Lessons from Genealogy

#1. European royalty used to (inter)breed like mink. Once you link up to one royal person, you discover that you are related to everybody who was anybody. Sometimes twice.

Simply,

The Alibi

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So my son tells his room-mate George that he needs to borrow George's car so he can meet me for breakfast this morning.

This is a patent lie, as Simply, Jr. and I had no plans for any such thing.

Nor were we likely to: In the first place, I rarely eat breakfast out. The nature of my disability is such that I need to eat first thing--meaning before I do anything else, including shower, dress, and drive somewhere.

In the second place, Simply, Jr. left the house at approximately 7:00 a.m. for this supposed breakfast, and the nature of my disability is such that I am not bloody likely to be up and about at that hour on a Saturday. I reach the weekend pretty well wore out, and don't set my alarm on a Saturday (or Sunday either, for that matter) for anything of less likely historical significance than the second invasion of Normandy. I would, if I were doing this breakfast out thing at all, tell Simply, Jr. that I would call him when I awoke, and we'd make plans then.

So I am sitting in the bird room minding my own business when I get a text from George, looking for his car, which has by this point been gone three hours and some change. He is not happy to learn that I have not seen my son all morning. He is angry that he has been lied to. I, on the other hand, while disappointed, am not surprised that I have been used as an alibi. It is probably not the first time, and won't be the last: My son has been an accomplished liar almost as long as he has been able to speak. Even as a young sprat, he could look Mr. Simply and me in the eye and tell us a whopper so convincing that he would have us questioning our own grip on reality.

I figured that, assuming he hadn't either wrecked the car or got arrested (again), that he would turn up eventually with a perfectly reasonable explanation. Which he did, seven hours after he'd left home.

Wonder what he's been up to?

Simply,

To Spring

My first--and probably last--crocus popped up this weekend, which got me to thinking about Spring and about the passage of time. I planted dozens of them in the woods out back of the house over a quarter of a century ago, and every Spring, like clockwork, they'd bloom among the leaves and the pinestraw and the little wild strawberries. But over the years they've been trampled by dogs and a kid, or eaten by squirrels and chipmunks, until I really didn't think there were any left. This little fella was a pleasant surprise Saturday morning.

I have photos from one Easter in the late '80s that shows we used to have a green lawn out back, too (but see kid, dogs, above), and a half a dozen flowering dogwood. Then Simply, Jr. grew up, four of the dogs went over the Rainbow Bridge, and anthracnose got the dogwoods.

Out front, we had this spectacular cherry tree that every Spring was a mass of pink blooms that seemed almost bigger than our little house. I once looked out my window to see it filled with Cedar Waxwings passing the petals to each other to eat like so much pink cotton candy. I remember when that tree arrived, so young and small it fit in the backseat of a car. We barely got it in the ground before a thunderstorm rolled in, and because we forgot to stake it, the wind tilted it a bit, and it has remained just a little off center ever since.

The person who gave us the tree and the person who helped us plant it that day are both dead, one of cancer and one of a heart attack. And after nearly 30 years the tree, too, has begun to die. The state extension people came out and said it was a fungus in the soil and that there was nothing we could do. Each Spring its blooms have gotten more sparse until this year it probably won't flower at all, for the first time in our life together at this house. Although it will break my heart to do it, we'll most likely have to cut it down this summer.

So much changes in 25 years. For one thing, Mr. Simply has gone bald. The daffodils my grandmother gave us to plant in the garden of our new home have gotten too old to bloom any more. And since those crocuses went in the ground, two dear friends and neighbors have gone in the ground, too, as have Dad's parents, Mr. Simply's parents, and my sister-in-law.

And we're getting older as well. This morning I noticed for the first time that I was shuffling--shuffling!--down the hall to the kitchen.

I eventually got my joints unlocked, though, and headed off to work. I had to stop the car halfway down the block to wait for a pair of cardinals having sex in the middle of the road.

So here's to Spring. . . and to the passage of time. As the old joke goes, beats hell out of the alternative.

Simply,

Funk

Image by albyper via Flickr

I have been in a deep brown funk for months.

And then, all of a sudden, in the course of just 24 hours, it lifted.

Simply,

I got dem cosmic opera blues (hosted by Gioachino Rossini)

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I was depressed this afternoon. Or maybe not depressed, more like sad/mad/grieving. All I wanted to do was listen to opera and cry. So I did. Listen to opera that is. Never did cry, except when I read a sad story in Crip Zen. Didn't cry, but did have a panic attack when I was reading about how "they" have destroyed Warm Springs. I was afraid I was having a heart attack. Then I was afraid it was some awful new PPS.

Whatever. The opera thing worked. I feel human again.

Here's what I think was the matter: I'm tired. Tired of being alone in this. Guilty for being a burden. Angry that my husband won't take better care of me/us.  Scared, because the truth is, he can't do any better than he is. He's sick, too. Hell, while we're on this, I feel guilty and sad and frustrated that I can't take better care of him.

Depressed that I can't afford to hire somebody to clean and shop and cook. Angry that this ever happened to me in the first place. Angry that it's suddenly getting dramatically worse. Sad. Missing the things I can't do any more, even just since last summer. Missing my dog. Missing my best friend. Missing Paul Newman. Missing Luciano Pavarotti, for God's sake. 

I finished up with the overture from The Barber of Seville and I feel fine now.

Simply,

You can get used to a lot of things over the course of half a century. I, for example, had become so accustomed to my disability that sometimes, when people asked what happened to me (or worse, what I did to myself), I had to think about it for a second. Hunh? Oh. That.

In fact, I often, and for a long time, did not think of myself as disabled at all. I swam, I rode horseback, I hiked, I even drove a stick-shift. Couldn't run or dance, never learned to ride a bike, so--handicapped, sure, but not disabled.

Now, though, it's starting to catch up with me. After 50 years, I'm having some serious post-polio sequelae. That means there's a new level of adjustment going on here. For example, today would have been a beautiful day for a walk in my neighborhood, and normally that's exactly what I would have done: Put a string on Diana and headed out into the bright fall sunshine. It's what we were doing this time last year.

However, I'm not supposed to do that any more. And I needed to go to the grocery store, too, but I just didn't have the energy. So instead, I puttered, dizzily and weakly, around the house, on and off in between some extended rest periods.

That could all be pretty depressing.

In between wanting to cry about just damn near anything and everything, though, including stuff that has nothing to do with my disability, I've been thinking that I've had 50 good years with this thing. After all, I rode, didn't I? For almost 20 years. And swam, and hiked, and walked generations of dogs.

And it still is a beautiful day, after all, whether I can get out in it or not.

Simply,

Sucky anniversary

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the day I got polio.

Simply,