Whatever the Weather, It’s Still Spring

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 13
A friend told me it snowed the other day in the Windy City. Yet, just days before, temperatures had climbed toward 80°F.

That’s the frustration about Spring in the upper Midwest. Flowers peep out in the heat, then lose their chance to blossom when snow returns. The palette that washes across the Horse Capital of the World is long delayed in the North.

My father had a favorite ditty that made sense in the Land of Lincoln, but not in the Bluegrass State:

Spring has sprung,
the grass has riz.
I wonder where
the flowers iz.

Thanks to my father, I’m experiencing the season of renewal in a new way—in glorious color. Unlike the North, the rise of the early perennials and the blooms of the flowering trees last longer here. Now Spring in the South will always conjure memories of the man who gave me life and the spirit with which to enjoy it.

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.

I’m (Almost) Back

friend e-mailed me yesterday and asked whether I’d been out of the country. She hadn’t heard from me nor had she seen much on Lull lately. Perhaps you were wondering the same thing.

I wish I could say that my husband and I spent January abroad on a much-needed sabbatical, but we were here—in the Horse Capital of the World, yet nowhere near the horses.

After my father died, it took me some time to get his eulogy written and the final arrangements made for his funeral service. Then we spent January doing exactly what we’d been doing for months prior to moving to the Bluegrass State: dusting items, washing items, wrapping items, selling items, and hauling items to charities. In fact, about the only break we’ve had in the last year from such dreary tasks has been caregiving for my father. (Now it’s not just my thumb that hurts; I hurt all over.)

Once we emptied his house—including 500+ hardcover books—and prepped it for painters to freshen it up, we began emptying his barn. More dust, more decisions (sell it? toss it? give it away?). Every day may be a new day for some people, but we typically know what’s in store for us. (Except for that one day when a surprise awaited us: Someone ran into our parked car and totaled it.) Makes getting out of bed a Sisyphean chore.

What’s more, we had no computer at hand for most of January (we were living at my father’s house) and when we did have a computer (when we visited our own home), we had only intermittent Internet access. Some of you may remember that the Net issue has been a problem since we moved here.

However, FINALLY our cable provider sent someone who figured out the problem—though only after he’d deemed everything fine and started off in his truck. I chased him down. Asked him how he knew it was fine.

“I checked it on my computer,” he said.

“Well, do me a favor and check it on my computer,” I said.

And guess what? It didn’t work.

Turns out, the culprit had nothing to do with routers or Macs or operators or anything else the cable company had been blaming it on. The problem was a tiny piece of metal on the cable in the basement that had corroded and couldn’t hold its connection. Once it was replaced, all was well. I still have to discuss getting a credit from said company, but at least I don’t have to look for a new provider.

Oh, other things have been brewing. But for now, I just need to finish emptying a barn and then I hope to bring Lull (and my life) back into full swing.

Another friend reminded me this week of a Winston Churchill quip that may well become my new mantra: “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

[Drop cap designed by Jessica Hische.]

What Will You Read Next?

I’ve just started reading Dan O’Brien’s Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch. My father received it as a gift from a recent visitor. It’s been shuffled around from table to table, but never shelved—largely because I held out hope that my father might want to thumb through it if he kept noticing it.

Instead, I thumbed through it. Well, not really. After reading the dust cover and the first page, I was hooked. Which surprised me because I have no interest in ranching or bison (beyond the fact that it used to be on the pooch’s menu). But O’Brien masterfully weaves details into the first 50 pages about prairie ecosystems and history that probably should be required reading for every American.

Also in the first 50 pages was this sentence, which I know most Lull readers can relate to:

“I had just finished a particularly good book, Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky, and in addition to other depressions was suffering from literary postpartum and troubled by the daunting task of finding a book as good as the last one.”

May you never dwell long in literary postpartum.

[Photo from the American Prairie Foundation taken by Diane Hargreaves.]

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Last week, I drove alone to pick up the dinner my father ordered from a favorite restaurant. His hearing has diminished as his cancer has progressed. Consequently, I spend most of my days speaking at a volume that makes me feel as if I’m enveloped in a giant tolling bell, my body in constant reverberation mode.

So driving alone is a small relief. I thought I’d take advantage of the moment by listening to some music, another pleasure of my father’s that’s gone the way of his hearing. Since there were no CDs in the car, radio was my only option.

I didn’t mind. It would be good to find a station or two I liked in the Bluegrass State. But outside of Christian and country formats, the first station that played anything familiar to me was—not classical, not jazz, not indie—Christmas. There I was trying to savor a rare moment alone on a colorful autumn evening and holiday music was already clogging the airwaves.

As I turned onto the street leading to the restaurant’s parking lot, a sleigh scene stood sentry; another sleigh stood in front of the mall the restaurant was housed in.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised. A boutique in my neighborhood has been festooned with Christmas decor since before Halloween; Christmas candy and novelties cluttered pharmacies’ aisles months ago waiting to be shelved; Sears brought out its nodding reindeer in August. Mostly, I think, I was incensed that untimely sights and sounds had ruined my precious car time.

Days later as we were rearranging my father’s space for mobility and safety reasons, my husband stumbled upon an artificial Christmas wreath. Yet another sore spot for me: About 20 years ago, I ordered it from a local florist for my father. It was supposed to be REAL pine and holly and mistletoe. I didn’t learn of the mistake until the next year when my father reported that he hung “my” wreath on the door again. I asked why in the world he’d do that. I’ll let you imagine the miscommunication that ensued.

Yesterday my father made a joke about hanging the old wreath on the door this week—before Thanksgiving. The joke segued into an idea we’re still noodling on: Why not celebrate all the coming holidays now while my father can still enjoy them?

I’ll let you know what he decides. Until then, I have to prepare for every possibility.

Do you hear what I hear? “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer…”