Light Waves

Frida, Frida, Frida. Could you quit looking at me so accusingly?
Ah. Probably not.
Well. It's Sunday evening and Mr. Moon just tried to retrieve more eggs from under the shed with his amazing SuckVacWand but we discovered that the snakes had beat us to it.
Damn.

As I suspected, the rest of our afternoon turned out to be fairly uneventful. Mr. Moon and Brenda and I went to Outback Steakhouse (I know! Really?) for lunch because it was easy and most of the local restaurants are closed on Sundays. Our waiter was Ian and I think he was somewhat disdainful of us and who could blame him? If I worked at Outback, I'd hate everyone who came in the door. I would. I'd hate the stupid uniform you have to wear and those giant knives you could butcher and cut up a sheep with and the serving of the ten million calorie blooming onions and the massive amounts of meat and fat and happy hour alcohol I'd have to serve. I'd hate using the restroom that said "Blokes" or "Sheilas" on it, depending on my sex.
But that's just me.

Anyway, I got a fabulous piece of salmon. Really. It was terrific. And I ate all of my steamed vegetable medley. I have a feeling it had so much tasty grease on it that it wasn't really very good for me, but I ate it. It was fun. I didn't have to cook or clean up and every now and then, that's worth keeping your bra on for. Can I get an amen?

While we were eating I asked Brenda a lot of questions about her years with the All American Redheads. She was on the team before they had the stretch limo to carry them around in and so there were seven women and the coach who traveled the country in a regular station-wagon with their meager baggage tied to the top. They played almost every night from September to May and in different towns every night.
And there were dating rules. And they got food allowances and their rooms and their uniforms and five hundred dollars a month which was not bad money in those days. Not bad at all. The coach was married to one of the players and that was helpful in a lot of ways. They all dyed their hair Clairol Flame Red and Brenda realized after a certain point that she had to quit the team and go on to doing something else because that couldn't be all there was to life.
And she did.
She learned about computers back when they were in their infancy and she met a tall, gentle, handsome man named Ron and she married him and they had two beautiful sons who grew up to play basketball and she and Ron were just getting to the part of their life where they could travel and do when he got ALS and he died two and a half years ago.


Listen, babies. Don't wait for what you want. Grab it and do it and make it happen.
You just never know.

So it's been a good day. I learned some things about my sister-in-law's life that I'd never known and it's a joy to ask questions and be given stories that make you laugh and think and learn new things.

I was thinking earlier tonight when Mr. Moon and I were playing cards in the dining room and Frida was looking at me with those eyes of hers how there are some people we sort of fall in love with immediately and there are some it takes a while to get to that point with and it all boils down to respect, of course, and trust and also some sort of chemical thing that I don't understand but it has to be there or the relationship will be flat somehow, no matter what.

I was thinking about this in the context of Brenda and how she's not a very talkative woman and how much time I've wasted really getting to know about her life and also how I'm going to go with Kathleen and Judy AND Owen tomorrow to meet our radiologist and how even though I would so much rather the four of us were just going to get Taquitos, it will all be okay. Kathleen and Judy and I are forming a bond and when we're together on this very serious mission of getting Kathleen all well we still manage to have not exactly fun, but, well, a not bad time.
We're goofy and honest and we try to take it all in and we each pay attention to different details and I have mental snapshots of moments that are wonderful, moments that are so hard, and moments that are just funny.
And if weren't for that certain chemistry, it would be horrid but because we have that chemistry, it's not.


I can't speak for Kathleen who is the one actually going through it or for Judy who is reliving her own cancer experience. I can only speak for myself and say that spending time with people I love and respect is incredibly rich time, whether it's spent in an Outback Steakhouse or the bowels of the hospital.
Rich.
Time.
Which makes me feel so wealthy. And grateful.

I think Frida would understand. I hope so. I hope that when she went through her hundreds of doctor visits and surgeries and treatments, she had someone there to hold her hand, to make her laugh. I wonder what her voice sounded like. Did it reflect the seriousness of her eyebrows or the softness of her parrots' feathers?

I don't know. But here we are and here we go and as I am learning from Kathleen, as I am learning from Brenda, life is not about what we are given, but what we make of what we are given and there is no one path, there is just the path we are on.

And it sure helps to have friends to accompany us, to say, "Hey! Here I am! My flashlight still has batteries. Come on. We'll walk together." And we do. We walk beneath the scary trees and we walk even when the path is not distinct and because we're together, we notice the moon above us, the stars, and our way is lit, even if dimly. And the cries of the owls and the shadows of the unknown are not as scary and we take turns whistling in the face of whatever we're afraid of and the sound of our laughter scares away the haints and soon Vicki, Kathleen's oldest friend, will be here too to join us too.

Well. It's been some weekend. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

I'm looking for the light. I'm finding it.
And that's all there is to it.

Basking in the light...Ms. Moon