5) Fast Forward
tomorrow, better days are looking mighty fine
It’s time for all that end of the year stuff with the notable lists and the curated recaps and the best of this and worst of that. Looking back is the last thing I want to do.
A cursory glance at my 2022 calendar: I notice all my exercising stopped in March. I had no idea I’d backslid into nine months of no spin biking, no Orange Theory, no yoga. Nine months of paying for unused Gold’s Gym membership. Crikey. No wonder I’m not in the best head space.
I did walk a lot. I walked with Tux. (see “An Unexpected Turn for the Worse” on Nov 24 if you aren’t up to speed.) Looking back invites the chill of remembering there were only ten months and three weeks of 2022 that I had Tux. Loved him, took care of him, worried about him, thought of him throughout the day.
There’s also confronting the very insufficient six months of the year where I had my mom. All during those months we looked forward to stuff that she didn’t get to do. Six months of planning to go to England for her brother’s memorial, three months of excitement for the 85th birthday party I was throwing for her. A couple months spent talking about moving her back to England.
Thinking about this causes some dysfunction throughout several bodily systems: respiratory, nervous, adrenals. I have a visceral and physical reaction that weakens me when I really need to feel strong.
Eventually these absences will be woven into the fabric of my past, closed chapters. At present the deaths seem like an aberration or a glitch that won’t right itself.
Because I’m here in England, Tux’s death is still an abstraction. I haven’t been home to open my front door where for the first time, he will not be dancing in ecstatic circles to see his favorite human. In a few weeks, I’ll return to find instead the multifarious holes of his absence in every room, in every corner of my property.
Here in England, my mom’s death is not an abstraction—it is omnipresent and real. I’m missing her this season. I’m here creating a new Christmastime because she’s not with us. We’ve always been a small family, but we had reliable traditions. Familiar rituals, those little samenesses that bring a fleeting sense of security we humans grasp for.
My mom always slept over on Christmas Eve with me, Audrey and Audrey’s dad Steven. I use the same decorations every year. The tree, 7 feet minimum, wrapped with symmetrical precision in a spiral galaxy of lights. The Christmas music playlist and games were played.
Some years we’d have “curry Christmas eve,” cooking pots of curry and rice for dinner, infusing the air with a tangle of scents; garlic, pine, gingerbread and turmeric lingering into the next day.
Early in the morning, Steven made too many pancakes, followed by too many presents being opened, a process we dragged out for ages. I hope I will always remember my mom exclaiming in a high, childlike voice: “Ooohhhhhhhh.” She received each gift with joy and delight. And there’s this: last Christmas my mom gave me a compressed package of salmon, the kind that people who go camping or on long hikes use. I did not exclaim in joy and delight like she would’ve done if I’d given her camping salmon.
I think I said “What an interesting choice, how did you decide on this Mom?”
Always, at least twice—I waited for it, knowing it would come—my mom said: “Kathy’s gifts are wrapped so beautifully. She was a professional gift wrapper!”
She’s been saying that every Christmas for 51 years, since I was 12 and got a job wrapping presents at Scarbroughs on Congress Avenue in 1971. That job was a lifetime ago, but I remember everything about it. I remember getting paid after two weeks of Christmastime wrapping, taking the money, going to the jewelry counter of the same store, and buying my mom a ring with a tiny ruby in it. I remember being so proud of myself and so happy to give her something special.
Many years later, my mom pawned the ring after she got strung out on cocaine.
I will never know anyone again who is so easily pleased. I will also never know why I couldn’t or didn’t let things like pawning my gift hurt me. I refused to acknowledge it. Her behavior, uncontrollable and unchangeable, seemed like a pointless thing to be hurt by. The best assets are forged from fucked-upness.
After presents, we’d be a little stir crazy and pile in the car for a trip to Starbucks because it’s the only place open in Westlake on Christmas day. That’s how Texas is. Melessa came over, and we’d spend the afternoon at a fancy movie place, iPic or somewhere with food service and comfy recliners. I bought the tickets a month before.
Finally, that evening, I’d help my mom gather up all her gifts. She’d drive off in her used Toyota that I bought her—I bought her all her cars—and head home. I always felt sad for her, sad that everything she had was because I gave it to her—except for her friends of course. But really, that made me sad too because her friends all had things she would never have. There were some things I couldn’t give her.
Our relationship was complex and weird, and she could be super annoying and odd, but I loved her, and she loved me, and I am missing her this Christmas.
After my mom was gone, I sat in the back yard one afternoon. A butterfly made swirling designs in the air, having a frolic on a late afternoon breeze. I let myself believe it could be her and started a conversation. One-sided, but things that needed to be said. I won’t go into it all here because this is starting to look like a dreary post which isn’t an accurate depiction of my present direction of motion. But I did ask: Is that you? Are you happy? Do you feel free? I hope you are happy mom.
A stranger messaged me on Instagram a few weeks after she died and said he thought he’d tapped into her afterlife vibe and that she felt very free and cut loose from her body and mortal life problems. He was apologetic for telling me this and sure I would think he was freaky, but I was well into it. After all, I’m just a human grasping for whatever comfort I can find.
Something good is happening, here and now, in the present. It’s as poetic as the dawn breaking, when the darkness gradiates into color and light, and being awake to see it. Something good is happening, and I think it started here, on this very Substack. I might be, I seem to be, writing my way back from uncertainty and lostness.
Purpose and intention are being drawn, messy and illegible. Writing for people, for you, is giving me the breath to breathe life into my ideas and dreams. So thanks for being here, truly. I’m honored to have your company and happy to share the process, even if it is a wobbling and imperfect process. Which is also probably exactly how my new exercise reboot will be as well.
I’d like a fast forward. A head start. Get dropped into works that are already well underway. Time is surging and urgent and the things I want to do are big. A book and a record and a move to a new country. For the curious, the book will be memoir, and I’ll be sharing the proposal with my D of M (Direction of Motion) readers. As much as I’d like to get some fiction published, this is the book that wants to be written now. “All I Ever Wanted” was a slice of life that ended in 1990. Trust me, there’s some stories left to tell.
I’ll also be writing and producing a solo record. I made “Light Years” in 2005, my book soundtrack in 2020, and a few singles here and there. Most of my music is on the KV Bandcamp page. I’ve not been prolific, because I really just like playing in a band. But I also love holing up in the studio to create my own music. Urgency is directing my efforts—I’m just following an impulse. Things come from doing just that.
I’ll probably be back in Texas before I write here again. I hope if you’re looking back over the past year, it is satisfying and I hope for the best possible outcomes for all your upcoming ventures.
Since I named this essay “Fast Forward” it occurs to me that I wrote a song with Charlotte for the Go-Go’s a couple of years ago and it had that same title. I recorded a rough demo, singing and playing all the instruments, and submitted it to the band. The song wasn’t picked but I still like it, especially the lyrics. Here’s an excerpt of the music and words—who knows maybe one day I will find a cool little pop band to give it to. xoKV
It's wondrous the way that grief can sometimes bring joy. When I was in my mid-thirties, I lost two people I loved, one in September, the other in December, and by New Year's I didn't know where to turn. And yet, six months later, I was getting on stage to do stand-up comedy. The prospect would have daunted me a year before, but after that grief I just thought, "So what if I bomb? Will that be worse than what I just endured?" So I did it, and it was amazing.
I'm not saying the loss of those people was worth it, because it wasn't. Given the choice, I'd have tossed the jokes and kept my loved ones, but I didn't get that choice. I couldn't stop the grief, but I gratefully accepted the joy that came after. It's the only deal I was offered.
Also, thanks for the song clip!
What a wonderful essay!