We walked early yesterday morning because I had a Zoom session with my fellow BC stutterers at 10:00. The meeting was wonderful fun, as it always is, but we are also talking more about advocacy and Aidan. It was a great session, and when it was done, I could feel how antsy Sheba was for a walk, so I fed everyone their lunch and then Sheba and I went for a walk and then to Nester’s to fetch raisins for my bake of cinnamon raisin bread.
Making the bread was a highlight of my day. I love getting my hands into the dough. The bread I’m making is best left to proof overnight, so I de-gassed it this morning and it’s currently proofing for a second time, but just for an hour before it goes into the oven for another hour. Then, warm bread in my stomach!
Another highlight of my day was noticing an Asian dinner for sale in the deli. I bought it because yesterday was My Day and I loved the thought, when it came time for dinner, of only having to heatup the dinner in the microwave and getting instant satisfaction while a movie began on the telly.
In the evening, I went to my desk to write this post, and on the desk beside me was my dough, and it was rising beautifully. I could hardly wait to bake it this morning. I wish I’d started baking bread a long time ago. As of right now, I’m having nothing at all to do with sourdough. Because I lost my reading mojo, baking bread is a delightful new hobby, and there’s lots to learn.
Last night, as I lay on my chaise, I got up and I was instantly uplifted by the site of my living room which is now quite empty. “The wall,” was the sofa serving the living room, and a sideboard behind it serving the dining room. Now the wall is gone, and I love the change. I really, really like the feeling I get from the big open space.
Sidebar: Why ‘the chaise’ all the time? It’s because I can slouch down on it, supported by pillows, and hang my feet off the end. Actually, more than just my feet, the lower half of my calf is also hanging over the end of the chaise. And all this is because of my bone spurts. My right Achillies heel is badly swollen because of the spurs, and it hurts like bejesus to have anything touch it.
I had the most wonderful talk with Dwight last night, that became a talk with both Dwight and Laura. I called him because of an ‘epiphany’ I had while watching a rom-com that I liked a lot. The couple, the protagonists, marry at the end. Duh. Wedding scenes are a literary trope, but for some reason, watching this one hit me very, very hard. I’m going to me 78 years old very soon, and only in that moment as they said their vows, did I get some understanding of why people marry. Put another way: I suddenly had an emotional understanding what I was missing, what I was incapable of feeling: love. I believe that having been neglected my entire life, I never learned what love was. I never felt it, neither for me, nor from me, except for animals. No wonder I am single. No wonder my relationship with Steve fell apart.
And thinking about all that, I was emotionally overwhelmed when my brain suddenly shifted, unbidden, to realize that I had bonded with Steve and Dwight during the five years we lived together. Many nights back then, I lay in bed and wondered whom I loved more, Steve or Dwight.
I’ve never truly understood my deep affection for Dwight. He’s a very private person, he gets uncomfortable when I talk about our friendship, but he was not at all uncomfortable when we talked last night, and Laura, hearing everything joined in, because Dwight contributed in a big way about his feelings and Laura was truly grateful to hear all he had to say.
It all began with me explaining that I felt that I had bonded for the first time in my life with living kind wonderful people, he and Steve. Both Laura and Dwight thought what I was saying made total sense. Dwight responded by saying that he felt the same way. He opened-up about his home experience that had him flee his family, and he said that he found kinship for the first time when he met me. I am his closest friend.
It's just a word, ‘bonding,’ but for me it has great meaning. Those boys saved me. They are the two people in my life with whom I am in constant contact on FaceTime. They are the closest thing I have to family, and Stephen comes with lots of extended family.
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I have always hated December. Nothing ever happened on my birthday, my friends were tied up with their families at Christmas, and Christmas, for me, meant a lot of work until Connie died. Nobody forced me to do it; it may even have been my idea, trying to do the impossible and make us feel closer as a family. I’d cook the turkey, box up the dishes, cutlery, nice glasses and a tablecloth and I’d pack it all, plus the cooked turkey and two casseroles, one with mashed potatoes and the other with mixed vegetables, into two large duffelbags, and Id drive to Connie’s care home, serve us in the recreation room on card tables, then pack up all that remained and drive home.
The next day, Don would give me a card with a cheque inside for fifty bucks. There never was a message, but he was very generous with is praise for the dinner and he recognized my effort. It took us about half an hour to eat. I don’t think anyone of us truly wanted to be there. There was no joy.
At home, I wouldn’t watch television. It was all about families coming together and opening presents blah blah blah. I didn’t want to see that, so I read. There was a very large chair in our living room, with a matching upholstered footstool. I’d buy compressed Prestologs to burn in the fireplace, fast food from somewhere, and I’d get onto the big chair with a blanket on me, and I’d read.
I’m immune, now to all the decorations and falderal. I turn off the radio so as not to hear the carols, lights are minimal here, but those houses with Christmas lights look lovely through the trees. I don’t hear anything, even on NYE. So, the past few years have been quite comfortable, and since two years ago, I’ve made Christmas far more joyful by flying Paula over. I cook and nice turkey dinner for us, and I love it because she helps. We work talk, and she goes outside for a cigarette when she wants, and so it goes for the rest of the day until we eat. She’s a great friend. I met her in 1995, thirty years ago.
I can smell the bread, and its rise is impressive and thrilling. I went to bed excited about eating some, fresh out of the oven for breakfast.
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