A Couple of Sunsets and Some Music You Like

[mallorys_camera]

Well, this was cool.

I was driving to a garden show, saw a mural I wanted to investigate, parked the car, leapt out, began snapping pix and heard somebody call my name—

Dayana!

One of the kids in the youth group I ran for AmeriCorps Vista five years ago.

I remembered Dayana very well because she was the subject of a fierce tug-of-war between her church-going grandma and her mama who’d just gotten out of jail/rehab (crack.)

She was clearly better off with the grandma, but loved Mama best.

I was shocked that she remembered me, but she did, she did, and she wanted to pose.

###

Garden show was basically an immersive infomercial for a local nursery, but it was nice to see spring flowers:





Just think: In a month, there may even be flowers like this in the ground!

###

Did some basting and hemming on the Work in Progress only to realize that several paragraphs have to be trashed. Descriptions of New York in the summertime: If only 42nd Street had been a couple of blocks longer, it would have led straight to hell. But In Real Life, Henry and June get married in June, so the events I am making up would have had to have happened in the dead of winter. Ugh. Completely different tone.

###

In the evening, Max texted me a picture of the site where The Little Store used to be. He’s in Monterey, visiting the L________. He did it innocently enough, and he’s certainly not to blame for the fact that his Mom is a neurotic mess; but I saw the photo and immediately burst into tears and could not stop crying till I went to sleep. Woke up this morning and started crying again.

What a pathetic failure I am!

Well, no. I’m not. Or at least—I’m no more of a pathetic failure than 20 million other small business owners who lost our businesses when the economy crashed and burned in 2008.

The banks we owed money to were Too Big to Fail.

But we were not.

And, of course, we are but a fleck in God’s eye compared to what is gonna be happening in the next 20 years as automation and the Amazon business model make more and more jobs obsolete.

Blaming myself for that is a delusion of grandeur on my part, of course. I was just another data point.

Still. If I had an Off button, I would definitely push it this morning.

Life. It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a couple of sunsets every now and then and some music you like.

Comments

[johnny9fingers]

Chin up lass, if you can weather 2008 you can cope with anything. Besides which you were once a nurse...

My mother, who ran a casualty before teaching nursing would put my bro and me off our breakfasts with graphic descriptions of stuff from the previous day. A nurse can normally cope with anything, including infant’s ‘spoldy poo, or a bad morning.

Hospitals are run by nurses, whatever doctors may say.

[mallorys_camera]

I appreciate the pep talk. :-)

[johnny9fingers]

You can do taxes. This is a skill which I found to be one that has eluded me; but that could be because it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.

It is impossible for me to condescend to a person who not only can do their own taxes, but can assist others to do the same.

Well, impossible to condescend about sensible modes of living, anyway. I can still try hard in other areas, obvs. :)

[mallorys_camera]

My secret ambition is to open a business like this one:

[johnny9fingers]

That surely is the stuff of Fuseli's lost "Nightmare of cognitive dissonance".

[smokingboot]

You are not a pathetic failure. You survived, and you're decent, and you are still a creature of sunsets and music. If there's something deeper to life than bank notes, you spark up in that depth. And if there isn't, you still make a day shine.

[mallorys_camera]

Thanks. In the hour I devote every day to Writing in My Diary, I'm committed to transcribing anything that pops into my head, which is mostly snark, stories and historical detours but sometimes melancholy thoughts since I have such a strong melancholy streak. :-)

[asakiyume]

How excellent and heartwarming to be remembered. (And what a great place for you to snap her picture!)

If you enjoyed running the Little Store while it was viable, and if you had customers that loved it, then I think it was a success. We can't judge things by how they end (not to be too grim, but think of the final moments many of us will be unfortunate enough to endure--but we're more than those last moments).

But I weep for times that were good times that aren't here anymore, and for the past--even when parts of the past weren't so great--and I don't like people trying to encourage me out of moments of melancholy (necessarily-sometimes I'm open to it or want it), so ...

You're a wonderful, story-sharing data point. Glad you exist in this world.

[mallorys_camera]

We can't judge things by how they end

Great wisdom there. You really get it.

Yeah, in the hour I give myself every day to Write in My Diary, I essentially write anything that comes into my head, and often it's snarky and upbeat but sometimes it's sad, because I have a deeply melancholy streak. And you're right: I need to let myself be open to it as part of my process.