The Blur...A Disconcerting Miracle

Suddenly, my Andrew Harvey book, with his name authoritatively carved in capital letters across the bottom, turned into “When Harry Met Sally.” Don’t know how that happened. Just looked across the pile on my office coffee table, with its candles and coasters and camera and cashews, remotes and mouse pad and chocolate covered raisins, and there, amidst the twine and tape, (maybe it was the HA) “When Harry Met Sally” suddenly appeared, clear as day, and I thought, What’s that doing there?

Everything has broken down or run out, as if from over-use. My mouse is shot. I pulled the thumbdrive thingy that makes the mouse work without a cord out of its port so that I could plug in the camera, and the insides fell out. Both printers are out of ink. Even the furnace blinked off two times in the past week.

The last few days are a blur of socializing. Now Henry is sick. Rain is predicted and the chance, afterwards, of freezing rain and you might as well say it: just plain ice. Donny is contemplating getting some of the four feet of snow off the roof before the rains come and I’m contemplating getting out to the cabin before the ice.

Mary and I were wanting to get together, to have friend time in that way that normalizes life in these periods when you don’t know what day it is. She’d e-mailed me saying, “I think after the holidays no one is quite themselves.” I replied, “Yikes, is that ever true.”

But neither of us had a quiet house in which to get together. Her husband had the week off of work, and my daughter and grandson the week off of school.

But there was the cabin. So, using the broom handle like a cane, I took myself out there, Mary in the lead with the coffee pot. I hadn’t planned to even attempt it until Donny headed out to feed the birds. Then I said, “Hey, while you’re out there, see if you think I can get to the cabin without slipping, and if you do, turn on the heater, please.”

I’m feeling a little more like myself now but I don’t discount the blur. That there are days on which “When Harry Met Sally” replaces Andrew Harvey, Tuesday feels like Sunday, and normal life is distant, is still a miracle. Disconcerting, but a miracle.