Coffee Day and Funerals
Jul. 20th, 2021 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse Tuesday is a coffee day, so I am coming to you fully espresso'd. Wooo.
One of the reasons we chose Tuesday is because when Mason was much younger and we were all doing that thing where we pile into the car every morning at some ungodly hour, drop Shawn off at work, and then take Mason to school, we decided that Tuesdays are actually stealth Mondays, and sometimes worse because you're kind of expecting Mondays to suck? To mitigate the surprise suckage of Tuesdays, we started stopping for bagels on Tuesday morning. Of course, ironically, this often made Tuesday even more frantic, because we'd have to get up even earlier to accommodate this stop (important point of information, Mason's school had a start time of 7:20 AM.) Despite this hassle, we doggedly continued the tradition and do so even now that school is over. I suspect Shawn and I will keep this up long after Mason is gone off to college.
Today has been posited as a road trip day. Mason is not yet awake, but when he gets up, we'll decide if he's still up for it. In the meantime, I have made a list of state parks (and other attractions) within two hours of home (St. Paul, MN.) We could go further, since Shawn is home and so the only restrictions on our time is park closing time, but I have no idea if what Mason wants is the time on the road or the destination. We'll see. If we go, I'll either post a second journal tonight with pictures or tomorrow.
Tomorrow is going to be busy because I have a critique client that I had to reschedule at 1:45 pm and a funeral at 3 pm over at the band shelter at Lake Harriet. I really wish I still lived on Girard. I could have walked! But, as it is, I'll have to zip across town and then try to find parking.
There have been a lot of funerals lately. Oddly, neither this one, nor the previous one (Saturday) were COVID related. Cancer took both of my friends--one of whom was only a year older than me. (FUCK CANCER.) The funeral on Saturday was powerful--it was also the first funeral I've been to that was fully pagan. Like, I've been to (and planned) what I could call pagan-lite funerals. The funeral we planned for Ella fell into this category, partly because we knew that many of our extended family, particularly Shawn's, would be thrown by a fully pagan funeral and so we included a structure and some pieces that would be familiar to them. But, my friend's parents proceeded her. Her wife, her twin sister, and her brother are all also pagans. So, it was kind of amazing for me? Rarely, am I at a service and I know all the words. Paganism, at least my own eclectic variety of it, is also not something I normally do in a large gathering and so it was kind of amazing to hear all the voices singing the songs (or at least one of the songs) I usually sing in a small group. There were lot of things that were also unfamiliar, but that's because there are so many different traditions and flavors of paganism, but even those had such familiar elements that I felt weirdly at home.
My friend had a giveaway table and I was instantly drawn to the postcards. As many of you know, I've been sending out postcards during the pandemic, including having started to reconnect with this friend through letters and such. That felt exactly right. So, I brought them home.
Image: An array of all sorts of colorful postcards.
I suppose all this is rather morbid? I blame being a Scorpio for my inability to be circumspect about death and dying. I have placed all the talk about the funeral under a cut, probably unnecessarily? But, because I have no idea, I'd rather err on the side of caution.
ANYWAY.
I may poke Mason to see if he's up for a hike or not today. At least it doesn't feel like it should be too hot.
One of the reasons we chose Tuesday is because when Mason was much younger and we were all doing that thing where we pile into the car every morning at some ungodly hour, drop Shawn off at work, and then take Mason to school, we decided that Tuesdays are actually stealth Mondays, and sometimes worse because you're kind of expecting Mondays to suck? To mitigate the surprise suckage of Tuesdays, we started stopping for bagels on Tuesday morning. Of course, ironically, this often made Tuesday even more frantic, because we'd have to get up even earlier to accommodate this stop (important point of information, Mason's school had a start time of 7:20 AM.) Despite this hassle, we doggedly continued the tradition and do so even now that school is over. I suspect Shawn and I will keep this up long after Mason is gone off to college.
Today has been posited as a road trip day. Mason is not yet awake, but when he gets up, we'll decide if he's still up for it. In the meantime, I have made a list of state parks (and other attractions) within two hours of home (St. Paul, MN.) We could go further, since Shawn is home and so the only restrictions on our time is park closing time, but I have no idea if what Mason wants is the time on the road or the destination. We'll see. If we go, I'll either post a second journal tonight with pictures or tomorrow.
Tomorrow is going to be busy because I have a critique client that I had to reschedule at 1:45 pm and a funeral at 3 pm over at the band shelter at Lake Harriet. I really wish I still lived on Girard. I could have walked! But, as it is, I'll have to zip across town and then try to find parking.
There have been a lot of funerals lately. Oddly, neither this one, nor the previous one (Saturday) were COVID related. Cancer took both of my friends--one of whom was only a year older than me. (FUCK CANCER.) The funeral on Saturday was powerful--it was also the first funeral I've been to that was fully pagan. Like, I've been to (and planned) what I could call pagan-lite funerals. The funeral we planned for Ella fell into this category, partly because we knew that many of our extended family, particularly Shawn's, would be thrown by a fully pagan funeral and so we included a structure and some pieces that would be familiar to them. But, my friend's parents proceeded her. Her wife, her twin sister, and her brother are all also pagans. So, it was kind of amazing for me? Rarely, am I at a service and I know all the words. Paganism, at least my own eclectic variety of it, is also not something I normally do in a large gathering and so it was kind of amazing to hear all the voices singing the songs (or at least one of the songs) I usually sing in a small group. There were lot of things that were also unfamiliar, but that's because there are so many different traditions and flavors of paganism, but even those had such familiar elements that I felt weirdly at home.
My friend had a giveaway table and I was instantly drawn to the postcards. As many of you know, I've been sending out postcards during the pandemic, including having started to reconnect with this friend through letters and such. That felt exactly right. So, I brought them home.
Image: An array of all sorts of colorful postcards.
I suppose all this is rather morbid? I blame being a Scorpio for my inability to be circumspect about death and dying. I have placed all the talk about the funeral under a cut, probably unnecessarily? But, because I have no idea, I'd rather err on the side of caution.
ANYWAY.
I may poke Mason to see if he's up for a hike or not today. At least it doesn't feel like it should be too hot.