Detachments

I can think of few people close to me who aren’t going through significant if not catastrophic hardships. The country collapsing around us doesn’t help, either.

A bright spot for me through these times continues to be Ember. I’ve told you how quirky and funny she is. Here’s an example: As she and I were crossing the street on our way toward her weekly piano lesson Friday night, she asked, “If you were to die by being hit by a car, what kind of car would you want it to be?”

She’s also clever. As we played a dice game she wondered aloud what were the most common rolls for two die. The other evening she announced that they were 6, 7 and 8. She’d figured out the odds on her own. I couldn’t have begun to do that.

I’m trying to detach myself thread by thread from my current existence by attempting to convince myself I don’t like Albany all that much, and what’s so special about this house, and are my zillions of oddball treasures like these really necessary?

[Piano soundtrack by Ember, who as usual didn’t want her picture taken.]

This past weekend we paid a visit to Lulu, and played a fun game called MonsDRAWsity, which requires one person to commit to memory a drawing of a monster and then describe it to the other players, who in turn try to render it based on what they hear.

We also had keyboard fun. Eleni started playing Für Elise on the piano when she was but a sprout, and got quite good, but I hadn’t been aware of Molly’s musicianship until today.

I’m no slouch either. Here I am tickling the keys while singing like a heavenly bird.

[Editor’s note: See how I managed somehow to thwack my left elbow on the keyboard at the end? It proves what I keep telling you about how I have no, um, grace.]

[Editor’s note again: I’m not the only clumsy one, though. Last week my dentist poked my chin not once or twice but three times with the sharp end of her probing tool. I have three tiny puncture wounds to prove it.]

At Ember’s insistence, we also played Telephone, despite her elders’ warnings that it wouldn’t work with just the three of us. Taking turns whispering into each other’s ears (after another round of negative Covid tests this morning, of course), it went like this:

Ember to Ginna: “Birdie.”
Ginna to Molly: “Birdie.”
Molly to Ember: “Birdie.”
E to G: “Birdie.”
G to M: “Birdie.”
M to E: “Birdie.”
E to G: “Bir—”
G: [Goes into hysterics at the absurdity.]

My poor, confused brain. At 6:53 yesterday morning I had a sudden urge to organize my pantry cabinet. I reached in and lined up the contents: Saltines, chocolate peanut butter cups, fruit snacks, cereal, frozen fish sticks, flour, rice… Wait: seafood? Oops.

Because Ember’s class has been studying Langston Hughes, she brought home this famous poem:

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams,
For when dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

It seems particularly relevant to me in this time of what is likely to be massive change in my life. Now, if I can only remember what my dreams were. I wanted to learn Spanish but my memory has become too rickety, with myelination and all that. I wanted to travel more, but finances and Covid make that iffy.

I have to say it’s been awfully nice the past year to have a real sense of purpose for the first time in years: to help Ember. When she goes back to Chico, I have some serious reinvention to do. Warning: if anyone dares counsel me that “When one door closes, another one opens,” or “There is nothing permanent except change,” I am likely to defenestrate them.