Yesterday, today, and tomorrow – 318.5

I wanted to provide a little bit of context for yesterday (at least for the poetry part; I think the day itself and how it progressed was pretty clear).

Many years ago, when I was a missionary, they had a conference for the sisters, and one of the workshops was using humor to deal with adversity. The sisters presenting it had many different ideas and stories, but one thing that they mentioned that stuck with me was writing a poem after having some really bad times.

Several months later, my companions and I had a horrible week. The weather was foggy and horrible, we weren’t getting any mail, people weren’t there when we arrived for appointments, people who were there asked us to stop coming, and when a letter finally did come for me, it told me that one of our cats, Rosy, had died. The nadir arrived one night when we had been at our apartment, and needed to briefly go to the church for a quick meeting.

We didn’t want to carry everything back to the car, so we did not have anything with us. I believe there was no one else there for the meeting when we arrived, so it was a useless trip anyway, but that doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that on our way back, on this dark and foggy night, we got a flat tire. We couldn’t see what we were doing, we did not have any phone numbers or change with us, so we just decided to walk back to the apartment, arriving after curfew, and worry about it in the morning. We did call the district leader to explain, and maybe get some sympathy or commiseration, and nada.

(Of the many problems with male-female communication, the most annoying may be the tendency of males to want to resolve and forget, rather than listen and sympathize. They just do not get it.)

Anyway, missionaries write weekly letters to the mission president, reporting on their activities, and I wrote a poem, getting it all out. Sister Metcalfe’s letter just referred to my letter, saying, “That about covers it.” Then we pretty much forgot about it, except the APs (assistants to the president) showed up at our apartment a few days later. We were confused, and they seemed kind of awkward, and then finally they just said, “Sister Houck was kind of worried about you.” The Houcks had read the letter, and did not realize that the poem had gotten in out of our system. To be fair, that conference happened while we were still under the Botts, so they didn’t know about the workshop. We just burst out laughing, and then assured them we were fine.

Christmas Eve day was truly horrible, and that was especially true in that the only reason I was even out there was to try and prove that something could actually go right, and that the weather was not going to win, and that failed. My sisters and I were talking, and unanimously agreed that this was the worst Christmas ever. (Runners up were the year Dad left, the very tense year before Dad left, and the year Weston’s bone cancer became unbearable we had to take him to Dove Lewis and put him down. The vet had seen him the day before, and we thought we were going to have more time, but he took a turn for the worse during dinner.)

However, I got home and found several supportive messages on Facebook, we had dinner and played Scrabble, and I read A Christmas Carol. The next day there were no presents, but it was a very quiet day (even Misty didn’t come), and we just kind of enjoyed each other, and it was okay. I’m still glad it’s over, and I will be glad when 2008 is over. I’m hoping it will make a difference.

In addition to finding support, and having some good quiet time, I did write the poem and that exorcised the bad feelings. I guess it’s a little bit punk rock. Let me digress again.

When Lance, Julie, and Maria went to Metallica, they had an extra ticket. Lance and Lynn came over for dinner first, and then Lynn was going to hang out with us during the concert. She and I went to get the pizza together, and she jokingly asked me why I wasn’t going. I said, “I guess I’m not angry enough.”

That is a fair reason not to be a fan of Metallica (even though I appreciate them and can tell they are good at what they do), or metal in general, but I am a punk rock fan and that is associated with anger as well. However, when I am listening to punk, or at least the punk I like (Ramones, Clash, Rancid, not the Sex Pistols), I don’t hear the anger. I find it kind of joyful. I know they are writing about horrible things, like child abuse and drugs and alienation, but that’s not how it makes me feel. It’s almost like they take the bad, but then they make a joke of it, and the joke is fun even if the inspiration for the joke wasn’t, and so they get it out of their system. Maybe metal just needs a better sense of humor.

The point of all this is, of course, that no one needs to be worried about me.

So that explains the yesterday; what about today and tomorrow?

I’ve been diverting away from my intended writing quite a bit, following my emotions, which is fine, but I do want to wrap some things up. Similarly to what I did before leaving on that fateful trip to Australia, I shall be writing every day till the year is over. We have wonderful things in store, covering a three-part series on the end of the world, a review of significant events of 2008, and a preview of the future.