#SoL15 Day 20: patterns and remembrances

detail from Dali's The Persistence of Memory

Another night and even day of intermittent sleeping and waking. I've been unable to stay awake evenings, slipping into sleep early, before posting, then waking way too early in the morning and sleeping again about the time I'd have wanted to wake up in the first place. The pattern is the same but the times vary. The effect on my daily routine, memory and general state of mind is surrealistic, extending beyond quotidian minutiae. Nothing, not even memory, looks or feels quite the same through this lens.

Two days ago a friend and former Riding Place client from years back in Lafayette posted  a comment on a totally unrelated Facebook post -- about a mutual friend dying at 89 following a fall in the bath that she never regained consciousness from. We met after I moved back to Lafayette from Munich and knew immediately we were going to be great friends. Sharing an abiding passion for horses and riding was how we became acquainted but just one affinity. 

The word 'zest' comes to mind. She told me about taking tuition money given her for something sensible, business college I think, and spending it on flying lessons because she had always wanted to learn to fly. In her 60s, she started taking dancing lessons and doing recitals.  Another time she called me from the hospital after plastic surgery to come over and see what she looked like before the bruising and swelling went down -- definitely not the post plastic surgery denial response. She even got Polaroids and displayed them. 

We fell out of touch (as too often happens, even with social media) after I moved to California in. I lost her contact information when surface mail to the address I had came back and the few queries I made came to nothing. I'd just been thinking about her too. Now that it's too late, I wish I'd tried harder. Patty's life was a happy, well-lived one. I'm old enough that my generation cohort is starting to go. 

One thing I can do in remembrance -- and for myself -- is make that effort now to stay in better touch with the ones left. I'm working on the list now. Making it and then following through take precedent over other projects that keep pushing to the head of the line. 

Despite posting gaps, I am still participating in TWT's annual March Slice of Life Challenge: to blog a slice a day for all of March. I read and comment even when I don't post because that is as much part of the challenge -- and blogging -- as writing and posting. Thank you, Two Writing Teachers! Visit the site to read some slices and consider joining the ongoing Tuesday slices.