Halley
talks about cell phone manners (I can’t spell etiquette) and
mentions the concept that some day phone booths will become extinct and
kids won’t understand phone booths like they don’t understand LP’s and 45’s.
In my next sweep of the aggregator up comes the Cellphone
Booth. Hey Halley are you reading Engadget?
Gary Baseman: “A
Moment Ago, Everything Was Beautiful”
I’m not sure Gary’s art fits my tastes but the title of the exhibition
describes one of the feelings of widowhood. Before, everything was
beautiful, and now everything isn’t. That isn’t really a complete truth
but there is certainly some bits of that description that are true at times.
From
an article yesterday’s NY Times by Joan Didion.
“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We
anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not
look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an
imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or
weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not
expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.
We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with
loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe
that their husband is about to return. In the version of grief we
imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will
prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the
moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this
hypothetical healing will take place.”
There are many images and experiences in her article that perfectly
describe the experience and feelings that one goes through after the
loss of a spouse. I wish I could write so I could describe these feelings.
I have linked to the article but I’m sure that it will go behind the
PayWall soon and become inaccessible and lost to those who might gain
some comfort and insight from reading it. I will never understand the
desire by those who publish to prevent people from
reading/listening/seeing those things.
Hugh Macleod has a site gapingvoid
at which he posts interesting thoughts on Marketing. He also
creates some wonderful cartoons on the back of business cards. I
wonder sometimes where he gets the inspirations for them. I’m
sure it is not from the same place that I get my feelings, but on many
occasions they are thoughts that I have or that make me think and
examine my situation as a single parent who is a widower.
Todays cartoon “I washed away the past with my tears“,
highlights one of the confusing aspects of widowhood. The sadness
that the thoughts of the past bring, and the desire to remember the
past for the memories of the happiness we once had.
Homecoming football. The home team played very young. I think they need some more experience 🙂
I received a great gift for my birthday. A box of “Good Life for Men“. I need some.
Tonight I went to see the Tornado Tails show that is part of the
homecoming activites at her school. Each class puts on a humorous
skit and the best skit (or the seniors) wins. It was very
funny, I even got some of the jokes about the teachers after meeting
them during back to school night earlier this week.
These are the kinds of event that I never participated in when I went
to high school. I’m so glad that Lindsey enjoys going to them.
Look it’s fall here in Florida the leaf changed.
An interesting description of widowhood. I think that we spend much
time trying to understand this existence in such a way that we can
somehow keep an optimistic view. So that even in the deepest depths we
can hold on to the hope that it someday will be better. Not only better
than it is down in the depths, but the hope that someday it will be as
good as it was, and maybe in some ways, even better.
“The emotional devastation we feel is akin to a forest fire. It sweeps
through, killing all aspects of our former life with our spouse, laying
the whole zone bare, blackened and charred. Eventually, life will
return. Even more lush and vibrant perhaps. But it will take time, and
we will always see remnants of the old fire damage here and there,
despite how much it may become overgrown with new life.”
“Welcome
to Widda-World.“
Would you believe it? New Kate.
Kate was one of the first things we had in common. Cindy would
tell the story of how back in college she was watching Saturday Night
Live when Kate came on and sat mesmerized listening to her sing.
She was so amazed that she stayed up to watch SNL again in the central
time zone on another channel. I remember watching that same
episode and thinking “what was that?”. That was really different.
