Wistful

I have been feeling wistful.  Not unhappy, or even sad.   Just wistful.  Anyone else feeling that way?  Maybe it is just that we are not being bombarded with all the usual external stimuli - no movies, no opera (I just haven't been able to get into all the streaming stuff), no other musical outings, no theater, no culinary treats.  More time to think, I guess.

For whatever reason, I have been thinking a lot about the road - roads, really - not taken.  That boyfriend in college (you know who you are): what would have happened had we married?  (Truthfully, who knows whether that was a missed opportunity or just a figment of my fervid imagination - and really, the same is true for the following examples of missed roads...)  That girlfriend who I spent a lot of time with when I was younger (now many years dead, of necretizing fasciitis) - was that an attempt at a sexual connection, which I didn't explore?  Who knows how my life would have changed?  And had my once-upon-a-time fiancee not died of aids in the 80's? And dear, dear Hank.  Before his death, he implied that there was a potential relationship there, that I had "jilted" him in favour of David.  I honestly never saw it at the time.  But if I had?  

Those of you who know me know that, overall, I am not unhappy with how my life has progressed thus far, and consider myself far luckier than most. Nonetheless, one does wonder, what if? 

The more I think about it, though, the more I have to acknowledge that I am damaged goods.  I really am not connected to "normal" the way most people are. I have no family to speak of - my parents and grandparents long dead, uncles and aunts dead, a few remaining cousins far away, and, while not estranged, exactly, are certainly not a part of my life.   (my uncle hated my father, and even when I was little, I knew I was an obligation, not a love interested...  or was that also a figment of my imagination?)

Why?  I have been thinking about that (as well as lots of other things - see above).  My mother died when I was three.  Did I become wary of emotional attachments?  I adored my father, but he really was insane - probably certifiable, if jews did that sort of thing.... and connecting with him was always risky.  My stepmother didn't really like me.  I don't mean to say I was mistreated - far from it - but early on, I know she didn't value anything I valued.  Her idead of an insult was to say:  there you are again, with your nose in a book, just like your father.  So, again, no connection.

Maybe I just got out of the habit......

I am usually not this maudlin.  And, as I say, things haven't turned out so badly.  But one wonders...

All right, enough of that.  What else is new? Nothing much, in the world of COVID.  Of course, there are people who are behaving incredibly badly, and that's depressing for those of us who would prefer to have a glass half full outlook.  That, at least, is more easily solved.  Most of you know I don't have a television - haven't had in years - and if I listen to audiobooks instead of the radio, I don't have to have my nosed rubbed into people's stupidity!  After all, everyone around me personally is behaving well....

Nothing else much to report.  Still walking - trying to keep all the parts moving...

And I almost forgot the reading list.  Lots of mysteries - Martha Grimes (The Black Cat, The Case has Altered, Vertigo42) and Elizabeth George (A Banquet of Consequences) - it seems like there is an endless number of these around, and I do love them.  Agatha Christie's estate has authorized someone to write new Hercule Poirot mysteries.  I am, generally speaking, skeptical of those sorts of things, but the one I read (listenedd to, really), The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, was quite good.  I also listened to Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett.  She is among my current favourite authors, and this is among her best (I had read it before...).  

More classically speaking, I read Young Werther, by Goethe.  My father endlessly quoted Schiller, Heine and Goethe to me when I was younger, but I never had read Goethe on my own, although, of course, I knew all about it, including the Werther mania in Europe...  (maybe one of the reasons I am feeling so - wistful - ).  Also in the classics vein, Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, another one of those things one knows about but often haven't read.  And I am a sucker for Russian literature.  Finally, I am listening to War, by Margaret Macmillan, a well known Canadian historian.  This is a (relatively) new book about the history of war.  She is a good writer (and the reader, who is not the author), is good too, but to say I am enjoying it would be putting too fine a point on it - it is too depressing for that....

Well, that is all for now, folks.  Hope you are all safe, healthy, and happy, and, on this pre-(American)Thanksgiving day, remembering how much you have to be thankful for.  In my case, it is, as always (among many other things), my friends.  Thank you all, for being so supportive, and such good friends.

Take care of yourselves, and each other....