Tuesday: Time

Good morning, and I never know what typeface will or won’t "take" on Blogger, but this one appealed to me largely because of the g and the j and the y. I don't care that much for the z, but I like the tall lower case l and d and k and f and h and the interesting y. Its name is Papyrus and, among other places online, you can read about it on Wikipedia. It isn't perfect yet, and I'm going to continue my search until I find a sans typeface with the appealing g, maybe a more prominent cap, but that has a properly tailed z.

Yet, the typeface was an aside and not meant to be my direction today.

Living in a condominium apartment is, for me at this age in years and stage in life, far superior to living in a house. Even The Old Place that was built by my grandparents more than a hundred years ago as a happy home for their large family and served them well for a few years, at the best, for half a Time, two sons and three daughters, ranging from a few months (Marguerite) to eighteen (Alfred). A well-loved, even beloved, Old Place that was in my family from 1912 to 1924 and then again from 1962 to 2014. That I first visited with my mother, it'd have been 1947 or early 1948, when it was on the market and the road down front, W. Beach Drive, was a single set of tire tracks worn through the Bermuda grass. Mike may remember.

But in 2014, with thirteen rooms, including seven bedrooms, two living rooms and all that, remnant family of two aging adults had let it overwhelm us. Still, for all it had been to so many of us over the years, I confess to having broken down in sobs as I signed the contract for its sale.

If I've not admitted that here before, I might as well let it be known about me: the house my grandparents built; the flowers my mother planted in the yard, some she'd brought from the Massalina House; the fig tree that fed me breakfast so many July mornings as I walked round and round it, picking and eating as I circled; the orange and grapefruit trees Linda's mother planted by poking a hole with her finger and dropping in a seed from the fruit she had just eaten; the front yard where my brother parked his boat all those summers when he towed it over from Louisiana to ride on the Bay and spent his vacation working on it because it wouldn't run - - which over Time became a family legend; MLP - - at the Bay's edge down front, the ancient hurricane-battered cedar tree that was My Laughing Place of refuge in Times that I'd rather not've had but that come with every life (Hurricane Michael had the last word over that old ragged cedar tree four years after I left it, Puff the Magic Dragon comes to mind ...

We had our last Christmas morning there the 25th December 2014, me guilt-ridden because The Old Place felt empty and I sensed that it was grieving, feeling itself no longer loved by its family, as we'd moved "belongings" down the street into 7H. Did you ever live in a house that loved you and knew that you loved it?

The Old Place was "mine" for a while, mine only because I have this life only because Alfred died while living there. "Mine" from the day my father died in 1993, through 2014.

But early mornings as I walk here in 7H, thankful for life and Time, for life as it is, and that Life is Good, I've become uncommonly mindful that 7H isn't mine, the building isn't mine, all I own is, as is said, the paint and the space. And if I really Seek the Truth, Come whence if May, Cost what it Will, I don't own any of it, and I never even owned The Old Place as much as it owned me. It's all part of the illusion of life. I don't even own this bag of bones and hank of hair that has served me so well, it's all only on loan to me, a gift for my Time. As all those I love are gifts for a Time, our Time or their Time.

My brother was here, "home" this past weekend. My sister wasn't, but my brother was, part of the gift of life and Time. We had oysters, and when we have oysters we always recall snitching raw oysters out of the can of oysters in the ice case in the fish market when we were boys. Time, you know, young. Someone said "you're only young once", but the Sunday after she died, one of her grandsons, one of the twins, handed me a belated birthday gift from Gina, a Dr Seuss book that says "you're only old once". So I'm enjoying it. Enjoy as in cherish, treasure. Wishing you the same.

Not at all maudlin (did you know the word maudlin comes from the British pronunciation of Mary Magdeline, the sad one, they say Mary Maudlin?) this morning, I'm where I love and belong and looking forward to this coming Saturday, for the day only, everyone over in the morning and gone by evening, we're having our Thanksgiving Day. For reason: TJCC, Tass & family, are flying to Boston for Thanksgiving weekend with Jeremy's brother Ben. If you can imagine celebrating American Thanksgiving in an English household. Massachusetts is right, but English is not: they don't even know how many desserts you must have on the sideboard, much less that it's our nationalistic celebration of our escape from the tyranny of Established Religion, the Church of England.

Wait. What? Come again?

Leave it unsaid that there was no religious freedom in the colonies either, nonconformists here were persecuted, sometimes to death.

Anyway - -

Turkey, dressing, corn pudding; my personal oyster dressing that if I'm as lucky as usual nobody else will even be willing to look at it, much less want to taste it; probably something green (the best green was years ago when Chef Ray Kelly brought an elegant casserole of Brussels sprouts baked in thick brown gravy), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, sticky pudding, vanilla ice cream, a large ice-cold stainless steel bowl filled with thick whipped cream. Wine? Beer?

Joe is going to Dayton forThanksgiving with Lauren and Ashlee and Patty's brothers families at the house where Patty grew up. We think he'll be here for Christmas. Here in my office/study/den we have a new chair-bed that opens out into a better place for him to sleep.

Tuesday then. Where life is a gift in Time that is all we have. My friends, as our priest says, life is short, and we haven't much Time ...

RSF&PTL

The vessel BBC SAPPHIRE (IMO: 9504798, MMSI 305859000) is a General Cargo Ship built in 2012 (9 years old) and currently sailing under the flag of Antigua & Barbuda.