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Cabin Fever Plus Magic's Price-Tag
Jan. 7th, 2018 11:24 amCabin fever hit me in a big way yesterday. I could feel my attention span shrinking as I grew bitchier and bitchier.
I haven’t even worked out for a couple of days.
A discipline problem, yes? If I were not so incredibly undisciplined and lazy, I’d be thanking the Universe for the opportunity of being locked up in the house for three days because, you know, it’s not like I don’t have tons of stuff to do.
But I need distraction.
I need to be magically transported to Belize for a day. A house party! With tropical sunshine and parrots and deep blue cays and highly entertaining guests who can talk about the Mitford Sisters and Ken Kesey!
Then, as the tropical sun smears the sky with purple, gold, and apple green, and begins its descent behind the oh-so-storybook palms, I’d be magically transported home so I could feed the cats!
-12° Fahrenheit when I woke up this morning.
Tomorrow (thank Gawd) the weather is supposed to break. It’ll be in the 40s. Bikini weather.
###
Long phone conversation with Eleanor whom I’m determined to keep in closer contact with because I told her I would track her, and there are some promises you simply must keep.
E has a close friend named Vivian who was also an acquaintance of mine back in the day. Vivian always lived to me what seemed like a charmed life: She spent most of her 20s traveling to exotic locations throughout Asia with her handsome boyfriend, Guy. She came back to the States, ditched Guy, and somehow – without any academic qualifications at all – managed to talk her way into an extremely high-paying job as an educator at Kaiser. Acquired, in short order, a mansion in Piedmont – kinda the Brentwood of the East Bay – and a beautiful daughter named Anna.
Like all of us reformed hippie types, Vivian was absolutely gung ho when it came to childrearing. Anna went to the best private schools; Anna had the advantage of every supplemental education available from music and art lessons to summer acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater.
“Anna’s got cancer,” Eleanor told me on the phone.
Not just cancer.
Stage IV rectal cancer.
###
I know a number of people who’ve lost children. I absolutely don’t know how one deals with that loss, and I’m waaaay too superstitious to start speculating.
The older I get, though, the more I think it’s an explicit tradeoff.
You can lead a charmed life, but the Universe always extracts its fee. Demands its sacrifice. All magic comes with a price-tag.
And as an outsider looking at someone else’s charmed life, you’ll never know what that price-tag was. Or even whether it’s been extracted yet.
I haven’t even worked out for a couple of days.
A discipline problem, yes? If I were not so incredibly undisciplined and lazy, I’d be thanking the Universe for the opportunity of being locked up in the house for three days because, you know, it’s not like I don’t have tons of stuff to do.
But I need distraction.
I need to be magically transported to Belize for a day. A house party! With tropical sunshine and parrots and deep blue cays and highly entertaining guests who can talk about the Mitford Sisters and Ken Kesey!
Then, as the tropical sun smears the sky with purple, gold, and apple green, and begins its descent behind the oh-so-storybook palms, I’d be magically transported home so I could feed the cats!
-12° Fahrenheit when I woke up this morning.
Tomorrow (thank Gawd) the weather is supposed to break. It’ll be in the 40s. Bikini weather.
###
Long phone conversation with Eleanor whom I’m determined to keep in closer contact with because I told her I would track her, and there are some promises you simply must keep.
E has a close friend named Vivian who was also an acquaintance of mine back in the day. Vivian always lived to me what seemed like a charmed life: She spent most of her 20s traveling to exotic locations throughout Asia with her handsome boyfriend, Guy. She came back to the States, ditched Guy, and somehow – without any academic qualifications at all – managed to talk her way into an extremely high-paying job as an educator at Kaiser. Acquired, in short order, a mansion in Piedmont – kinda the Brentwood of the East Bay – and a beautiful daughter named Anna.
Like all of us reformed hippie types, Vivian was absolutely gung ho when it came to childrearing. Anna went to the best private schools; Anna had the advantage of every supplemental education available from music and art lessons to summer acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater.
“Anna’s got cancer,” Eleanor told me on the phone.
Not just cancer.
Stage IV rectal cancer.
###
I know a number of people who’ve lost children. I absolutely don’t know how one deals with that loss, and I’m waaaay too superstitious to start speculating.
The older I get, though, the more I think it’s an explicit tradeoff.
You can lead a charmed life, but the Universe always extracts its fee. Demands its sacrifice. All magic comes with a price-tag.
And as an outsider looking at someone else’s charmed life, you’ll never know what that price-tag was. Or even whether it’s been extracted yet.
