A Journey Half-Done

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

First off, I have new windows going in today, so I'm wearing a mask in the house while the workmen are here.  While they began setting up, I jumped on the computer, only to discover that the facial rec software didn't know me.  Then I remembered.  The mask.  It was such a 2020 moment.

Anyway, Cheryl is finishing two weeks of vacation this week, and it's been fun to have her around during the day, and not just seeing each other when one of us is completely fogged in with sleep.  Tuesday, we drove over to Kaneohe to play pickleball.  This game, played primarily by people in our age group, is a hybrid of tennis and ping pong, is played on a court about 2/3 the size of a tennis playing surface.  The ball is sorta like a whiffle ball, plastic with holes all over and the paddles are hard-surfaced, about twice as big as the ones used for ping pong.  Cheryl has fallen in love with the game and I went through a beginners course with her last year.  At the time, I couldn't "hook" the game.  The rules were, to me, strange, counter-intuitive, and confusing.  I've played a ton of tennis over the decades, and it was hard to set aside those habits for this new endeavor.  I went a few times, but never really understood the game, so she ended up going by herself, usually when I was at work.  

But yesterday, we went together, for me not without trepidation.  I'm a guy, and therefore have little tolerance for looking foolish in front of others.  But after watching a couple dozen YouTube© videos, I felt game enough to give it a go.

It wasn't as bad as I feared.  I remembered most of what I had been taught.  The biggest challenge for me is staying out of the no-volley area just in front of the net.  In tennis, you charge the net and get right up next to it to (hopefully) intimidate your opponent into playing a more defensive mode.  I can't tell you how many killer shots I made, only to find out that I had trespassed into that area, called by players "the kitchen."  Still, the ladies we played with were tolerant of my errors, and despite some light-headedness caused by having to run, actually sprint for the first time in...years?...under the hot sun. I walk about 15 miles per week, but running is a whole new level of exertion.  I managed to survive the day, earning a high complement from my spouse, who said, "Good job, Honey!"

So...This Was Christmas

 

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

This was Christmas Day, certainly one of the most quiet and subdued in memory.  Banned from large gatherings, families nevertheless sat in front of Christmas trees while children eagerly tore into the carefully-wrapped packages.  There were still the squeals of joy, the best Christmas music, in my view, but so many of the cherished traditions of the holiday were set aside because of the Pandemic.

For us, it was just Cheryl and I and her mother.  There were just a few gifts, several for Cheryl to unwrap and enjoy.  My big gift this year was parked in the carport, waiting for my commute to work.  We were able to link with family via video calls, and enjoyed interacting with our grandkids, who are growing up entirely too fast.  Still, I missed being there; getting the hugs, wading through the sea of wrapping paper, actually talking face-to-face, the lack of for which I feel a growing sadness.  Children are fluid creatures.  They change minute to minute, and being away for months -- or years -- at a time leaves us with the inescapable sense that time is leaching away, the one thing nobody can ever get back.  They'll never be this young again, and we will have missed it all.

I suspect many of you are having some of the same feelings.  This COVID Christmas was hard, but I think there is a bit of wisdom being dropped upon us.

Safe, Warm, and Surrounded by Love.

Image Copyright © 2015

by Ralph F. Couey

"Christmases past tend to blur together,

with occasional memorable moments making themselves visible.

There were good Christmases and lonely Christmases

and Christmases that came and went entirely too fast.

But when I look back over the years, and all those memories,

there is one image that rises above all the rest.

Seated before the tree, my loving wife beside me

two posts in a protective circle of our grown children and their spouses

surrounding a herd of excited grandkids on the floor, tearing open gifts

with excited squeals of joy. seeming to swim through a sea of discarded wrapping paper.

For me, this will always be Christmas, because Christmas is about family

sharing that most precious of time, and the rarest and most durable love."

--Ralph F. Couey

 I've been idle with my writing of late, mainly because I've been in a kind of funk and I really didn't want to share that with all of you.  But as Christmas approaches, I have found myself looking back over the decades, to those more conventional holidays in simpler times.  In those journeys of the mind, I have found a way to rekindle that sometimes elusive thing we call the Spirit of Christmas.  I found it was far too easy to focus on the tough times that are now, and thus opening myself up to sadness and despair.  But in the past were better, happier times.  These were memories made and carefully stored away in that priceless treasure chest we call the human heart for just such a time as this one.

One of my earliest Christmas memories involved the arrival of a small dachshund who would be a part of our lives.  I suspect he may have been a little frightened by the hugs he was getting from my sister and I, but we grew up together, the best kind of companion.

One winter, my parents decided to go north for Christmas.  They both hailed from Wisconsin, he from Milwaukee, she from Madison.  Weather forecasting was still a struggling science at the time, and by the time we hit Moline, Illinois, the snow was coming down thick and fast.  I remember looking over my Dad's shoulders (no seat belts or child seats back then) out the front window to see that the road was rapidly disappearing.  Fortunately, we were in a long line of cars, so we continued to push on.  I became mesmerized by the huge snowflakes dancing in the headlights.  I wasn't driving, so of course I thought it was great.  Eventually, we arrived in front of that grand old house on Erie Court.  We piled out of the car and I rushed through the unshoveled snow up the front walk into the arms of my grandmother, and my six cousins, with whom I would subsequently join in many nefarious activities.  We sledded in the nearby parks, built snowmen, had snowball fights, while my grandmother, who had been the head chef for the University of Wisconsin, prepared some of the best meals I can ever remember.  We played until we couldn't keep our eyes open, then ascended the interminable stairs to the large dormitory-style attic where we retired for the night.  I felt safe, warm, and surrounded by love.

Post #800

 

A place of unbearable pain;

of indescribable beauty.

"Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life,

Every quality of his mind is written large in his works."

--Virginia Woolf

Fourteen years ago, almost to the month, I signed up for a blog, having no idea where that particular journey would take me.  I remember that I had ideas banging around inside me between my heart and my head, and I felt that if I didn't get them down in some recordable form, I'd either go crazy or spontaneously explode.

Tonight, I sit here contemplating the 800th addition to this blog.

I named the blog "Race the Sunset," a small piece of inspiration borne out of a motorcycle trip.  I was cruising across Kansas -- the long way -- and as afternoon began to turn into evening, I watched the sun ease its way towards the horizon.  The wheat fields I had been endlessly passing all day began to take on that warm pallet I can only describe as "evening colors."  My goal was the town of Liberal, the end of a very long 650-mile day, on the far western border, and as the miles-to-go wound down, I saw that my arrival would be very close to sunset.  In a sense, I was racing the sunset to my destination.  I remember a lot about that evening, how peaceful it was as the sky gradually darkened, and the weary anticipation of a long day coming to an end.  It was the first of what would be a nine day journey across the American west, perhaps the nine greatest days of my life.

Except, of course, any nine days I've spent with my beloved (and long-suffering) wife.

In beginning the blog, I certainly didn't have any particular agenda.  I wanted to write about life, how I experienced it and the impact it had on me.  I deliberately stayed well away from politics.  I don't know everything about writing, but I do know better than to enrage half of the potential audience.  

That first effort, posted on November 3, 2006, was a post about Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers quarterback, who had bought a motorcycle, the fastest production bike available at that time.  He promptly wrecked it, putting him in surgery for some seven hours.  It was also the first of my essays to be published, finding its way into the pages of the Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat the previous July.  I continued to write for the paper, at first only once per month, but eventually given a weekly slot.  The editor paid me a high complement, saying, "Your stuff was just too good to leave out."  I eventually learned that a complement was as rare and savory as a perfectly done prime rib, and should be treasured.