It’s been a minute since my last post.

I was feeling a little lost.  A little … unclear about what was going on with life.  Because my mother died, of course.  But with that came so many other things.  Life irrevocably changed.  My dad is different, our family is different.  Everything feels seismically shifted since we lost her.  I am alone, floating, directionless.  Confused.

So, after awhile, I thought maybe I should come back to the blog.  Write.  Scream into the void.  Maybe it would help.  Maybe writing the things I don’t say would be therapeutic.

But I don’t know where to start.  I began this blog as a cooking blog but that changed with my MS diagnosis.  Also … because, I mean, I like food.  And I like eating.  But cooking and creating recipes?  Not really my thing.  I guess that’s something that comes with age.  Knowing yourself so much better.  Knowing when to call it, when to say, “Yeah, that’s not my bag, thank you very much.”  I worked in the hospitality/restaurant industry for 22 years and I can say with all confidence, it wasn’t really my bag.  Did I love things about it?  Yes.  Was innovative food exciting and the beauty and art of wine sort of intoxicating? Absolutely.  And being in the industry while it became the hottest industry in the country … yeah, that was pretty cool.  But that saying about doing something you love and never working a day in your life?  It didn’t apply to my time in restaurants.

Since stopping working I’ve been sort of in love with a couple things … exercise and wellness, skincare and my all-time deepest love, entertainment.  So I figured I’d just come back to this space, write about what’s on my mind and what I’m reading/watching/listening to.  And maybe I’ll find a direction as I go.

What I’m Watching:  So, Husby and I just finished watching Deadwood (both the three seasons of the HBO show and the movie they recently made to give fans closure after 13 years).  Once we go through the first couple episodes and settled in, we really enjoyed it.  It wasn’t perfect.  There were entire episodes when we weren’t really sure what was going on.  But Ian McShane made it all worth it.  He is utterly brilliant.  And the character studies were sort of beautiful.  Flawed people, the grayness between right and wrong and the things people do in the name of survival.  The portrayal of a prospecting town and the beginnings of ‘civilization’ coming to the wild (north) west.  The beauty and subtlety of certain stories outweighed some of the flaws or stereotypes and strangely written dialogue.  I felt the movie was an apropos closure written for fans and gave satisfactory payoffs to stories left dangling when the show was abruptly cancelled in 2006.

We also watched a couple good movies yesterday.  I say ‘good’ not because they are Oscar worthy films (or that we are the type of people who only watch those kinds of movies) but because they hit different sweet spots.  We watched Murder Mystery with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston on Netflix and that was just fun.  I read one review that said the writer wondered what dropping a blue collar American couple in an Agatha Christie novel would be like and I have to say, that’s a pretty excellent description, intended or not.  If you aren’t looking for anything too heavy and are up for a good time (without too many questions or deep character studies) it’s an enjoyable romp.

After watching that, we switched it up and watched Juliet, Naked which I enjoyed as a film but also because there were so many English things — the sound of the seagulls, the town, the beach.  It made me nostalgic for Berwick-upon-Tweed, visiting my grandparents, and waking up in their attic bedroom, the seagulls singing good morning.  I loved the gentleness of the movie, and the observations about human nature and human relations.  About how we view others, and the assumptions we make about other people’s lives, based on very little information.  About the choices we make as people, our mistakes, our intentions.  About the gray-ness of life.  And the unexpected bright spots.  I won’t lie, I’m watching it again as I type this, and I’m enjoying it all over again.  Human communication through written word (not Instagram, or emojis or text messages but letters, complete sentences, thoughts on paper).  A beautiful thing.

What I’m Reading:  Husby and I created a shelf for all our unread books after Christmas this past year.  It sits right under our television.  I haven’t read nearly enough of the books that sit there but I am trying.  I am working hard to put my phone down and explore other alternatives.  It’s a challenge.  Currently, I am reading a book from Reese Witherspoon’s book club called The Alice Network.   What I have loved about it is the readability, but also the historic facts that inspired it (sort of like the real people who informed Deadwood  … I guess that’s my thing right now).  There was a woman at the beginning of the First World War who served as a spy for the British and her story is fascinating.  The book weaves that truth in with its fiction and it is an easy, imminently readable book.

What I’m Listening to:  Husby & I watched the Tonys a few weeks ago and I fell head over feet in love with the music of Hadestown.  The jazz and folk-influenced music used to tell a story of ancient Greek myths.  Near perfection.  Plus, the performance and the light design stole my whole heart.  We downloaded two different recordings ~ the new Original Broadway Cast (which won’t be completely available until the end of July due to a character-based rollout of the music) and a recording from 2017 entitled Hadestown: The Myth. The Musical. which features Chris Sullivan (aka Toby from This Is Us) as Hermes.  Husby and I love his interpretation of the music, his Puckish stylings and his overall narration through the music.  As a sidenote, I also love Andre de Shields interpretation and love having both recordings.  I also adored de Shields’ Tony acceptance speech and his three points of life advice (1. Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when you enter a room, 2.  Slow is the fastest way to get to the places you want to go and 3. The top of the mountain is just the bottom of another mountain.)

Okay.  So that’s me for now.  Recovering from surgery, stuck on the couch.  Trying to enjoy my down time (and missing exercise something fierce!).

xox, g