-year memorial just yesterday.

So I stopped there and paid my respects, retracing our recent steps through the deep snow. On the surface of it, near the headstone, I could still see where the Priest had strewn the customary almonds and honeyed wheat.

Then I drove a couple of sections over, and towards the back, to her mother's and father's gravesites. Which is something I always do when I visit hers.

I never knew her dad, who died when she was six, but I always take a minute to update them on whatever family things I think might matter to them.

On my way home, I picked up an early dinner at McD's and decided to give Ridley Scott's A Good Year another chance, and I'm sort of glad that I did. I guess the lemon that I'd been sitting on, when I watched it last week, must've finally run out of juice.

Even so, it's been a very rough week because it's hard not to remember things from this time a year ago. Especially about this night which turned out to be my last sleeping in the lounge while our oldest daughter took the overnight shift, at her mother's bedside in the ICU.

It's hard not to remember being awakened, early that morning, with the news that she was failing and that our other daughter, who lives on the other side of town, had been called and was on her way in.

I remember the details of it, some of them anyway, as if it were yesterday, and can't decide, even now, if I should try to remember all of it and, in that way, pay homage to her struggle.

Or if I should just, you know, in the natural course of things, allow myself to forget.

And in that way to finally allow her, and myself, our needed rest...

LPK
Dreamwidth
1.15.2018

Yesterday, I finally bought one of those crappy-looking, plastic shelf units that I'd seen at Lowe's. In another lifetime, which now seems longer ago than I would've dreamed was possible, I'd have sprinted up a steep run of attic stairs with dimensions in hand, pulled out some pieces of seasoned hardwood, run them through the table saw, and built the damn thing myself. But those stairs are no longer there, because the house itself is gone, and I'm no longer one who sprints up stairs. For any reason.

So now, in the dining room, next to an E-Z Home armoire, china cabinet, and chest of drawers, all made in China from the finest particle board, stands this latest answer to temporary need, already filled with our grandson's puzzles, games, Hot Wheels, Tinker Toys, Nerf guns, crayons, markers, coloring books, construction paper, plastic musical instruments, fold-up putting green with USKids putter and balls, etc., etc.

Ironic, then, that the motivation for all of this was to get the lingering remnants, from our recent solar system project, off the ancient and battered dining room table from my wife's childhood home (now also gone from the former immigrant neighborhood of East Washington Street) on which were served so many hundreds of meals to family members, friends, and the latest arrivals from Ellis Island.

Of all the things once held by that house, of all the people and objects that passed through its doors, this table is one of the last survivors. But the veneer that once covered its top is gone, the leaves, that once extended its hospitality beyond the large and fatherless family which in those days surrounded it, have not been seen in years, and the structural piece, which connects the table top to its pedestal base, is badly split.

So I told my wife, when she got home from work this morning, that I'd finally be turning it over and getting it fixed. Glancing at it, she said, "That old thing has gotta be a hundred years old." And I said, "Yeah, but it's what we've got. Like you and me..."

LPK
LiveJournal
2.19.2012 (a)