Mother’s Day
On May 21, 2017 by Speranza
A week has passed since Mother’s Day but I still wanted to blog about it because there are very few perfect days in life and this was one of them. It’s strange too because it was free of most of the things I have enjoyed in previous years, such as breakfast in bed and lacy, velvety cards with the sort of tender doggerel that can swiftly lead to a sad afternoon on the couch contemplating one’s own mortality if you’re not careful.
But there was none of that.
Little Sparrow and More
On February 20, 2017 by Speranza
Today is the last day of a few days off – no particular reason for time off – just something to break up February and offer the chance of getting some things done around the house. To that end, I have failed miserably and I don’t know why but I just couldn’t face starting a project: perhaps, because there are so many things that need attention and I feel overwhelmed. I then play games with myself all day that I will start emptying a closet in a minute, then after a snack and before you know it, yes, I have been on the computer looking at items I will literally never buy or getting lured down a rabbit-hole of dire political forecasts.
I hate to be such a cliché but there it is.
Grey Divorce
On January 29, 2017 by Speranza
The General and I were having our usual Sunday morning coffee discussion group today (only 2 people permitted, dressing gowns required) and listening to a superb documentary about “grey divorce” which caused us to sit exchanging (sometimes worried glances) as women discussed either having to leave their partners of many decades or being left themselves, each terrifying for different reasons. Of course, for the person who leaves, that ‘terror’ is often closer to excitement: the beginning of something new and a totally fresh start sponged clean of predictability, routine and the other assorted shackles of family life.
Older Women and How they Got That Way
On January 27, 2017 by Speranza
When I was a young woman just starting out in the working world, I often worked with “older” women whom I looked down upon for being perpetually cynical, negative and hard-boiled. Often they were also the kind of women who might sit on stools at the bar in their fifties, sharing limericks (and possibly Tequila) with sailors. As a confident newlywed, I once admitted at work that my new husband and I had opted not to have a television at all.
“Ha!” one of them snorted. “I give you 6 months!”
Since I felt infinitely superior in my own lofty, more evolved sphere, I was able to let this kind of low remark pass but I remember thinking privately I will never become like them.
I don’t think I have, exactly; but post-divorce, much older now, I see the whole thing with a different lens, fully appreciating the loss of a soft, golden innocence, the piercing sadness of betrayal and the kind of resentment that can form hard, sharp crystals in the heart.