Full Circle

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Jean Urbanski

I have returned from a wonderful road trip during which I did not make a single entry here, thinking I would be in the moment and come here when I got back home.

I am back home. I have no notes in my File-o-Fax. I just have lots of random pictures and no clue how to organize them chronologically.

Then, I remembered this record:

Date	Description	Amount	Rewards	Running Balance





May 04, 2021	3 SISTERS FUEL STOP SISTERS OR


May 03, 2021	RED LION INN & SUITES JEROME ID
May 03, 2021	REDMOND INN REDMOND OR
May 03, 2021	BURNS MARKET BURNES OR
May 03, 2021	SAFEWAY #1665 REDMOND OR
May 02, 2021	SHELL OIL 57444633804 JEROME ID
May 02, 2021	YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL P YELWSTN NL PK WY
May 02, 2021	DAVE’S JUBILEE ASHTON ID
May 01, 2021	CONOCO – TOWN PUMP 610 LIVINGSTON MT
May 01, 2021	MARKS IN AND OUT LIVINGSTON MT
Apr 30, 2021	SQ *WILDFLOUR BAKERY & Emigrant MT
Apr 28, 2021	MATTS BUTCHER SHOP & D LIVINGSTON MT
Apr 28, 2021	BLAKE NURSERY BIG TIMBER MT
Apr 27, 2021	EMIGRANT OUTPOST EMIGRANT MT
Apr 26, 2021	QUALITY INN & SUITES LIBERTY LAKE WA
Apr 26, 2021	CONOCO – TOWN PUMP 560 BUTTE MT
Apr 26, 2021	CONOCO – TOWN PUMP 560 BUTTE MT
Apr 25, 2021 TEMPLINS TRUCK STOP SPRAGUE WA

What a surprising 2021 way to keep a journal! In reverse. Pictures will follow. In time. In no order.

Bodies

Posted on April 8, 2021 by Jean Urbanski

I have so much gratitude for the service this old body has provided over the decades. And more or less, maybe less nowadays, it continues to do so.

Back at the gym now, well, a different gym after mine went broke during the suit-down. Getting back to center may not happen after this recent hiatus, but getting stronger.

Looking online for a powered kayak loader to get that boat on top of the car. As to this, I can remember hoisting it overhead with my bare arms just a few years back.

A friend asked me yesterday whether my knees hurt more going upstairs or downstairs. It’s a tossup, but I am doing both.

I have never in my life liked the way I look but I’ve never really be-moaned that. When I fix up, I don’t scare small children. And now, for someone in my age-group I don’t look bad at all. Turtle necks and shades are very helpful. And when we get rid of these Covid masks, I’m wearing red lipstick.

Other people’s bodies seem to fail them before time and it breaks my heart.

A dear friend, exactly the age of my youngest daughter, has breast cancer. She is a single mother, an orphan, no grandparents, no sisters. Her own mother died of the same thing when she was in high school. I saw the first picture today of her getting her first chemo. I can only reach out to her, hundreds of miles away, with little ointments on Caringbridge/Amazon.

My neighbor across the street had a kidney transplant a couple of years ago. This month, he will lose his leg. I guess this often happens. He is out every day now, mowing the lawn. Trimming the hedges. Waxing his car. If I ask him how he’s doing he says, “Looking forward to getting that prosthesis.”

Where do people get that kind of courage.

In the meantime, I am just so very grateful.

Gone-ness

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Jean Urbanski

It’s a word that came to me years ago to express the total and complete absence of a thing when it is gone. It can be a person, an animal, or even a beloved tree. A dear friend who moved away. Even a place that you had to leave behind.

There was a lot of gone-ness for us this past year. And you think you have moved on. Then you see that the engraver has returned to add Mother’s death-date to the grave marker she and Daddy now share and you cry for what you hope will be one last time.

Or the vet’s office calls and says you can come pick up the ashes.

You want to let go and you want to hold on. When you no longer feel that terrible ache in your solar plexus, or deliberately think of something sweet and precious that makes you cry, then they are really gone. So you hang on.

Being old, I know that, eventually, you no longer feel that heart-breaking pang. I no longer cry when I think of Mama Harrison, or my beautiful German Shepherd Alice, or the redwood trees I left behind.

Gone-ness.

Renewal

Posted on March 27, 2021 by Jean Urbanski

I first got an Oregon driver’s license in 2005 after having lived her for almost ten years. First, I has a California license and turned that one in for a Hawaii license. I was told that I would need that one for “kamaiana” discounts when on Maui. Not so much.

Amazing the things Covid messes with. Couldn’t get an appointment in Salem for a renewal before my old license expired. I was able to get one in Stayton. I am a small-town girl and always try to do business whenever I am in one.

Had a good laugh. The agent asked me whether We wanted to stick with the weight on my old license. Understanding laughter all around. The woman socially-distanced nest to me said she hadn’t weighted 135 pounds since fifth grade. Actually, I doubt that I am still 5’3″.

New licenses are pretty fancy. Holographic and stuff. For security. My diligent Mac Guy (edit by said MacGuy: I have edited the image 🙂 will probably advise me to take this shot down saying that it can be copied by any unscrupulous person. Who, I ask you, would want to impersonate me? Actually, I know the answer to that: anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to have been born here.