THANKFUL FRIDAY

Here are the reasons why a daily and weekly gratitude project is so important: I have not slept more than four or five hours a night in over a week. My brother tested positive for COVID on Saturday. He’s doing okay, but I’m worried that my sister-in-law will get it and I don’t think she’ll be able to handle it so well. My chin is going through a second puberty and is broke out worse than I ever had breakouts as a teen. Chris’s AARP card showed up in the mail recently and it was a kick in the gut because Chris would be turning fifty tomorrow if he was still with us. It makes me furious that he’s not here so that we can laugh about him turning fifty and taking advantage of all the discounts. I watched a number of stories on this week’s CBS Sunday morning that left me ugly crying on the couch and one of the surprising one’s was the interview with Stanley Tucci. His wife has been gone for eleven years. He has remarried, but he said that grieving his first wife never gets easier. It is the same now as it was eleven years ago.

It is the same now as it was nine years ago.

On the outside, I look like I’m holding my shit together. I nod and smile at people. I try to speak with a light tone of voice. I tell when I am asked that I am fine and good and I hope that I’ve put on the appropriate disguise to make that look believable. On the inside, I am a dark hole of nothingness. I feel like I am two people, the one I present to the world and the sad old lady I’m trying to hide from the world. Pandemic fatigue has settled in deep, creating an even heavier blanket over the grief that comes with February. This grief has me questioning every aspect of my current life. It always does and then I feel the failure of not living my life in honor of Chris. I am stuck looking through the album of the things we never got to do together instead of turning the pages to the pictures of all the things we did get to do. I keep telling myself that I am doing my best, but I really don’t think that I am.

This week, Harry Styles the Caterpillar attached himself to the lid of his new habitat and built himself a cocoon out of his own hair. We learned that Harry has already been living for sixteen years and when he emerges as a moth, he will only live for about two weeks. His timing for turning into a moth could not be worse. Temperatures here are going to plummet and stay cold for the next few weeks. When he emerges, our choices are to let him free inside the house to lay eggs somewhere or release him out into the freezing elements. The moth is Chris. We did all that we could to make the last two weeks of Chris’s life comfortable with as much joy as we could muster. This is what I will do for Harry Styles. I’m going to make his last two weeks with us as comfortable as I can because I cannot control the weather and that is the lesson here.

Learning to accept the things you cannot control.

That is a real hard lesson for some of us. Am I grateful to have learned it? I guess… not really or maybe the assignment for this particular life lesson didn’t need to be so harsh. But I’ve learned it and I’ve learned it well. I’ve learned what I can control and that is the memories I choose to conjure up in my mind. Those memories trump the last two weeks and even the last two months of Chris’s life. Those memories include every goofy face he made, every kooky hilarious idea he came up with, and how he made me laugh every single day. Those memories are what I am grateful for today.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Weeks ago, Michael discovered a woolly bear caterpillar on the rug outside our garage door. I don’t know how the little guy never got stepped on or froze to death, but when we found him there was a thick layer of snow on the ground outside. So, we didn’t want to just toss him out into that kind of weather. Michael scooped him up into a mason jar and I named him Harry Styles, for obvious reasons. Not long after we saved him, the Cabbage was with us. She was sitting at the coffee table, eating dinner, when Michael asked me how Harry Styles was doing. The Cabbage sat up straight and exclaimed “Something’s happened to Harry Styles?!?” in a panicked voice. I quickly reassured her that the real Harry Styles was fine and then I explained that we had named our new pet after the famous (cute) pop star.

And he/she really has become our new pet.

This week, Michael carefully extracted Harry from his jar so that he could transfer the woolly bear to new a clean jar filled with kale and spinach. This is something we do once or twice a week. Every time one of us does this, we are amazed that Harry is still alive and well. Neither one of us have any skills in caterpillar husbandry. From internet research, we know not to fill the bottom of the jar with water. A misting of water every day is great. We have learned by watching that Harry prefers the stems of the spinach to the actual leaf. Michael had provided him with a stick so that he can form a chrysalis and eventually make his transition into an Isabella Tiger moth. By the time all of that happens, it should be warm enough outside to release him back out into the wild. Somehow, between the two of us, we have managed to keep this little guy alive.

This feels like a miracle, but I don’t know why. We have managed to keep several living creatures alive. We bought four chickens instead of three because I was worried one would die. All four chickens are happy and healthy. There have been days when I didn’t feed the Cabbage because she never asked for food. She’s still alive. The cat, for goodness sake, is surprisingly still with us. Josephine’s the only one in the house who I am not surprised is still happy and healthy. She is the most well cared for creature in this house. Pretty much every day, I will cradle Josephine’s head in my hands, look her in the eyes and sing I Honestly Love You to her as I am sure every dog owner does with their dogs. Maybe what makes Harry Styles the Caterpillar a miracle is that he exists at all. He made it through the dog door and into our garage during a snowstorm. That in itself is miraculous.

We are surrounded with tiny miracles. The scientific explanations for those tiny miracles only enhances my feelings of amazement for them. Beck isn’t wrong when he sings “It’s like wow!” because it truly is ‘like wow!’

MY EMBARRASSING CONFESSION

Wise

Back during my experiment in online dating, I was virtually approached by a disturbing number of inappropriately young men. Twenty three was the number all of them chose to represent their age, but I am 99% sure all of them were lying. I will admit that there was a part of me that was curious about being with a younger man, but a reasonable amount of younger. Not young enough to be my kid young. The idea of a twenty three year old boy seeing and touching this naked body, horrifies me. I need a man who’s lived a little, had some experiences, seen some things. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this body. It is a perfectly fine neoclassical body, one that has not ever birthed a child. So, I got that going for my vagina. It’s just that boys that age when I was that age were really good at making fun of a girl’s body. I expect a certain amount of cruelty from boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty six. I also lack the energy or desire to be some boy’s sexual educator.

Then Harry Styles entered my life.

He first came to my attention when he hosted SNL last year. Before his appearance on SNL, all I knew of him came from snippets of gossip and tabloids, things that never really got my attention. Then he shows up on SNL and I couldn’t help myself. I was completely charmed. I was so charmed that I started listening to his music. His ‘Fine Line’ album has been playing on loop for days now. I’ve added his ‘Adore You’ song to my love song playlist. I’ve added him to my list of hair I want to run my fingers through. He comes across as goofy and silly, but has the capacity for seriousness. I believe he might be smarter then some might give him credit for. He also has a look about him that says that he does not need a sexual educator. That in fact, he could probably teach me a thing or two. I would totally let him touch this neoclassical body.

And this not only surprises me, but it embarrasses me.

I don’t know how this punk alternative radio girl turned into a pop radio cougar. In the last two years, I have added artists such as Kesha, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lizzo and now Harry Styles to my daily musical listening. My reasoning is that the music makes me move my butt. I’ve never been the one to stand still on the sidelines of a concert. When Michael took me to see the New Pornographers, I was the only one in the middle of the crowd moving my body to the beat. I can’t help myself. Music moves me physically and emotionally.

I just wanna dance like a mutherfucker, yeah! - Kesha, Boogie Feet

In the case of the above musicians, the music is just light and fun (mostly). It allows me to be silly and ridiculous when life is so serious and heavy. There is no age you can reach where suddenly you cannot be silly and ridiculous. This is not a method for clinging to a younger version of yourself. It is a preservation of the current version of yourself.

So yeah, I’m gonna just let Harry walk through fire for me and adore me, because why wouldn’t you?!?