Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Hark! The New Year Friday Round-Up
I should but I have no complaints. Covid/Omicron is dripping on people I know, not us yet though it feels inevitable, but we are so cocooned, it seems unlikely. I have work and meetings and writing and sifting through my house’s innards to get rid of stuff I’d forgotten about twenty years ago, the daily glorious hike through a dog park, the colder the better, and rum at five o’clock.
The three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery have been sentenced to life in prison. Two of them, the shooter and his father, were sentenced to life without parole. The third guy sentenced to life but with the possibility of parole. It’s justice, in my opinion, although I hate anyone being sentenced to life in prison with no chance of redemption, but then again, a person can find redemption anywhere if they work at it. Maybe imprisonment will bring enlightenment, unlikely but possible. There is no peace, but I hope Mr. Arbery’s family feels this is a just result.
A young guy in a Zoom meeting I was in this afternoon wrote this in the chat, “Janice is swayed so push it through!” It made me laugh, first, because he called me Janice, and, second, because he would write this in the chat where I was sure to see it. Maybe he thought old folks don’t know about the chat. Anyway, I loved it. And we did push it through but with caveats to pacify Janice.
I put my wedding dress and my mother’s wedding dress in a cardboard box and taped it shut. There is no use for either and it is unlikely that my children will want to save these garments for posterity. I just simply couldn’t throw them out. I put them in a box, taped it shut, and labeled it so when I’m gone whoever is going through the attic will open the box and admire the dresses and then decide what to do with them and I won’t need to witness what happens next.
You can quit a bad situation that has given you nothing but grief for a long time and then feel sad that you quit it. This is because you think that it wouldn’t have been a bad situation if you had done a better job, but the tricky thing is that you can do a great job and still have a bad situation. I’ve seen it happen more than once.
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Photo by Danil Aksenov on Unsplash
3 Comments on “Hark! The New Year Friday Round-Up”
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Red's Wrap 
Howdy Jan!
I remember going through my mother’s house after she passed and finding boxes of old pictures and letters. I sat for a long time perusing through both of them. Most of the people in the pictures I knew, some I didn’t. There were few surprises and many memories refreshed. The letters were an eye opener into a part of her life that I hadn’t ever known about. Given that I live on another continent, I had to make some hard choices about what to keep and what to get rid of. Her husband kept saying that no one would ever look at those pictures again, so we should just get rid of them. He was wrong. I look at them and wish that I had kept more of them and the letters. I do think that after I’m gone, no one will look at those pictures or read those letters and care much about them. It reminds us as of our own impermanence and real impact we have on the world.
In the end, I’m glad she kept them and that I have them. They are a comfort to me now. Perhaps your wedding dresses will be to your children, too.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Howdy back! I think you’re right. We have pictures tossed in boxes and now seems to be the time to put them in order and label them. Some are really precious – snapshots from the early 1900’s. So, thanks for the encouragement to keep at it.
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Howdy Jan!
I really hate digital photos for that reason. When photos were hardcopy, we took less, and they meant more. You looked at them with intent and purpose. I have tons of digital photos sitting in the cloud unorganized and not looked at. But, maybe they’ll be there after my grandchildren have passed, hunh?
Huzzah!
Jack
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