Loss Happens

June 28, 2017August 4, 2021 Shirleyjdietz11 Comments

Loss happens. To everyone, and more than once. In fact, life could be seen as a progression of things we gain and things we lose and leave behind.

I’m not priming you for a sad story. This tale is one of those inconsequential, odd things that happens to me every now and then, but catches my attention a little more than usual. It’s another earring story, of which I have quite a few.

Several years ago, shopping in a second hand shop in Alachua, Florida I noticed a display of earrings on a rack at the checkout desk. They were probably handcrafted and were all Swarovski crystal in various combinations, drop earrings with pretty silver hooks. The pair I decided to get were several clear crystals with some blue crystal beads on top. I got them because I wanted something blue.

Since then I’ve worn them a number of times without incident. They are nice but I would call them unremarkable. Yesterday I had them on during my visit to the doctor’s office and as the young child (or so she appeared) who took my blood pressure laughed at them and said “Oh wow, you’ve got snowmen earrings. How cute.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong. They’re not snowmen, they’re just geometric shapes. Not snowmen.” To be truthful I couldn’t even envision what they looked like at the moment, and it had NEVER occurred to me that they looked like snowmen so I couldn’t understand why she thought so. Later, I looked at them and had to admit that they could look like snowmen, if you’re one of those people to whom everything looks like something else. There are people like that.

Today, I’m wearing blue again and decided to stick with the same earrings. At lunch, my friend Char looks at me and remarks about my snowman earrings. Obviously, since it’s summer in Florida and 90 degrees in the shade, everyone is thinking snow? Maybe? I don’t know, but I had to tell her she was the second person in two days to come to that conclusion, after several years of no one ever settling on that. We laughed.

After lunch I did several errands, including being called to pick up the husband at work. He had donated blood and was feeling not so well and wanted to be driven home. His office is only a short distance away so I decided to bike over and drive his truck home too. I am a good girl and wear my helmet all almost all the time and don’t like to wear dangling earrings with it. But, there was only one to take off. Somewhere since lunch, one of my snowmen must have melted, or something. Lost.

I remember stepping away from the counter at the bank and saying “Did I drop something?” But it was one of those sixth sense things that makes you think you might have heard something, even though nothing is in sight. I probably should have looked harder, but no, and I’m not going back either. It’s not that I have anything against snowmen – on the ground, in the winter. Not in the summer, not on my ears, just sayin’…

20170628_161125-1-1 — NOT a snowman, right?

Where in my mind am I?

March 10, 2016March 10, 2016 Shirleyjdietz4 Comments

I was very tired last night. I fell asleep in the chair watching tv and decided it was crazy to waste sleepiness on a chair. I would go to bed where I so often wish I was sleepy and am not. I got ready for bed and got in, turned out the light. As I was lying there and my body was getting numb to it’s surroundings, as I lay quietly behind my closed eyelids waiting for sleep, I suddenly could not remember whether I was in the chair thinking about being in bed, or in bed thinking about being in the chair. Weird things happen in that space between awake and asleep.

The worst part was, I had to get up and go write down what it was like because I knew I’d forget it if I didn’t. By then I was wide awake again and stayed up too late like usual. The mind is a crazy place, just sayin’…

Anything like that ever happen to you?

By Any Other Name

November 4, 2014 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

Have you ever wondered what your life would have felt like if you had been named differently? Would things have gone differently for you if you were named Oliver instead of Dave, or Polly instead of Tiffany?

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that, but today at Burger King (it was necessary, believe me) I had the opportunity to be someone else for just a few seconds. The guy at the counter took my order, looked up and said “Name?” And for some reason I told him “Clara”. I do not know why Clara, I just wanted to see how it felt. It’s not my name, not even close.

I realize there was no danger involved as in a spy alias, and it wasn’t like I was lying either – he didn’t specify that it had to be my name. It was just a small, secret excitement to keep my own name hidden and be a Clara for a few minutes. That old fashioned name that I never hear much anymore… I had to spend the wait time consciously thinking Clara thoughts, lest I forget who I was trying to be and not recognize my food when it was called out.

What became clear to me is that I have become so accustomed to “living in” my name, writing it, seeing it on letters, name badges, checks, hearing it spoken and just thinking it, that I can’t imagine being anyone else. It identifies my life to me and it feels strange to be called anything else. Just sayin’…