Happy Nowrooz

Today is Nowrooz, Persian New Year. Happy Nowrooz!

Unlike New Years’ Day in the US, Nowrooz is celebrated over the course of many days . We have been getting joyful messages from various relatives and friends of Sepi the last couple of days. Sepi has spent much of this morning on the phone speaking her curious mixture of Farsi and English.

For myself, I got the idea that I should learn Farsi. It’s not a new idea, but my current plan is to sign up for some kind of class. I need to have someone to report to – not Sepi – for proper motivation.

Last year, Sepi and I went to a Nowrooz celebration in San Mateo. I believe it was my first time out with her in front of her friends. Everyone seemed very nice, but I had to confess afterwards that I worried that a couple of Persian tough guys would come to visit me if I treated Sepi badly. She thought that was pretty funny. In fact, all of the Persian people I’ve met in the last year have been lovely people. After all, they are friends of Sepi!

So Happy Nowrooz everyone! Kiss a Persian today! I did!

‘Christopher’

A year ago when Sepi and I were new to each other, she told me she already had a friend named Chris so I couldn’t be Chris to her. This other Chris was a woman so she was actually Christine, but no one called her by that name.

After a little discussion, it was determined that Christopher was a good name and I would have to be referred to that way. It was a little weird because I have always gone by Chris as well.

Sepi stuck to it. She calls me Christopher all the time, not just when we’re around Chris or talking about her. She does it in a loving way which is nice. I suspect most people who have nicknames think, as I did, that the only time they hear their original names is when they were younger and their mother was mad at them.

Now I’ve noticed recently that I have been introducing myself to people as Christopher not Chris. I like the sound of it! It’s a bit clunky for all the time use, though. Actually, I like that Sepi is still about the only one to use it regularly. Even the other Chris calls me Chris most of the time. We get a chuckle out of it. If someone were to call ‘Christopher’ across a room I was in, my first reaction would be to expect my mother to be that person and that I had done something wrong.

I guess I’ve been good lately, because Mom’s been calling me Chris.

Nader

Nader is Sepi’s brother. For you Americans, it’s not pronounced like Ralph NAY-der. It is pronounced NAH-der.

Nader lives in Iran and is unlikely to ever come to the US. Everything I know about him comes through Sepi.

Well, not quite everything. What prompted this post was a short voice mail – via an app called ‘Telegram’ that I hadn’t heard of before – from Nader that Sepi played for me yesterday. He was speaking Farsi, so I didn’t understand a word he said, but I heard the love and gentleness. And yearning. Sepi is the big sister.

Sepi told me he was just saying hello and hoping all was well with her. She played for me several other posts of his where he had found links to some of her favorite music and sent it to her. She was playing these songs with a big smile on her face.

I said, ‘Why don’t you send Nader a message back?’ She had excuses related to the time difference. I didn’t press the issue but at the end of the day she showed me some pictures of us and our house that she had sent to him. Within the hour she had gotten a response.

That makes me happy!

24

My mother was about two weeks short of her 24th birthday on the day I was born. My father was about a month from his 25th. Whenever I’ve compared my age to theirs, it’s always been 24 years that I’ve used.

Now Dad is dead. The age comparison, facile as it is, surfaces again. What will my next 24 years be like? I made a bucket list once but I don’t remember where it got to. Should I do another one?

Mom is in relatively good heath. It seems likely that she will survive beyond the next year. What then for my facile comparisons?

I have the daytime off today but must go to work in a couple of hours. I had some ideas this morning of what I could do today but almost none of them have gotten done. I see parallels.

Sepi and I have been talking about taking a trip to Colorado to see Abe and May. I only met them at the wedding and thought they were very nice people. I would like to get to know them better.

It’s possible Mom may come with us and we would all go up to Denver to inter Dad’s ashes there. Sepi and I want to go visit Jeremy and Ashley at their new house. That might be a separate trip or it could be a big circle. The big circle implies two weeks on the road. Do any other sibs want to be in Denver for the interment? When can they get away? Does Mom want to go with us to Washington? Do Jeremy and Ashley want to have such a mob?

All last fall, Sepi and I talked about a honeymoon to Europe in the spring. That would be a minimum two weeks but a month would be better. When can we actually do that? Can we really afford it?

At a certain point, this is all rationalization. Seize the day!

Yes, but in reality we aren’t going anywhere for at least a couple of months. Work tonight, then a couple of days off. Band Monday, dentist Tuesday. The drumbeat of life goes on.

Work this week has been preparing for SoundBox. We opened last night. It was a fairly easy show for sound so I had plenty of time to think about what I was doing there. There are some reasons to give it up but there probably wouldn’t be backsies if I did. It can be freaking awesome. Denise floated an idea the other day that would change my role yet still keep me involved. I’m not sure if, a) I want to do it, b) the symphony would go along, or c) it would work even if the first two conditions were met.

Things to think about.

perfect is the enemy of the good

I’ve been busy lately, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven’t sat down to write posts much over the last few months. I realized this morning that I’ve been waiting for that perfect moment when I can clear my head and concentrate on writing something worthwhile.

I want to give my readers – few though they may be – value for their time. With very few exceptions, I am proud of the writing that I’ve put into this blog over the past 2 1/2 years. It may be that by writing in less than ideal circumstances I may not write up to as high a standard.

So, this is a try.

Dad is gone. Mom is alone in her – their – house. Sepi and I are going down today. There are some more insurance papers to work through but mostly it is just to hang. She is busy, she says, but the nights are the hardest. Last week I went down by myself and ended up staying to about 9 pm. At the point of leaving, the fact of her alone-ness at night in that big house hit me. I almost offered to stay, but I realized that she had already been alone for several nights since Dad’s death and it was a fact that wasn’t going to change.

It’s Presidents’ Day so no band tonight. SoundBox starts tomorrow. Life continues.

Norm

I met a lot of new people last spring as Sepi and I were beginning our life together. One of them was Norm. Norm was married to a woman who had been City Manager when Sepi was Mayor.

Norm’s posture was quite stooped over in a way that reminded me of Dad so I started to talk to him about it. Unlike Dad’s, his condition had come up rather suddenly the previous fall. As recently as a year previous, he had been in robust health and was quite active.

I don’t remember if he knew at the time what it was. More likely he just didn’t tell me that it was ALS.

Norm died last week.

I only saw Norm one other time. It was at a birthday party a few weeks later. In that short time he had deteriorated markedly. He was having great difficulty holding his head up and speaking. In that first conversation, though, we bonded in a mysterious way. When Sepi shared the news of Norm’s death with me, I got choked up in a way that I didn’t with Dad.

Sepi talked to Robin yesterday. She said Robin told her how Norm had read my blog regularly and how much he had enjoyed it.

Thank you, Norm! Your friendship was brief but brilliant. Rest in Peace.

news

Why haven’t there been more postings this past fall, you may ask? Some of the issues after the wedding I’ve already written about. My boss at Davies took a 4 1/2 week vacation and I was the principal relief. Then December, always busy at Davies, happened.

The biggest reason, though, is the water leak we had on our kitchen on Nov 12th. The poly line from the sink to the refrigerator burst. Sepi was home and was able to turn off the water but the flooring around the refrigerator was soaked.

She called the insurance and the mitigators came with large fans and a dehumidifier that ran day and night. They put up a big tent arrangement around the kitchen area. There was a big zipper for the only entrance/exit. Around this time was the fire near Oroville that sent heavy smoke into the Bay Area so we couldn’t open our windows.

After a few days of this, Sepi called the insurance and told them that we couldn’t live under those conditions. They agreed and we moved out to a local hotel.

In some ways it was nice, but it was not good for writing in blogs. I only access this blog from my desktop computer at home and now I was only in the house for a few minutes at a time.

So, that’s the main reason. As of three days ago, we are back sleeping in our home. The kitchen is repaired. We are still looking through boxes and putting things away. Work has slowed just a bit. I had two days off this week.

numbers

This past week I was going to write a post on numbers: 3, for years since Zach died. 53, for speed of the truck that killed him. I still want to write to the DA and try to get the case reopened. Every time I stand on a sidewalk and watch traffic speeding by I think of how fast they are going. Sometimes I estimate they are going about 50 and I think how it would feel to be slammed against their windshield.

53 is pretty fucking fast for a city street and it’s no wonder Zach was killed instantly. When I went back to Baton Rouge last January, very few cars were going that fast along that little stretch. I think both drivers were driving recklessly and should be cited appropriately.

But I haven’t written that yet. Sepi reminded me that I had told her last summer I was going to let it go. I don’t remember that. I just remember that i want to try one more time.

Meanwhile, Dad was out last Wednesday with Mom and fell when she wasn’t looking. 911 was called and they spent the afternoon in the ER. Blood tests and X-rays showed no serious damage to his bones but revealed a mass in his lung. The doctor say she’s 99% sure it is cancer. Te be sure involves a biopsy and the consensus is to not do that.

Coincidentally, Tim came to visit Thursday so we were able to get 4 of the 6 of us in the same room as Mom and Dad to discuss what to do. Dad didn’t say much of anything. We’re not sure how much he understands but he really doesn’t want to spend another afternoon like Wednesday.

The doctor talked of hospice which evidently can be triggered by a six month time frame. Now we’re all coming to terms with the likelihood that, instead of wasting slowly away from Alzheimers, Dad will be dead much sooner.

Everyone was pretty calm Friday when were all discussing this but I feel sure that we are all in some kind of denial.

We will all gather again on Thanksgiving. We will rejoice in what we have and what we have had.

politics

I was upset enough about the way the Supreme Court nomination hearings were going. I shouldn’t be surprised at how brazen the Republican Senators are in hijacking our democracy but I guess I still am. Bush v Gore was nearly 20 years ago now. I keep coming back to the thought of how people in other countries left to come to America when their home was going crazy. The most obvious is Jews in Germany in the 1930s but there are many other examples.

What if I had to do it? Could I give up my family, my livelihood, my friends, the land that I love? Where would I go? These thoughts run through my head when I get too deep into the political news.

So I went to FaceBook and saw this at the top of my timeline:

He was a classmate and known gang member. It was during 8th grade homeroom when the assault happened. The teacher had only been gone a few seconds. Some of my friends laughed as they witnessed it. I had trust issues and became quite withdrawn for a long time after that. I was ashamed and embarrassed and scared of retaliation.

#whyididntreport

Ashley wrote that! My own daughter-in-law. Daughter-in-love. OMFG!

Since her marriage to Jeremy, Ashley has shown me again and again what a high quality person she is. As I’ve gotten to know her better over the years, my respect and love for her has grown by leaps and bounds.

And now I discover that she has been carrying this. OMFG! The sweetest, purest person I know had this happen to her??

Perhaps equally unsettling is the thought that many, maybe even most, other women are carrying similar burdens. Sarah doesn’t like to talk to me abut such things, but she has had similar experiences over the years. Sepi has told me of some things that happened to her as an adult. Men power tripping with sex.

None of these, as far as I can tell, were actual rapes, but where do you draw the line? There are some incidents in my past where I went across the line for an inappropriate touch or a kiss (I realized later). I have tried to reach out to those women in recent years to apologize and take responsibility.

Dear Ashley, thank you for having the courage to speak out. Love, Dad.

things

I made some reference in my last post about my things – memorabilia, books, clothes – that we moved last week from my apartment. I’m still busy trying to finish the floor, but boxes of my things are all over the house. I’ve found that the context has changed how I look at them. Next week the floor will be done and we will crack the garage and Sepi’s things – mostly furniture – will come out and go upstairs. There will then be lots of storage room for all of my boxes.

But now I think I will be letting go of much of it. I’ve had some discussions with friends about their experiences going through their parents’ house after their deaths. Much had to be thrown away. I’ve known for a long time that the same will be true when Mom and Dad pass on. Most of these things are interesting, up to a point. Taken in total, it’s too much.

Well, that day is not yet upon us, but my day is. We have a huge dumpster in front of our house and it must be returned by the end of the month. Many of my things will be in it.

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