When nostalgia hits (see yesterday), my mental viewfinder fills up with images of family and the farm where I grew up, or at least came of age. If you liked my Memorial Day post, these photos are for you. (Link follows)
The people in the image above are my Grandma and Grandpa Wagner, my dad and his dog Sarge, in 1933 when my dad was 11 years old. The garden in the story was north of the house but you can see my grandma’s pretty fish pond in the background, filled in before my memory because of the dust off the cattle pens and the hazard to toddler grandchildren. Grandma had plans that didn’t always suit farm living, but she never gave up.
My grandparents, my dad, about 6 yrs old, and his brother Ed, eleven years older. They had a good relationship as adults.
The Dierking sisters – Nora, Ruth, and Clara (my grandma)
My Great-aunt Ruth in flush times
The dugout/livestock barn/root cellar where the three girls grew up, shown during a visit by family in the late 50s or early 60s, long after it had been abandoned.It was outside a little town about an hour SW of where I live now.
Caroline Dierking on the right, mother of the girls – and my great-grandmother – with her sister Emma.
In Sheboygan, Wisconsin with my Great-aunt Emma and a little relative on her right whose name was Colleen.
My cousin Katie, Uncle Ed’s daughter, and I after playing dress-up in Grandma’s big upstairs closet. I was about 5 and worried that my dress would end me as I negotiated the steep stairs.
The Wagner munchkins, Rita, Judy, Susan, and our brother Danny in Grandma & Grandpa’s shelter belt north of the garden. Says 1957 so I was ten years old. And our mom was obviously curler-happy that day.
Tomorrow… barring anything unforeseen… my mom’s people. 💙
Looks and feels stormy out, which makes me wish for lightning, thunder, and a downpour. This morning the humidity was the same as the temperature, both in the 80s, so a rain would be soothing.
I can feel the nostalgia creeping in as the days go by – missing places that were once home, wishing I could see family who are gone. I wouldn’t tell them what’s happening now, I’d just look at them for as long as I could and remember…
The current mood has no doubt been heightened by the fact that I’m in the process of winnowing my cache of 5,500 photos and graphics and I’m finding a lot of treasures.
Texted with John this morning. A couple of pertinent comments:
“According to the daily COVID-19 update email from Emory System Communications, we have exceeded the highest peak that we ever had back in April. Emory University Hospital, the flagship, and Emory Midtown hospital, which used to be Crawford Long Hospital many years ago when I moved to Atlanta, are both bursting at the seams on the regular floors and in their ICUs. The same is true at our facility. The ICU is so full of Covid patients that the step-down unit had to be turned into the ICU, and now even that is filling up with Covid patients. The MedSurg floors next to us are becoming Covid units as well, and the fly in the ointment there is that several of the nurses and one of the techs on that unit have become infected and are out on quarantine. Despite the system being close to bankruptcy for paying nurses, they are offering overtime and hazard pay again because they are desperate for people to come in and work.
“Everyone’s nerves are starting to fray and that is showing up more and more in the interactions among staff at work, and between various departments. There have always been tensions among particular departments, but some communication could barely be regarded as civil now. And I feel bad for the food delivery people, and the family members who drop items off at the one secured entrance to the hospital. The staff there are overwhelmed, and have started basically barking at anybody that walks through the door. It is taking on a very Lord of the Flies sort of feeling, as if we are all stuck on an island and only the strongest will survive, LOL.” – John Latta
I notice, of course, that my posts are better-received when I keep everything away from the edge, but real life isn’t like that. My edgy “knowing” today is that we are two distinct factions in the U.S. – and each believes the other is plotting to overthrow the government.
And that far too many world citizens still don’t grasp that a pandemic means life changes for everyone on the planet until the virus wears itself out or there’s a fix for it. End of story, one way or another.
No rain yet. But the day, with its weird light, isn’t over.
This morning when I headed out for a walk my friend Shirley was in the parking lot so she did the rounds with me while we caught up. She lost her husband last year and is learning how to live alone, so we made two trips around the block and three around the building while we compared notes and shared encouragement. It was a much-needed serendipity to start the day, and a reminder that all of us are by ourselves in this experience called life since nobody can inhabit our thoughts with us.
This remote and solitary feeling grows daily as world events spiral out of control and human interaction becomes more and more of a minefield. There’s no safe topic anymore between one-time friends, no comment that doesn’t have to be weighed against a potential shitstorm. Every word carries the likelihood of being misinterpreted, misapplied, misquoted. If I knew who considers me an adversary on Facebook – where I post only to “friends” – I’d cut them all loose just to break the tension.
It’s July, hot summer, but other than the temps, there’s little to define the days, so I have to be intentional about mood in order not to get plowed under by ennui, a sense of suspended animation, and grief. The outdoors has a static vibe, the indoors is safe and cozy but also fairly changeless, food is a pain in the butt – what to eat when you do next to nothing and your throat feels like a pinhole…
Some days the cumulative losses of 2020 have their way with me. Tomorrow will be better.
Can’t get going today. Got up at 6:30, walked around the block, then around the building, came back inside and went into neutral. Seems like it should be about 3 o’clock, but it isn’t even noon yet, and the things I’ve accomplished aren’t visible to the naked eye, other than a passable job of making the bed.
It’s been mostly in the regions of heart and brain, the work I’ve done so far. Took care of a business detail… and spent time texting with John when he “made rounds” to check on us. My system was jammed with thoughts and emotions after we talked… a lot to process. A portion of what he said, shared with his permission:
I worked both the 4th and the 5th and they were pure hell. I worked the (once again bursting at the seams) Covid unit on Saturday, followed by my own unit on Sunday. We’ve hit our new peak, so far, as of yesterday, with no end in sight. Glancing at the system-wide update this morning, I see that uniformly across the system we are higher than what we thought was the peak (April 27th).
The difference this time is that no one is calling us heroes anymore, there’s no dropping off of food at the hospital, and, most importantly, we are severely understaffed because of the attrition that has occurred since the pandemic started.
I didn’t care for the free food and adulation; the sentiment was nice but it made me uncomfortable because I know there’ll always be a backlash, and we’re reaping that now. Nurses are “shit,” we’re “spreading this hoax ‘cold’ to make money” and everyone, including us, is just tired of it all.
There were a record number of call-outs over the weekend; so severe that the CNO and CEO showed up Saturday morning to try and calm and reassure everyone. A joke. I don’t envy them, they’ve got a real problem on their hands and it’s not going to get easier. They’re out of money and can’t use that to entice us to work more/longer anymore.
He’s called to what he does and he won’t be one of the walk-offs. Also, don’t mistake his words for “poor me.” His challenge comes from the people making this crisis worse day by day.
On the upside, only one other guy showed up for PickleBall this morning, so Kim spent his time biking on the Burroughs Trail instead. Rode from here to the trail, to Hiway 10, to South Iowa, to McD’s for a breakfast sammy, then took all the zig-zag shortcuts home. He brought me the photo above, looking off into infinity, which feels right.
The trail is named for William S. Burroughs, who moved to Lawrence in 1981 and died here in 1997 at the age of 93. Little bit of free history for you this morning.
William S. Burroughs and James Grauerholz in the alley behind the Jazzhaus in Lawrence, Kansas (1996)
Drinking pomegranate tea while fragments of thought pop in and out of my headspace.
It’s a wonky 4th, but I’m two for two so far – the traditional breakfast and a spa soak. The rest of it is gravy.
Thinking of a story I heard a while back about someone who’s managed to alienate their cache of friends and family and now they’re old and not in good health, with few human resources – a pitiable spot to find oneself in, and one I hope to avoid. But I’m outspoken to the max on social media among like-minded friends, so I always hope people who are on another page entirely will either out themselves or find the door… preferably both. They’re not the hearts and minds I’m talking to, and they will inevitably be offended. Oh well… they weren’t gonna come change my sheets at the end anyway, so…
Ray of sunshine here, veritable 4th of July sparkler! It’s those damn morose German genes, and before I bring the house up a little, let me just say this is the most demoralizing Independence Day observance of my 70+ years. If we reach the next one with our democratic system of government intact, functioning, and regaining health, we will be a blessed nation indeed.
So, the good news. The sun’s breaking through the clouds and the humidity is only 74%. The neighborhood is quiet this morning – no mortar rounds going off since last night. The flowers are perking their heads up and taking advantage of the wet air and sunshine to do that thing they do… likely only to get slammed by another rainstorm. Makes ’em strong, right? The day feels lazy and free, so imma celebrate that.
Running through my head for the past few days is the phrase “when the light goes.” The air is still and the sky has an odd yellow tinge suggestive of a planet other than Earth. As the weeks pass, any desire to mingle fades in the harsh light of day – Douglas County’s COVID cases took a jump over the weekend, in step with what’s happening everywhere in America. It’s best that I stay isolated – my anger and disappointment with people who care about no one but themselves are fairly toxic at this point. Here in town, people are generally being careful, but the virus finds opportunities. We’re under a mandatory state and county mask requirement as of yesterday, but it remains to be seen whether the holdouts comply in the same way they hook their seatbelts, buy the required car insurance, and wear shoes and shirts inside restaurants.
For the first three months inside, I sensed that I was growing old in not-good ways, but I’m on my way back. Walking, either with Rita or by myself, getting my food intake in order again, imposing a modicum of discipline on my unruly self. Life devolves quickly if not monitored and it becomes easy not to shower every single day, to eat whatever provides comfort, and to spend the hours spaced off in another world. It’s hard to stay completely tuned in to everything when so much of it is painful. So in view of current circumstances:
And I know it’s “do unto others,” but when you’ve warned them repeatedly and they continue to disregard your boundaries, shit happens. Besides…
We’ll weather this storm, as Americans do, minus the 200,000+ fellow citizens who won’t make it through, a staggering and totally unnecessary loss in a few months’ time, and we’ll go forward with what needs to be done. Because…
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Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
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