No. Your senses have not taken leave. Here they are: words. The Matron's.
She actually didn't intend to take an extended hiatus. One day evolved into another, and then another. Christmas revealed its true nature as a month-long festival of financial over-indulgence topped off by cleaning, cooking, entertaining and debate: what does one give to the postal carrier? Especially one with whom you have a special relationship.
John: "Do you really have to give the recycling guy a holiday book, bake cookies for the teacher, and leave tea and chocolate for the garbage man?"
Matron: "Why? Do you think a bottle of wine is better?"
John: "Only if it's for me, at this very minute."
Then there was the veil of suffering. The Matron was grounded in the reality of the body's demise. Her friend continues the battle. Her stepmother -- a saga about which the Matron didn't blog -- scraped by a staggering health crisis with her life intact but changed.
But . . in an odd way these things didn't bother the Matron. She experienced, but did not rail against them. Long ago, she had the singular momentary wisdom to learn something from her mother-in-law.
Mother-in-Law: "Why, I go to a funeral a week. That's your social life when your friends all start dying."
And-- like that-- the Matron understood that one day, she too would step to the precipice of age.
However, understanding that something is simply the 'natural order of things' doesn't make it easy.
Then there was The Play. The Matron wrote one. Did she mention she wrote a play? Wrapped it up in the last six weeks? For an actual theatre company, a play that might see the stage -- and there's another one in the works that is a certainty.
Writing a play also provided the Matron with a fun little fantasy. She loves living in her head that way. Fantasy:
Cashier at grocery store: "And what do you do for a living?"
Matron: "Me? Oh, I'm a playwright."
Cashier at grocery store: "And what do you do for a living?"
Matron: "Me? Oh, I'm a playwright."
Chills!
Of course, the fantasy omitted the teaching job and also centered around the fact that the Matron was AT the grocery store in the first place to buy a LOTTERY ticket, which she of course WON (this is a fantasy after all) -- which immediately required detailed dissection of how she would distribute, spend and indulge in her $389 million payout. The Matron is pretty generous in fantasyland, so she needed a lot. 3 - 8 - 9 million. That's a forty minute fantasy, folks.
Anyway, that lottery thing didn't work out in real life.
At least, real life has been rich and nuanced, replete with rewards that have nothing to do with money but much with relationships and self-reflection (not knowledge - that would be a stretch - it's all still a great big query). So the Matron guesses that's where her piggy bank is -- in people. And that sucker is stuffed. The children, the dogs, the friends, students, family -- why, the Matron could write a novel.
Instead she shall return to the regular blog post to strut her narrative stuff.
She's back.
