A Perfect Whatever It Is
I woke up sans alarm at 3AM, knowing there was no going back to Nod, and I sucked down a first cuppa joe and I did get up and write, rather than fight. Write, don’t fight, good motto. My waking pre-verbal thoughts were along the lines of “what a lousy night sleep…” And “oh shit, I’ll be dragging my ass later at work.”
Then, owing much, I believe, to the work in these pages, those words soured in my mouth. They were cloying, unsuitable. Quickly the refrain was more like “sleep was elusive, but I did some writing and enjoyed the quiet hours” and appreciated the shift which came unbidden. I took a deep belly breath, grateful for the sleep I did have, for a house, the prospect of spring, and black mounds of mulch.
I’ve had some messy and ungrateful days, but I agree with Joe Walsh that life’s been good to me so far. I don’t yet know what it will all add up to, but, as John Bayliss used to say, as he drew a figure in the dirt, “It’s a perfect whatever it is.”
It’s been three years today since my friend John died of COPD (RIP, my old friend) and I once had this macabre desire to see what would happen if I called his number. I didn’t delete it from my phone for months, couldn’t make that step yet, imagining that it kept him close in some way.
“The number you are trying to call is unreachable.”
That’s the answer I got. It was definitively different than the old one, which went “the number you are trying to reach is not in service.” I wondered if this was this some existential attempt at humor, as in “the dead person you are trying to call is unreachable.”
I was interested in this idea of dead people in my mobile. I found an old journal note that said –“Deleted a bunch of old numbers from my Android yesterday. Just felt in the mood, as I sat in the parking lot, after work, transitioning. I 86’ed M’s number, my first dead guy. I almost dialed it, to see what message I got, then realized it’s doubtless been reassigned and it just seemed weird. Deleted as well as the veterinarian, not needing her anymore because of having had to put Willie (our dog) down. It’s like deleting Willie from my phone. K said she did the same with her cousin and it felt like she was killing him again. ‘Killing Me Softly,’ from his phone, as Roberta might have sung it.”
Phone numbers or not, I’ve learned that proper grief can open up a deeper place for lost loved ones and lodge their spirits more deeply within you. Makes me think of how Dr. Bayliss, his spirit also so lodged, used to remind many of us that “death doesn’t end a relationship,” alluding to the sentiment in I never Sang for My Father. That’s advice to be grateful for, as I think of my relationship with my own father, sixty years since his passing.
I give thanks to a long-departed writer, Longfellow, for words that are more than a little relevant, from A Psalm of Life —
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time
“Act,” he says earlier, “act in the living present” and that is my intention this day, grateful for so many, seen or unseen, known or unknown, better armed and better off for their presence in my life.
