And End of October

Six hours after beginning to write this, I remain stymied by it.  Mike's mom called Saturday morning to ask if we were okay.  Mike was still in bed when she called so had no idea what she meant.  Had we both been up and ready to go out to breakfast an hour sooner, we would have been on the street of the synagogue shooting while it was happening.  This is our Saturday routine.  The synagogue's street is one I regularly do my long walks on so has been pictured in many of my "out on my walks" posts here over the years.  It is where I take almost all of my fall leaves photos.  It intersects with my beloved cobblestone hill, aka The City Street We'd Love to Live on Someday.  Our Dunkin' Donuts is two blocks away from the synagogue.  The theater where we just watched A Star Is Born is also nearby.  (A surreal sight is the movie theater, drugstore, public library, and ice cream place in the background of news coverage of a neighborhood vigil.)  The yard of the little stone ranch house across from it is planted every summer by what seems like a million dollars' worth of rainbow-hued flowers.  (Another surreal sight has been that of a CNN anchor reporting in front of it.)  The survivors of the shooting were taken to the same hospital where Mike's dad died a few years ago.  Some of the victims' funerals were held across the street from our apartment.  Coworkers and neighbors have more direct connections to the synagogue and are suffering more significant losses than these this week, of course.  For us all, this hits home.  I took my little gingham ribbon-wrapped bouquet of orange roses to the synagogue this morning, to honor this neighborhood, its first responders, the lives changed in it, and the lives lost in it. 

One coworker took her kindergartner twins shopping Saturday afternoon and was asked by one if someone would shoot at them while they were out.  Another coworker reported that her own synagogue was protected by officers in two strategically-parked police cars Saturday. . . .How many other cities have been through all this before, of course--the sidewalk memorials, the news coverage, the outrage, the questioning, the seeing-one's-own-town-in-and-on-the-news, the traffic detours, the funeral-after-funeral-after-funeral, the "victims identified" horror, the "victims' stories" sadness, the President's visit, the calls for donations, the announcements of blood drives, the defiant t-shirt slogans and signs, the city-wide vow to come back from it even better. . . .We are far from the first to go through this.  I lived in Baltimore, an hour from D.C., during the September 11th attacks and had lived in New York City the September before, and the heaviness felt here this week brings back the memories of that time.  It is our turn here now.  I don't understand hatred.  And I see this week that I don't understand it any better now than I did seventeen autumns ago. 

Meanwhile, it was a perfect fall morning here, with all the sunshine making the trees glow.  

The leaves are beginning to change color, and the sidewalks are every day taking on more of that scattered-jewels look I love. 

My sweet cobblestone hill is coming into its fall glory-- 

--even though police tape and memorial stars now line one end of it. 

This beauty and these signs of solidarity have to be my focus this week, though.  Forget the police tape, Val.  All the kindnesses will carry us.  A Boston hospital had a huge pastry order delivered to a local hospital this weekend with a note that read "We stand with you. . .Stay strong."  A neighborhood collection was taken up to have a bunch of pizzas delivered to the local police and fire stations located three blocks from the synagogue.  Local museums and attractions have offered free admission for families this past week.  "Need a friend or a shoulder?" our breakfast spot's sidewalk placard read by Saturday afternoon, I later learned.  "Coffee is on us today."  May I collect goodness and do my own part to spread it, all my days. 

God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this.
Let me straighten after pain, as a tree straightens after the rain,
Shining and lovely again. . .

God, make me brave, life brings such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight; help me to see aright
That out of doubt comes light.

-Author unknown, from Prayers for Healing, edited by Maggie Oman

♥

Mid-October

'A weekend admiring Lake Erie, some beautiful walks in my favorite season, watching The Blair Witch Project and A Star Is Born at local theaters, pumpkin cupcakes and a pumpkin-cream cheese roll, a visit with Mike's mom, multiple Monarch butterfly sightings, Stuffed curled up beside the radiator, World Series playoffs, catching up on "This Is Us" and "Better Call Saul," more work on my 1980s memoir, a camel-color cardigan with cream cuffs, "Mud Mask" color nail polish, a coworker who just earned a well-deserved new position, a rainbow, reading Lost Moon:  The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, and discovering that pink pumpkins exist. 

♥

September Sunset

Tonight

Cat-Fur Heart, Anyone? :)

'To be taken as a sign, methinks.  ♥ 

Could We Start Again, Please

Sweet Stuffed is asleep beside me while I type, for starters.  The vet visited Friday afternoon to treat an overgrown dewclaw, trim the rest of Stuffed's nails, and to shave some of the matted fur that I've been too afraid to handle on my own.  He expertly and most efficiently did all these things but also said that Stuffed, at 19, is experiencing "Old Cat-ness" now and that we should just love him and do our best to take good care of him, especially since Stuffed can no longer take care of himself as well as he used to.  It is harder for him to bend and stretch while cleaning himself, for example, so we need to be the ones to wash his paws and paw-pads.  At this age, he went on, a cat's skin is so thin, it can tear just by scraping up against something, and its bones are so frail, people can literally break a cat by not handling it gently enough.  It is good that Stuffed wears a jingle-bell on his collar, he added, so there's less chance anyone will accidentally turn too fast and step on him.  Stuffed is down to five pounds now too, he said, and when a cat's skin has become as thin and fragile as Stuffed's now is, he explained, it's typically in the next six months that "real problems" begin.  

With "six months" seemingly echoing after the vet left, I spent the rest of Friday afternoon and evening bursting into crying jags, wishing I could go back to the beginning with Stuffed and do it all again.  That Stuffed avoided me the first three hours after the vet-visit was understandable but didn't help.  When he finally re-approached me, slowly walking toward me in bed only to curl up at my side unexpectedly, I started crying yet again.  ('Sweet Stuffed, ♥ no way for him to win with me Friday.)  I knew this was all coming someday, of course, but someday was narrowed down so suddenly.  As Mike pointed out Friday night, yes, Stuffed's old, but he could live five more years; The vet can't predict the future.  I am already suffering some of the loss, though, and am still choking up multiple times a day when I think of all this.  I have heard "six months" before about loved ones and have clearly survived, but there is something about this innocent little soul and the idea that he doesn't know what I know. . . .I already feel gutted by it.  I have already prayed to Sommer and asked her to take care of him after he passes.  I believe in such things, and she was a lifelong cat-lover and cat-rescuer, and if it's possible, I know she will do this for me.  Appear to him even before he passes, please. . . .I want him to be used to you already. . . .Don't let him be scared or lonely for even one second, Sommer, please, I mean this.  The thought that Stuffed could go from the warmth of my arms to hers is the only one really bringing me any peace these past few days.  ♥  I am having a hard time here. 

Ohhhhhh, my heart.  I get so very tired of this loss business, for all of us. 

The Highlight of My Walk

This sweet face brightened the end of my last walk.  If (s?)he continues gracing the window this fall, I'll be delighted.  The wagging tail and lively eyes that followed my steps the other night were my favorite things about what was, hopefully, one of the last ultra-humid walks of summer 2018. 

♥

Late August Walks

I love this time of year with its vibrant colors on flowers and leaves alike and its gorgeous golden light, a few weeks that flaunt the best of both summer and fall.  It heralds in my favorite months and seasons, making it all the sweeter to me. 

♥