Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Six years and a few hours ago, while unpacking a load of boxes I'd just moved to this house from the place I was moving out of in Silver Spring, I got a call on my brand new cell phone, summoning me to Union Memorial Hospital. Six years ago plus or minus some fraction of an hour, I played "Lamento di Tristano" beside a body on a bed, on a guitar my then-girlfriend had brought to the hospital for me after I called her from the hospital.

I still catch myself reacting to some of the things I find on the web with, "Hey, I bet Dad would get a kick out of ... oh, right." But that's not as bad as the times I want to ask him for advice.

Time makes certain pains less acute, even less frequent. This is not an "I'm so upset, everybody hug me" post. I just wanted to mark the anniversary, and the memory. And the fact that healing doesn't mean no longer missing him, doesn't mean that memories stop having any effect. (No new insights here that haven't been said countless times by others, I know.)

Dad's voice is still on the outgoing message for the voice-mail on the phone line my youngest brother uses, so I hear that particular echo of his voice fairly often.

"This will not be the last thing that you read about that makes me look ridiculous." -- James Dobson (quoted in the Los Angeles Times)

Frustrating day. I've been trying not to push too hard, to let my body rest, especially after getting scolded for not letting myself recover from gigs. But impatience is building up: there are so many things I want to do (and even more things I don't really want to do, but want to have done so I can stop dreading having to do them), and I'm feeling too crappy even if I weren't trying to give myself a break. And then there's the stuff Perrine wants me to do -- she's shifted from the bored and sulky mood she'd been in lately, to demanding and insistent. Fortunately she's asking me to throw things (which I can do until I run out and have to get up and collect them again) rather than chase her around (which, between dizziness, knee pain, and back pain, isn't happening today). So the floor of the hall just outside the bedroom is currently covered with FEDs -- Feline Entertainment Devices, so-called because "wadded up cough drop wrappers" sounds so much more slovenly, y'know? The big clue to what she wanted was that she carried a toy (plastic beverage-container ring) into the bed to play with, leaping around in not qite the same manner as she does when she's brought a mouse to bed, but similar enough to wake me. Now if I could convince her to bring back the ones I throw for her so I won't have to gather them up for the next round, that'd be great.

So I'm not expecting today to be very productive. With luck, I'll get some practice time in upstairs. The structure of the preceeding paragraph suggests that my ability to focus isn't so great today either. Wheee. Might babble here more, or read, if I can't sleep or take care of my to-do list.

And thanks, folks, for the responses to the entry I posted about my dad.