Pruning Christmas cacti

 Perhaps in response to the virus restrictions and more time at home, last summer I tackled my Christmas cactus collection. My mother gave me Christmas cactus clippings over the years: they are easy to grow: a single stem in potting soil will soon root, grow, and eventually bloom. I had one beautiful specimen that cascaded pink blossoms every December in a place of honor on our piano. But when we converted the front room to a library, with floor-to-ceiling shelving, the piano, which was hopelessly out of tune, was removed. I recognized that the cascade had become an awkward, overgrown tenant.

The library is five years old now, so it was high time to take all my cacti in hand. One by one I placed them on an overturned wire-mesh wastebasket on the kitchen island so I could objectively consider their cascading stems (cacti don’t have leaves). To produce a balanced and agreeable effect, I had to prune severely.

The cacti sat on our kitchen porch all summer, shaded from the hot summer sun. With winter approaching, I brought them into my office and David’s room, my adjunct conservatory.

The pruning had its effect: a flower on every last stem.

Slowing time down

 I’ve been studying out in my mind the concept of hypomania. That’s the delicious, intoxicating state below (hypo) mania. In my experience, psychosis is terrifying and not in a good way. Horror stories are fun (for some people, not for me) because they are safe. Whatever horrible thing is happening to the characters, we are safe in our living room or movie theater.

But hypomania isn’t terrifying. Food tastes exquisite; thoughts and ideas flow effortlessly; colors are more vibrant. Everything is breathtaking.

I experienced hypomania this past spring. It never got dangerous. It was seductive.

One of the brilliant ideas I had was that I could slow down time. I found the name of the year, twenty-twenty, enchanting. Until age forty, I had better than twenty-twenty vision: I was far-sighted. (I now have to wear trifocals to see my world sharply.) The possibilities in that name (before the virus) seemed endless and exciting. And suddenly I knew, with certainty, that I could slow down time. Not stop time, but take it very slowly, so that I could enjoy and savor the year and accomplish amazing things.

Describing it now, it reminds me of an experience I had one night in high school. I was at a party my parents didn’t know about, smoking something. As I sat in an unfamiliar kitchen, I looked at the white wall clock with black hands. I looked away and about an hour later glanced back at it. To my amazement, only a minute had passed on the clock face. I did it again and again. Time had slowed for me, how cool was that?

Several years later I realized the truth: whatever the speed of time, I had done nothing but sit. What did it matter if time slowed?

March and April were similar. I thought I had learned the secret to lengthening time, but I had nothing to show for it.

Sadly, November rushes by; time has not slowed. I experience what older people used to tell me: the years are flying faster and faster. The illusion of holding time was just that, an illusion. But it was a pretty thought while it lasted.

Veterans Day 2020

11 November 2020

 Since the mid-nineties, when R’el played flute in the Lexington High School band, Jim and I have attended the town Veterans’ Day celebrations: a parade with marching band, Minutemen, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and veterans waving from the front seats of cars. The program always includes a few high school students reading their winning essays about veteran grandfathers and patriotism. Even after Sam graduated, we kept the tradition, walking to the town center and waving to the LHS band director as he marched smartly down Mass. Ave.

I’m still not used to the covid world. This morning I asked Jim if he was going with me to the parade. I don’t think there’ll be one, he said. Right. Yet again I pictured life the way it’s always been.

The high school students read their winning essays online and in the afternoon a motor vehicle parade drove down Mass. Ave from East Lexington.

I walked to St. Brigid’s parking lot, the endpoint of the parade, about ¼ mile from our house, then continued up Mass. Ave to the Battlegreen. There I sat on the grass awaiting the first car. As its veteran passenger came into view, my eyes inexpectedly filled with tears. I hadn’t been thinking of David, but there he was.

David was a veteran for about a month. He was honorably discharged six weeks before he died. He got a lovely 11x14 Certificate of Retirement. Funny, I’ve never actually read it:

CERTIFICATE OF RETIREMENT

FROM THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATE OF AMERICA

TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING:

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT

SPECIALIST DAVID H. JOHNSTON

HAVING SERVED FAITHFULLY AND HONORABLY

WAS RETIRED FROM THE

UNITED STATES ARMY

                        ON THE 29TH DAY OF JUNE 2015

GENERAL, UNITED STATE ARMY

CHIEF OF STAFF

David also received a Certificate of Appreciation, signed by Barack Obama, Commander in Chief.

I’m happy for all those veterans who have enjoyed lives full of children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Happy to stand on the corner of the Battlegreen and wave as their motorcade passes by on a seventy-degree day in mid-November.

And grateful to have stood at Mass. Ave all those many years, including the four that saw an earnest boy in glasses playing the clarinet while marching in time to the “Armed Forces Medley.”

Happy Veterans’ Day.