It was a pretty good day .... I wouldn't say that "disappointment" was its theme but it was, certainly, in the air. I'm not even certain that I get (that is, understand ... as in "I get it") disappointment ... as an experience. One becomes excited, I suppose, by the potential for something great and something else happens .... something not so great. In Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story, it's of the dramatic variety. Tony is about to fall in love with his beautiful Maria when he begins to sing:
Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!
Poor fella ... he does fall in love and then another cannonball comes through the sky and whacks him dead ... like a commercial for RAID ... the bug killer ... "kills 'em dead!"
I'm not particularly prone to "why now" or "why me" experiences and, still, disappointment seems to be a universal experience that applies quite canonically to the Fourth Quarter of play. My early morning visitors brought disappointment in love and wanting some guarantees of the future. M and I then went to a study group we've attended since 1997 that is dying out. There's a meeting next weekend that will potentially discuss the morbidity of this once thriving group which yesterday had a hard time approaching a quorum ... indeed, it was just that day's leader and us for quite some time. Disappointment? I suppose.
The day was OK. I spent a couple of hours trying to make the path to my office a bit more accessible. It's been about 35 years since my sons and I order cubic yards of sand and Portland and laid beds for a roughly hundred foot mostly brick path ... two sets of steps ... well, the details don't matter. But after all these years, nature has intruded in the form of ivy and Rhodies and trees and it was time to get out the chain saw. That was fine even if visitors still need to maybe walk a little sideways on one part of the path and even if I have to bundle up the cut up limbs, today. Needed to carefully cut up some sliding book cabinet doors for one of my kids ... that was fine, though one cut was initially seriously mis-sized ... middle-age brain freeze. 21.875 became 16.875" ... like I've lost the ability to keep numbers in my head. Recut. Brought them over and diagnosed some plumbing problems.
It was not being able to get up from the floor after looking behind the sink pedestal that was perhaps most disappointing. It's curiously humiliating or ... oh, disappointing! not to be able to return to vertical without assistance. Could still be there, I suppose, if my son-in-law hadn't acted as a crane ... taking both my hands and returning me to walking position.
Last Quarter, aye?
Then for the icing on the cake. M left the bed in middle of night. Went back to sleep after realizing her absence thinking that she must be uncomfortable; I found out that her knee became intensely painful during the night after two days of being nearly pain-free. I dreamt (brief outline of same) that we had purchased a new home and the painters and plaster-folk were finishing up when I noticed that M had ordered faux-antique finished furniture. I didn't like it ... kind of dark crackled finish but didn't want to show, well, my disappointment. 'Anyway. What was wrong with the old furniture?' I kept my feelings to myself when I came downstairs to find M in considerable knee discomfort. Her treatment hadn't worked and I was in what turned out to be a brief arrhythmia. Indeed, this week my improvement on new anti-arrhythmic drugs was interrupted by two lengthy events and this mornings maybe 4 hour one.
Lookie, here. I keep saying that Playing in the Last Quarter ain't for the feint of heart.
You betcha. And, still, writing this brief entry saw the end of this arrhythmia. Made some non-cheese-based Pesto on Friday ... think I'll eat the leftovers on some crackers and then go buy a new faucet for my daughter.
As for West Side Tony? I suppose one can't expect life to be other than disappointing if one allows oneself to be convinced to go to rumbles, too often. It's bound to -- at least occasionally -- disappoint.
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