Five and oh

I was very aware of yesterday. I'd been watching it come for a couple of weeks with some trepidation mixed with curiosity: how was I going to handle the 5 month anniversary of Pop's death? It sounds like a long time, but it often feels like it just happened...or it happened a lifetime ago. Almost as if he had never really been...as if he was part of a recurring dream I used to have, and then haven't had in 5 months.


I haven't looked into whether that's a natural part of the grieving process, and is therefore 'ok' for me to be experiencing, or if this is something I've constructed myself in order to stop the daily occurance of that moment - the one where I remember he's gone, that death really did happen to him. In order to maintain that illusion, however, I've had to shut down contact with reality in many other ways. Oh, I'm not wandering around town believing myself to be in Saint Tropez, with a tinfoil hat on my head so I can hear Walt Disney when he calls to say it's time to thaw him out. I've just had to reel in my receptors a bit, so I don't feel things quite so much for a while.

That's all well and good -- psychologically speaking -- but professionally speaking, it leaves me with nothing to write about... except the fact that I have nothing to write about! The Five Month day had another focus to it, and one which forced me into a confrontation with myself. That could be a juicy piece, but from here in my shell it looks far too earnest. No thanks.

There's a bit I'd love to write, about the things I see on my way to work each morning, but my inner landscape is so dry right now, I'd suck all the fun out of that piece: Tattoo lady? Humdrum. Walking dentists? Unremarkable. Massive, hard-core military survival vehicles used for urban leisure driving? So post-modern. How about two year old boys 'gardening' with their Tonka trucks over the potted tomato plants? I got nothin' people!