midweek musings…

In the continuum of COVID days, when one day melts into another like Salvador Dali’s watch, do you find yourself after boring same same weeks giving days special names just to amuse yourself?   Like the old familiar Hump Day and Dress Down Day, you can now have Purge Your Closet Day, Take out the Trash Day and Binge Watching Day.  I have a new one to share with you, Disappearing Day.

I arrived at my sister’s house this past Saturday evening for a week-long birthday visit.  Life has been a little crazy for both of us lately.  Between feeling a bit overwhelmed and the forecast for Sunday’s weather of rain and gloom, we decided to indulge in an invention of Jeanne’s that she has used throughout the years when overwhelming stress necessitates it.  To save her sanity, she invented Disappearing Day, a sort of mental health day.   You shut out the rest of the world and pretend you are the only person on the planet.   No rules, no schedule, no getting dressed, no outside communication, just blessed quiet.  Curtains remain closed.  

We started our day sitting in front of the fire with our coffee.  It’s a wonderful luxury on a damp, dreary morning to be able to push a button and have a roaring fire.  

Much of the day was spent binge watching Emily in Paris, a fun, refreshing romp, shot entirely in technicolor Paris. Francophiles that we are, the elegant architecture of the City of Light charmed us as we glimpsed places we had visited and the streets we had walked.  As satisfying as it was, it did leave us longing to linger in a sidewalk café, getting our caffeine fix and people watching.

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Leftovers for lunch, reading, napping and scrambled eggs for dinner, it was just what the doctor ordered.

My sister isn’t the only family member to invent her own day.  Many moons ago when living in Indiana with our three young sons, we found ourselves next door to a family with three daughters.  The mother, Deb, became a good friend and we spent many hours together watching our broods ride big wheels, run through sprinklers and consume mountains of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I don’t remember precisely what the impetus was, but Deb and I decided to honor our middle children with Middle Child Day.  Perhaps we recognized that the oldest gets everything first and the youngest holds the coveted baby position.  Middle children can be occasionally overlooked and expected to just go along, which luckily these usually do.  So, to celebrate the sometimes-overlooked position of being the middle child, they were treated to an entire day out with their moms.  A trip to the zoo, a special lunch complete with their own special dessert– a hot fudge cookie monster sundae.   No brothers or sisters to share their sundae or the spotlight with.  It was a great day and my only regret is that we didn’t keep it up.

It tickles my fancy that my first born is continuing the tradition of inventing special days.  Emmet is the father of my three fabulous grandsons – Henry, Eli and Sam.  One Saturday the boys were driving their mom a little batty when Emmet took matters into his own hands and turned Saturday into Da-der-day.  The boys got a trip to a convenience store where they each chose a snack and a drink.  Then it was home to hang with dad.  They played video games, Magic, and watched movies.  It is a tradition that has stuck although in these pandemic days the boys make a list for their dad instead of going shopping with him.  I will note that Emmet cannot do a middle child day as his first two offspring are twins and the third already seems to exhibit a very healthy sense of self.

As we continue to push through these challenging days, weeks and months have you and your family found creative ways of coping?   These are the days of our lives so we may as well make them whatever we want!

C’est la vie.