The Coffee Table

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Saturday morning, December 12, I found the email inviting me to the December Friends of Berryville Library meeting, and marked it on my laptop calendar: Thursday, December 10, 5 p.m. I checked online weather for Thursday, December 17: warm enough to melt the impending snowstorm, and felt pleased.

I had no idea I had missed the meeting two days earlier. Then someone emailed me the minutes of the meeting. I have no idea what day it is anymore.

My daily rituals are simple. I turn on Mr. Coffee, loaded the night before, and put a small saucepan of milk on the stove to heat up. Though we haven’t lived in Louisiana for many years, we still make our chicory coffee au lait. If my wife wakes early, we sit in bed and drink our coffee and solve the world’s problems. If she sleeps in, I check the weather, the local death count, my email and news headlines before I join her. After a while I shower and start my day; she does some exercises and likes to take a walk.

We have a whiteboard on the refrigerator where I write the day and date for her 88-year-old mother, who lives with us. If we are working outside or running errands, or have appointments, we write that on the board.

Last week, the board stayed white. The whole world was white—the first significant snowfall in at least four winters let us gawk at the frosted forest, the songbirds thronging at the feeders, the deer, squirrels and bunnies foraging in the white world. My wife trudged through deep snow to Kings River, to watch eagles zooming overhead, accompanied by Tootsie the wonder dawg.

I always told people that if I could get out of our driveway, I could go to town. By last Thursday the driveway had melted, even though the car was still encased in four inches of snow. After my errands, I staggered over the still-frozen walkway to haul in my purchases.

I don’t know what day it is anymore. I write it on the whiteboard every morning for Grandma, yet every day seems like Saturday. Intellectually, I know that if I intend to visit the farmers’ market, the post office or a hardware store, they close by noon, so I’m safe on weekdays. I don’t know the library’s revised hours. If I take trash to the dump, they close at two on Saturday.

Still, I am mystified. It’s not like the “Groundhog Day” movie, when everything repeats. It’s just—what day is this? As a retiree, I am not bound to a Monday-thru-Friday schedule; I don’t have end-of-the-year reports to turn in. When I was teaching school, I had to close out the fall semester, and prepare for the spring semester. Not my problem no more.

Every day is Saturday. Paul Simon wrote “I get the news I need from the weather report.” It might be a day to run errands, split firewood, or just hunker down with a good book.

I have ultimate respect for people who have to go out and work, in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, grocery stores, cops, delivery drivers, EMTs. What a blessing I have! in this stage of life to stay home. If our children were small, they’d be doing homeschooling. But they’re grown.

What a curse! We cannot visit with them, except online, perhaps. They have their own lives, but Christmas (and Thanksgiving, and New Year’s) used to be a time to gather together, to reconnoiter. As adults, we reposition ourselves. We don’t change their diapers, we don’t drive them to Little League or high school plays or club meetings, academic competitions, or a college dorm. How much fun when adults faced children for Quiz Bowl! How wonderful to see the kids in recitals, plays, presentations, sports events! In more recent years, we participated at Poetluck and Last Saturday Fayetteville.

So… with apologies to Bing Crosby: “I’m dreaming of an… online Christmas. With every Christmas card I don’t write. May your days be healthy and live. And may you live to see Christmas, next year.” Enjoy your remaining 2020 Saturdays.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I retired last year after working 61 years(most of that 7 days a week). Friends and family were concerned how I would be able to handle it. Doing well at it. Most days I have no idea what day it is and when I get up I usually have absolutely no plans. Life is GREAT!

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