I don’t know why, but my comma keeps eluding me today. I keep trying to include it in everything I type, and it just oozes away and says “not today, thanks, I have a headache.” GET IN THERE. “Alright, alright, take it easy, can’t you?”
Maybe I’m typing too fast, stabbing at the keys.
Earlier I said to Mum that younger people (myself included in long-ago days!) tend to take things too seriously – sort of “this is all such a big deal!”
Mum said wisely, “do you know what my granny used to say?”
I waited breathlessly, as this great grandmother is such a shadowy figure to me – I’ve seen a photo of her in a long winter coat and a dark hat, looking away as though to check the door was locked. That’s all I really know about her. What sort of things did she think?
“It will all be the same in a hundred years.”
I rocked on my feet, thinking “but that’s what I say! I had no idea it was my great-grandmother’s expression.” Maybe it was her expression because it was something her great-grandmother used to say? I heard my father say it more than once, though I don’t know where he got it from. At any rate, now I say it… and it’s true.
Moving on…
The other day I was looking through my wallpaper site and there was a message that one of the other fractalists had died. It wasn’t anybody I had spoken to, though I seem to remember getting a message from her in answer to one of mine, but maybe I’m getting her confused with someone else… How can I not know? These little things turn to mud in my mind after a matter of weeks, when in my teens or early twenties I would have been crystal clear on that point.
She had distinctive wallpapers; some were in my ‘favourites’ gallery. It took me by surprise how shocked I felt about it – and she was only a couple of years older than me.
When I read about it, the silence stretched and became heavy. I hurried to put my little hi-fi on, as I needed some life around the place. I’d intended to have fun making fractals… and there I was, surrounded by whispering shadows.
Later I went to her gallery to look through her wallpapers, and got a few more for my collection. There were lovely ones I’m surprised I missed on previous visits, and I chided myself for not paying more attention. Now, when those wallpapers show up on my monitor, it feels as though she’s not so far away.
Tonight I posted something I thought was quite good on the wallpaper site. One of my regular visitors said “that’s lovely!” and then it all fell quiet, so I felt rather flat. Then one of the other girl’s wallpapers showed up on my monitor. I thought, “she would have known what that felt like, too,” and felt comforted.
Comment for this entry (during its previous life on Blogigo):
1. kateblogs wrote at Oct 20, 2007 at 12:05: A couple of years ago a member of a community I visit sometimes also died very suddenly. I didn’t know her that well, but it was a shock. I remember feeling quite subdued for the rest of the evening, and, like you, needing music to lift the atmosphere. Even now, from time to time I come across some of her work – she was a talented digital artist – and I always pause and feel a little sad.
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