Sunday, August 16, 2009

Ghosts Appear and Fade Away

Here is a weeping willow we saw on our hike while on vacation.

Maybe it's the time of year. I'm always weirdest in August. I seem to go through a kind of emotional molting every year about this time in order to gear up, or more accurately, brace myself for the Fall and Winter. Don't get me wrong, I love Fall and the early part of Winter. It's just that it's when a lot of the bad things have happened to me in the past.

I had a friend who had cancer twice in his life. The first occurrence was in high school and then later in his twenties. He was one of the first bone marrow transplant patients in Iowa, and he's still alive and kicking and stirring up shit in his forties. But once we were working and he was telling me he was feeling kind of sad and anxious and couldn't figure out why. He came up to me about an hour later and said, he finally figured it out. It was because it was March, and both times his cancer had occurred in the Spring.

It's like that for me too, but it always takes me a bit to figure it out every year. Duh. My mom died and Coadster and I got into our accident in October. Stinky had meningitis and my mom's birthday were both around Valentine's Day. So, this has always been a reflective time for me. It's not bad at all, it's just like everything is a little tinged with sadness. I'm not all morose, and contemplating going Goth or anything, I'm just more of my quiet, less social self this time of year. In some ways, it's probably good that I give myself (and those around me) a break for a bit.

That having been said, I had a lot of great experiences this week. The camping trip was wonderful. I'll go into more detail about that tomorrow. Then when we got back on Friday, I went to see Colin Hay at the Englert Theater with a friend of mine. The show was amazing and absolutely perfect for my frame of mind. "Overkill" could easily be my theme song around this time of year. I was surprised that he could still hit the high notes in all the old Men at Work songs too. His band kicked ass, and I found his wife extremely entertaining to watch dance around and whatever the hell else she was doing up on stage. If you get a chance to see him, I highly recommend it - especially if you happened to be in high school in the eighties and apparently remembered every song from a couple of albums. Ahem.

So, yeah. It looks like I'm back blogging and trying to sort out all of my shit in front of an audience... And how have you all been?

13 comments:

Ananda girl said...

I have been good Churlita... went on my first date and it was nice. Yay!

I too have a down part of the year in Feb when my mom passed on. It makes winter seem to last forever.

Cool photo! Glad to have you back.

laura b. said...

Welcome home, Churlita. I can definitely see how big events like that would color the seasons for you.

Colin Hay! So cool

Pamela said...

Good for you. We like to see you sling your shit.
Oh, this and that.

crazy4coens said...

Welcome back!

I've always been moody in August, too. (Still not sure why.) It is good to take time to recharge those emotional batteries.

Great photo!

Thanks for sharing.

Tara said...

Welcome home! I'm glad to hear that your friend is still stirring up shit after his cancer battles. I can definitely understand how certain months bring back memories. I usually feel sad around Winter, but it's not about anything particular, just that it gets dark much earlier and it's hard to plan anything to do around the weather.

My internet went down again yesterday but a cute, chatty cable guy came by and helped me out with it.

j-dub said...

"emotional molting" is the best new phrase I've heard in a long time. If I borrow it in the future I promise to give you full credit.

rel said...

Churlita,
Glad you're back; missed you while you were gone.
I'm covering for a friend this week so it's back to work.

My school days were a little before the eighties. :)

MrManuel said...

Pretty scary to have a time make you fearful like that. Hopefully, something wonderful tops the bad this time and when you think of that time of year, you have a good feeling instead.

booda baby said...

I'm pretty damned relieved it's not just me. I really like blogging but since it requires writing and I do that a lot during the rest of the day, sometimes ... well, definitely lately - I've just wanted to watch romantic comedy flicks.

We just got back from the Midwest, where the hints of autumn are turning into declarations and there was a WHOLE lot of melancholy going on. Even though we were laughing a lot and drinking even more. Ha. I don't know how anyone could escape it. You breathe it in. And, if you're not the sort to crack, it's soooooo nice. I'm glad you're not the cracking kind. :)

Churlita said...

Ananda,

I'm so happy for you. Like I said, I'm going to have to live vicariously through you now.

LauraB.,

Thanks. Colin Hay was really cool. I hope you get a chance to see him.

Pamela, I gotta go with my strengths, and apparently, shit slinging is one of them.

Crazy,

I'm definitely recharging lately.

Tara,

Yeah. He's married and living in Portland now. We're still FB friends and he seems really happy.

JWilliam,

Have at it. Use it anytime you need it.

Rel,

Aw. I missed you too. I hope work goes well for you.

MrManuel,

Thanks. I hope so too.

Booda BAby,

I'm pretty flexible. I bend pretty far, but I haven't cracked yet.

Susan said...

My life has been crazy and new and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Johnny Yen said...

Welcome back!

Aside from being worried sick about money-- my wife got laid off in June-- things are good. Some days you've just got to count your blessings. We have two healthy kids and a roof over our heads.

Not Fainthearted said...

One of the biggest boons of this blogging thing (IMHO) is that it is so easy for me to look back and spot these kinds of patterns. The helpful part is that I now have proof that I have the up-side of the cycle too. And so do you.

So. It's a season. There's a season for everything. this is your season for this.

See! Isn't self-knowledge cool???
;-)