Louise Brooks wisdom

I copied out a couple of tidbits from Kenneth Tynan's profile (1978), which I read on my flight home from Chicago, a few days after Mom died. I was reading Mom's New Yorker. 

I am still seeing her in that hospice bed. She was unconscious, lying on her right side. Her face was relaxed and a bit pinkened (thanks to the morphine, no doubt); the pulse in her neck was quite rapid. I noticed a smattering of freckles that I had overlooked before. She was wearing her watch and her wedding ring. (I brought the watch home with me.) It was, as she had put it the day before -- one of the last things she said -- unreal. Or all too real. 

The great art of films does not consist of face and body, but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation. 

Over the years I suffered poverty and rejection and came to believe that my mother had formed me for a freedom that was unattainable, a delusion. Then . . . I was . . . confined to this small apartment in this alien city of Rochester. . . . Looking about, I saw millions of old people in my situation, wailing like lost puppies because they were alone and had no one to talk to. But they had become enslaved to habits which bound their lives to warm bodies that talked. I was free! Although my mother had ceased to be a warm body in 1944, she had not forsaken me. She comforts me with every book I read. Once again I am five, leaning on her shoulder, learning the words as she reads aloud "Alice in Wonderland."

secret

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. 
— Socrates

sunday sermonizing

A nice bit of Orwellian wisdom (with a healthy dose of male gendering): 

All through the Christian ages, and especially since the French Revolution, the Western world has been haunted by the idea of freedom and equality; it is only an idea, but it has penetrated to all ranks of society. The most atrocious injustices, cruelties, lies, snobberies exist everywhere, but there are not many people who can regard these things with the same indifference as, say, a Roman slave-owner. Even the millionaire suffers from a vague sense of guilt, like a dog eating a stolen leg of mutton. Nearly everyone, whatever his actual conduct may be, responds emotionally to the idea of human brotherhood. 

booster

I walked over to the SE Health Center this afternoon to get my second booster. It was easy-peasy, though I did have to wait for ten minutes behind a woman who was having trouble communicating with the young man at the sign-in table. Eventually, another woman volunteered to translate and that moved things along. 

As the young man was signing me in, I noticed a Jordan Peterson book -- 12 Rules of . . . something or other -- sitting next to his laptop. Couldn't help but mention it. He looked surprised and maybe a bit sheepish -- hard to tell what with the mask. He told me that he is a fan and asked if I'd read any Peterson. I said I didn't really think he was writing for me, a woman, and the young man nodded, smiling. 

The nurse who administered my shot was effortlessly friendly -- the kind of person who could probably talk to anyone. She also gave me the most painless shot ever, perhaps because her friendless was so relaxing. I sat in a folding chair for 15 minutes, flapping my arm around to minimize the soreness, half listening to my nurse chatting with her next patient. 

sunday

 I really enjoyed my Sunday walk -- about 4.5 miles on this warm, sunny, mellow afternoon. If it's not going to rain, it might as well be lovely. The past week has been unseasonably warm and there hasn't been much wind. I can feel the days getting longer. 

I took Friday off so I could have lunch in San Carlos with Kelly, Vicki, and Niu. We had a lovely time sitting outside (with an umbrella for shade). After lunch, I took a walk with Scott around the sloughs and channels near his place. Yesterday was games night at Chalon and Greg's. (Always a bit of a mixed experience -- part of me always feels like a seventh wheel . . . ). 

I realized a little while back that I have been in a haze -- I forgot to pay one of mom's bills and accidentally double-paid another one, for example. I've been feeling freakishly alone (I have no kids and I've been mostly single for decades, and sometimes it's a drag to be pretty much the only single person I know, yadayada). I've also been feeling a bit stuck, and my parents' situation makes it easy for me to dwell on the not-all-that-distant prospect of old age. You know, the usual. 

But on Friday I was talking to Scott about his current writing project, and he nudged me into thinking about doing some sort of creative work (or dabbling, at least), in part so that I might get to feeling less funk-y. I wrote a couple of paragraphs yesterday, and played the piano for the first time in many months. Short bursts of creative activity. Baby steps. 

2022

We are three weeks into 2022 already. 

After wavering and waffling about omicron, I kept to my plan and went to Chicago. All was well until I caught a stomach flu. The worst was over in about half a day -- after all of the food and most of the drink had been jettisoned, I lay in David and Lauren's spare bedroom, sleeping and reading and watching old sitcoms. 

I didn't have enough energy to change my rental car and air arrangements, so I left the next day as planned. My guts were still in a tangle and I would not have been any good in an emergency. But I slept a lot and there were no bathroom disasters. 

Ugh. 

My appetite is almost back to normal, and I'm glad to be home, mostly because I've gotten used to the relatively warm California winter.