Of Medicine, Memories and a Mermaid
We woke up to rain today. With the air of excitement and impending chaos that rain conjures here in the sun drenched climes of Southern California it was a fitting backdrop to my daughter’s return to school. She’s been out of action for over two weeks with a cold that slid inexorably into a pneumonia that had us all more worried than I can ever recall being with her. There were anxiously sleepless nights, constant use of the thermometer and so much penicillin. It’s at times like this that I have a tiny glimpse of just how fortunate we are to have access to modern medicine and the extent to which I take the health of our children for granted. In any case she is on her way to being her old self again and was cheerful and brimming with quiet excitement to be rejoining friends and teachers this morning.
Her departure, of course, left me suddenly alone once again. The dog seemed to relish his revitalized status as sole companion of the lady of the house. Manfully ignoring the rain- which usually has him sitting on the stoop casting a baleful eye at his surroundings- he strolled purposefully around his neighbourhood on an extensive ‘sniffari’. As we visited each of his many favorite spots I heard in my mind, as I usually do, one of the great refrains from the children’s book Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd
‘With tails in the air they trotted on down past the shops and the park to the far end of town. They sniffed at the smells and they snooped at each door, when suddenly out of the shadows they saw…’
We read this book, and others detailing Hairy Maclary’s exploits to our son before we were dog parents and to our daughter with Duke firmly established in our household. How does Lynley Dodd manage to capture the essence of the canine temperament so perfectly I often wonder to myself.
Sickness and rain aside we are in that strange holiday no man‘s land between Thanksgiving and Christmas. After almost a decade here, I still find the rhythm of this time of year a little too staccato for comfort although our daughter’s palpable excitement over the number of days until Santa’s arrival and the possibility that she will be awake to see him has eased it somewhat. In keeping with this forward momentum we put up our Christmas tree a couple of nights ago. I yielded to pressure from the male members of the household a couple of years ago and we bought an artificial tree. While I was initially very reluctant, in a strange and unforeseen way I rather like it now. It’s as if the tree itself has become one of the decorations with which it’s adorned, cherished for the memories it holds, packed away at the end of the season and then welcomed again at the beginning of the next. My daughter and I spent a lovely evening unwrapping each ornament and arranging them in eclectic fashion on the tree. Each year we add a piece or two to the collection which began its life ten Christmases ago in a snowy Manhattan apartment. This year has seen the arrival of an alluring mermaid who floats serenely near a large teardrop and not too far from a crystal snow flake and a glass unicorn. Our second newcomer is a brash and glitzy pink disco ball which reminds me of the New Year‘s Eve ball drop in Times Square and of days gone by whose memories whisper softly through the falling music of a rainy Californian afternoon.
