With Neither Bang ‘Nor Whimper

2017: One Step at a Time

On this last day of 2017, we thought we’d sleep in.  No alarm set to go off.  No over-riding reason for our internal clocks to waken us.  Nothing planned until tonight when we’ll gather with friends to see in the New Year.  A good day to be lazy.

But… we only got twenty minutes past the usual wake-up bell and then it seemed to be coffee time and the day began.  Damn!  It’s so unusual (at least for me) to plan an unstructured day (how’s that for an oxymoron?) that I feel totally discombobulated.  I can’t help but think that this final day of this most difficult year should be marked by something extraordinary.  Something exciting.  Something celebratory.  Something that says WE MADE IT loud and clear.

2017: A Year of Watching

T.S. Elliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men” comes to mind.  Not the whole thing.  Just the last line: Not with a bang but a whimper.  Except I’m not thinking about the end of the world.  Not exactly.  Though, Lord knows this past year gave me cause enough to think what would happen to my own world if the doctors couldn’t help Nyel…

And the news of the crazies running our country and poking at the crazies running other countries was far from reassuring.  I confess that I wondered if this old planet would survive long enough to die slowly from global warming or from pesticides or from strangulation by plastic debris.  With a bang or a whimper?

2018: Fill in the blanks

But, I can’t quite work up the requisite energy to celebrate the coming of 2018 one way or the other.  Not with a bang.  Not with a whimper.  I hope I haven’t become paralyzed by fear.  Nor do I want to sink into my grandmother’s “sea of despond” – her description of being overcome by lethargy now and then.

So, what’s the middle ground between whimper and bang?  It must be plodding.  One step in front of another.  Due diligence.  All that sort of thing.  Or…  perhaps I could emulate my grandmother once again.  Her solution to this unaccustomed feeling of ennui: I am going to take some liver pills tonight and my disposition may be improved thereby she wrote to daughter Medora when she was going through a bad patch.  Yikes!

One Response to “With Neither Bang ‘Nor Whimper”

  1. Joe Paliani says:

    If only the love that you both have given to one another and to those to whom you hold to your hearts, and yours to theirs, that’s the deepest of loves, straight into each other’s soul. God bless you both. I predict you and Nyel will host a party soon, where both of you show us your best Tango moves. Looking forward to being with you both in the new year.

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