The news is rife with trouble. Russia is acting up, and Malaysia Flight 370 remains unfound. Regarding the latter, I can't imagine what it must be like for those left behind to wonder about loved ones who seem to have vanished into thin air. Fifteen days with no news. Is the plane in the ocean? Did it crash into a jungle? Or is the engine purring on some remote tarmac, the passengers held hostage or dead, the hijackers planning some as yet unforeseen new terror? As for the former, it feels like we're heading back to the duck and cover days when kids were instructed to climb under desks at the first sign of a colossal flash of light.
Calendars tell us spring is here. Really? Because it's been snowing where I am. Snowing and cold. And windy. Howling wind as a matter of fact. Confused crocuses popped up last week near my driveway and are now frozen solid, their tiny buds encased in ice crystals. My cats and dog continue to huddle in warm inside corners, gazing at me pleadingly as if the bitter cold is somehow my fault. Every morning I peer out the window and wonder if today will be the one when the first balmy spring breeze arrives. That's the first thing I check. My second morning chore is to click on the television to find out if today's headlines will finally give some relief to families waiting on the ground for confirmed news of an airplane's location, good or bad. Then I switch channels to see if Russian troops have marched across another border. Or if Chris Christie has been frog-marched out of office. Or if Winter Storm Zeb is marching across the country. March has been a month of marching.
Attended a wonderful party last night hosted by my friend Jennifer. Jen's mom turned 85, and the party was in her and her twin sister's honor. The evening's highlight for me was when Jen, in her toast, looked lovingly at her mother and said, "Mom, it seems like only yesterday when you were going to send me to reform school." Like many mothers and daughters, Jen and Janet struggled through the turbulent teen years. Now they live under the same roof and are the best of friends. Who knew?
Like Russia and Flight 370 and spring and relationships and, indeed, everything else, I suppose we never know how things are going to turn out until they finally do. We can have our expectations and our fears and our plans, but in the end it seems life is just one big crazy puzzling crap shoot.
"Shut out the noise," a friend told me once.
"Get a helmet," said another.
"Let it roll baby roll," said The Doors. "The future's uncertain and the end is always near."
