With rare exceptions, between Thursdays, the day on which I publish here, I let my thoughts rattle around inside my skull, hoping to catch a topic for the coming week. It’s as much about luck as skill, I suppose, like one of those old fashion handheld ball bearing games where you attempt to roll a ball into a tiny hole. Tuesday and Wednesday typically are the writing days, when, so to speak, I put pen to paper.
Now, if today’s piece seems a bit shorter than my usual rambling narrative, this because it is. Nothing to be done for it, I’m afraid. Life has intruded with little warning.
***
You see, in advance of tomorrow’s publication deadline, we currently are in the midst the biggest snowstorm of the winter. At this moment, it is hardly fit for man or beast.
I have completed the first of what I expect to be at least two major shovelings of the premises before it all finally comes to an end either tonight or tomorrow. Come to think of it, make that three shovelings, as I have yet to tackle the alley behind the garage, which I must first dig out to spring the Subaru that I inherited by default when Lee died. Thankfully, her vehicle rides higher off the ground than my previous ride, an early 2000 Chevy that had belonged to my dad. That car was an American beater, forever getting stuck on far less snow than we already have endured during the current storm.
Yesterday, even before the storm hit, when I should have been writing, instead I had to attend to several pre-storm errands: filling the Subaru’s gas tank, picking up a prescription at CVS, and buying supplies from two different grocery stores. I figured accomplishing these tasks would help ensure that I would not have to fight the elements or struggle to navigate the roads for the next 24 to 48 hours. Despite the fact I was out the door before mid-morning on a workday, I discovered that numerous other people had the same sensible game plan as the streets were already crowded with vehicles and there were long lines at both grocery stores.
***
In the days, weeks and months following Lee’s death, I’d wake up, and, invariably, my first thoughts of the day would turn to the harsh reality that she was gone. Throughout this time my normal waking hours often would be interrupted, sometimes quite unexpectedly, by heaving waves of the most profound grief, the slightest remembrance of Lee herself, or some happy memory of our married life, hair-triggering incredibly sad feelings from places so deep down inside me that I was not even aware that such places existed. I could feel this way for the remainder of the day until welcome sleep finally overtook me. The next morning, the cycle might be repeated.
During this period in my life, the most mundane tasks and errands sometimes provided temporary respite from my grief. I welcomed any opportunity to fill my gas tank, pick up a pharmacy prescription, or buy groceries.
***
Today and yesterday, life has intruded. However, the routine chores that I accomplished no longer hold any power even to briefly make me sanguine. Rather, thankfully, they are simply the tedious but necessary day-to-day tasks they had always been before Lee left me. It feels to me like I have come a long way in my personal journey.
