Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Can it be so?
As evidenced by the date at the top of the page, we are starting our journey into October. Halloween stuff has been on display since before school started back up, reminding us to buy loads of candy – even if we never get trick or treaters. Not this year. Jan and I both are off of pure sugar and fat as much as possible, so no mini Snickers or Baby Ruth’s. We’ll find out if it is possible to get through October without sampling the childrens’ candy. Besides, we live in a condo building with lots of us old people, so we have not seen a child in a costume for a number of years.
I do remember years and years ago when my kids were of age to dress up and go from door to door in our quiet Webster Groves neighborhood. Ted was easy. He wanted to be whatever superhero he was admiring at the time. Batman was a big one. One time I made him wear a coat over his costume because it was so cold outside. Despite frequent emphatic statements that Batman could not get cold, I won that little battle and he took his grumpy self around Drayton Avenue and beyond. He’s probably forgiven me by now, some 38 years later.
That might have been the same year that Jackie wanted to dress up as a nurse. At first I was touched that she wanted to emulate me until I found out that she wanted to be a death nurse. She put on white face with dark circles under her eyes, wore a “blood stained” uniform, and carried a sharp object. Presumably that was to assist her in offing her victims. I didn’t know what to make of this, so I made sure she wore a coat too and off they went with Katie, while I stayed home and doled out candy.
October is also Jackie’s birth month. Because my mother had died that year before Jackie was born, I prayed that she would be born on October 2, my mom’s birthday. Nope. That day came and went without any sign of an appearance. That year it was unusually warm, and the Sugar Creek outdoor swimming pool miraculously stayed open. Those were the days when I swam a mile a day, even when I was huge with child. I remember one check up with my OB/GYN doc when I bragged about my swimming prowess. I was in the stirrups when Dr. J. Leslie Walker said, “The whale shape was made to glide naturally through the water…” We both laughed. Then I reminded him that I was in the perfect position to kick him in the nose for making such a statement. A few years later, Ted defended my honor by his first official act after his birth: he peed all over Dr. Walker and even got him in the face.
Ted turned 38, Jackie will be 42 this year, and I am left wondering where all those years went. Today I’m wondering what happened to most of 2023 as well. This reminds me of a line from a Kathleen Madigan stand-up comedy routine. She agreed to play golf with her 80-something mother in Florida. Their tee time was 0730 AM and Kathleen noticed the odd behavior of one of her mother’s friends. She asked her mother, who said, “Oh, she’s trashed”. Kathleen was astounded at the early hour and said so. Her mother replied something to the effect that at their age, time has no relevance. “We don’t live in the same time as regular people do”, she explained. I get that.
These days I have a lot more time behind me than ahead of me. My death is not a frequent thought, but I do remember one evening that went something like this: we went to the Santa Fe Opera building to hear Lang Lang play the piano. This young man is considered by many as one of the most accomplished classical musicians of modern times. He was playing a Chopin piece, I could see the New Mexico sky since the opera building is mostly open air, the sky was a gorgeous blue. As I listened to the music I thought, “I could die right now and die happy.” I’m kind of glad that didn’t happen.