As per a 2003 focused study, I was the absolutely last among my generation to embrace cell phones. And it wasn't a Kate-n-Leo, My Heart Will Go On kind of hug, but more of a "I know she's my first cousin twice removed, but why does she always smell like moth balls?" back-pat.

I stood firm that there were times that people did not need to be available for phone contact. At church, in a coffee shop, or while consuming a soft-serve ice cream cone. The reverent moments that make life worth living, you know? This way of thinking came prior to my reexamination of Plato's notes wherein he philosophized that not all ringing phones need be answered. Smart man, that Plato was.

Even so, I did not personally own a cell phone. The contract was in my name, sure, but I wanted nothing to do with it. Cell phones cause Brain Cancer—I heard it on the radio—so they're pretty much up there with drinking diet soft drinks and breathing Earth's air: things to be avoided at all costs in the prevention of the big "C".

But then I began using one. It is quite inexpensive to add a phone to a cell contract, did you know? Yes, well it is. So much so that it was more economic to add $5 to my cell phone bill than to continue paying $45 for the land-line + long distance. Common sense is my Siren's song. I wasn't a big phone person at the time....I only used about an hour a day, the majority of which was my evening phone call with Mom. As nights and weekends are unlimited by way of minutes, sharing the current allotment was more than adequate.



By the time I was once again a Wisconsin resident, I never left home without it. Even so, we reduced our monthly minutes plan to share 800, nights starting at 7PM. Miles was the talk-aholic. Count on me for a decent 1-200 minutes, and you can have the rest, Dearie. But gradually...my jaw became diseased, and it began to flap incessantly. In February, I finally got around to customizing the Sprint contract to suit my needs and my needs alone. I knew I didn't need 800 minutes all to myself. I knew, also, that I now needed more than 200.

So I signed up for a 400 minute plan. This should have been a non-issue. Imagine my surprise to find that I talked 530 minutes last month, not including nights/weekends. Yowsers. But I still haven't gotten to the point of this meandering narrative. Don't worry, it's a-comin'.

I am able to keep my cell phone on and at my desk at work, in the event that somebody need contact me. Yesterday, disturbingly, I neglected to bring my cell to work. I was a lost puppy, totally and utterly pathetic, and I felt so disconnected that I trembled. I groaned to my reflection in the bathroom mirror after I splashed the cold, revitalizing water upon my face, "I've become one of thoooooose people!"

I used to be nostalgic. I used to be an anomaly, a throwback to a gilded era of "homemade" and "invested time"....now I've been inducted to the twenty-first century's hall of shame to live with the other mere, digitalized, impersonal wretches. I think this would depress me to a greater degree if it wasn't so handy to check my email while in queue at the bank drive-thru or to irritate Brenda with a text message to which she'll hate volleying.

I wrote the previous entry as a sort of stream of consciousness, as most of my writing has been in the past few months. I was deeply engulfed in the longing of things past, of things that will never be again, when I made a discovery upon the kitchen table.



Leave it to Debbie...

Mom was big into the holidays. Even the little ones. She's use any excuse she could to buy my brother and me a card and little gift. Those mornings, when she crooned us awake—Mom didn't believe her children should have to be startled away by alarm clocks when her loving voice was available to coax them to the day—and we stumbled down the darkened hall from which the bedrooms fed.

The light in the kitchen was always way too bright in our exodus from slumber, but even squinty eyed and barely coherent, we knew to look for those envelopes on the kitchen table, propped up and showcasing her lovely filigreed scrawl. Life is what you make of it, they always say...well, Mom made life extraordinary. Little things were a big deal. Nuances were cherished.



I was thinking back to last Easter just the other day, how stark of a departure I've taken from my life for this year's coming. I'm not cooking a meal this year, I'm not saddened because Mom was suffering from a new and ugly form of chemotherapy on Good Friday. I missed her so last year. I guess that hasn't changed...and it's also raining again. The skies cry.

I noticed about a month ago that I was attracted to the scent of lavender when I have never been during the past. Straining toward the sweet spiciness constantly, I purchased, for perhaps the first time ever, a parfum from Crabtree and Evelyn that wasn't Lily of the Valley, my scent of the last decade-plus. Mom never wore lavender, goodness no. She wore this terrible headache-inducing fragrance that I hated. Dad once mistook it for bug repellent upon the air. Open mouth; insert foot.

So, I didn't understand the draw at first, but have come to realize that it isn't the scent that reminisces, but the feelings of comfort and peace it inspires. This is what she did to me. Memories cascade about, like long, silky tresses in the soft late summer breeze. Graceful and delicate, I watch them dance and allow myself to feel.

Happy Easter.

This was taken last Sunday, one of the first times I've seen Charlie since Mom passed away. I will always see his gentle fingers caressing her cheek the morning she went into a coma...and he is beautiful to me.