I’m on the balcony, closing my eyes. The ocean breeze is cool upon my skin, relaxing my mind and spirit.
As the folks sit quiet (finally) watching the Superbowl, I sit listening to Wang Chung’s “To Live and Die in LA”, thinking about all the times I nearly saw it all come to an end, in the blink of an eye, in a cold, wet Van Nuys back alley, inches from being hit by a car, too many to count…a moment away from non-esistance, watching my life flash away.
And yet, somehow…it did not.
Apparently, somebody wanted me here, helping my mother in her final years, making money, enduring senior rage and walking amongst the treasure trove of collectable and family photographs, some of which I never knew existed…or still existed. She is truly the family archivist.
She still has the old Kodak photos and every forgotten memory frozen in time, surrounding me, haunting me into a pleasant euphoria. I’m playing a slew of 70’s hits, plunging me back 50 years, back into innocent childhood, a time of bittersweet intensity. But you know, I enjoy mingling amongst the warm, loving family ghosts.
But looking back, I see those who have survived. Most visible are those who made the pandemic. But those who didn’t make it, sadly are those who’s minds are gone, like my relatives, for example. I see my mother in her bi-polar love-rage, acting out when she was a kid, and regurgitating the shit she had to eat as a child from her father, my grandfather.
Five years ago, after Karin passed, while mom was slugging down bottles of vodka, one dark and stormy December, she shared with me the abuses imposed upon her by her father, like locking her and my mother out the house on Christmas. This holiday, she explained, was the worst holiday for her and brought back horrors.
As a 30+year attendee of Alcoholics Anonymous, her story was not new. After many years, I learned nearly EVERYONE was screwed up in their homes. Much trust broken.
But what shocked me was that it was coming from my mother’s memory bank, her deepest fears and vodka-drenched dementia.
10:03pm – Ah! Taxes done in 1 hour using online Turbo Tax!!!
I am, indeed the man who can!
CJ Davidson,
Chronicler
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