Friday 12/25/099 - Merry Christmas
4:45am - Up, coffee, journal notes.
6:30am - I stepped outside in the 11-degree air, to have my morning smoke and enjoyed the beautiful sound of Christmas morning… a song sung by four or five neighborhood owls. They were signing a song that said that if the bison's weather forecast is correct… it would be a high of 23 today.
7am - I woke G up to read to her from the book I'm reading, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
I've never been a big reader, but since I've been with G, I've developed a new, re-appreciation of the written word. Plus… if I'm gonna be an 'author'… the least I can do is read a few books written in the same genre as my writing style. That being said, I'm sure Robert M. Pirsig (the author of the book I'm reading) is calling his lawyers right now, preparing a suit against me, for comparing my work to his. Here is one of my favorite lines from the book, you tell me… aren't our styles almost identical?
"I think I'll just stick to drumming," John says. Then Chris asks, "What are you going to stick to?"
"Mah guns, boy, mah guns," I tell him. "That's the code of the west."
They all laugh hard at this, and my speechifying seems forgiven. When you've got a Chautauqua in your head, it's extremely hard not to inflict it on innocent people."
So… I will now continue to inflict my Chautauqua into your heads…
8:30am - I called my daughters… Eron was still asleep; Ashley was up, bright and cheery; and Kellie was sad because she was at the pharmacy picking up one of her mom's medications that she had forgotten to get the day before. I reminded her what a wonderful daughter she is, for helping her mom, and I think it helped cheer her up a little bit. Bless her heart, she's always had to be the adult in the family… she never had a chance to be a kid.
I napped from about 9am 'til 10 (honest… I never took naps before now), and got up to have a snack. I went for a walk around the neighborhood with G… then read a little more until my next nap…
2pm - I woke up and read for another couple of hours… socialized and ate with G's family, then excused myself to bed around…
6:30pm, while they played yet another boisterous card game at the kitchen table.
Ever since my first divorce, it's been hard for me to relax and truly enjoy the holiday season. When I left my two young daughters in Seattle, and moved back to Aptos, I left part of my soul up there, and have never been able to get it back. I knew I had to leave Seattle… I didn't have the support group I needed after the marriage failed. I tried to kill myself once, and I knew that if I stayed I'd try again, and maybe not be so lucky the second time. If you missed "Please Allow Me To Introduce My Selves"... you can read more about this there.
It's gotten easier the last few years, since my daughters are basically adults now, but there is a part of me that died in Seattle back in 1989, and I don't think it will ever come back to life again.
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