Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

Fear: What to do When Someone is Suicidal NOTE: ARE YOU SUICIDAL? THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. CALL 988 RIGHT THIS SECOND.  Are you afraid someone close to you suicidal? Read on. This post is for people who are afraid their husband/wife/kid/parent/friend/roommate/family member is going to kill themselves.  IF YOUR PERSON IS IN CRISIS THIS SECOND, CALL 988 FOR THE SUICIDE HELPLINE. CALL 911 AND ASK FOR A WELLNESS CHECK FOR YOUR PERSON. They can connect you to whatever local resources are available.  Okay story time.    So on the 4th of July, a couple of dads in our cul de sac went ALL out. We put our folding chairs on the driveway and lit our tiny sparklers and sat back to enjoy the show. My neighbor-bestie (I shall call her T) took one look at the other neighbors’ DIY Cul-De-Sac of Fire Rocket extravaganza and said, “I hate fireworks!! I know it’s stupid, but I always think they’re going to burn down my house! Sorry!! I know I’m being paranoid, but I just can’t!!” And s...

Betty Jo Page Davis, born August 4, 1931, died at home peacefully and surrounded with love on October 23, 2021, at the respectable age of 90. She was a rosy-cheeked farm girl from Pleasant Grove, Utah, who could milk cows and drive trucks and bake the world’s best orange rolls. She was also a polyglot globe-trotting adventurer who could fly an airplane, ride a motorcycle, tame wild horses, and domesticate sullen teenagers. She could wail on the saxophone, hold forth on the viola, and astonish on the piano. She composed poems as gifts and odes as offerings, and the most anticipated moment at every family event was Grandma Betty Jo shyly standing up to read a hilarious and touching original poem scribbled in shorthand on a receipt or the inside of an envelope. Her fanclub is worldwide. Today, people from Maine to Oregon to Hawaii to Germany are mourning her passing, remembering the infinite ways she delighted in the world. She is survived by her sister Margene Page Edwards, who was her f...

First, things are fine. Everyone is healthy and alive, and mid-pandemic, that is not something to take for granted.  Second, grief is an unfolding thing-- like a comically long devil's contract unspooling across the carpet-- you never signed it but are stuck with anyway, smeary black ink and a bloody handprint sealing the deal. And I'm mulling that over and want to chew on my thoughts, here, longform, in bloggerspace. It's a cliche that there are stages of grief. It's a given, a known, almost a punchline. In graphics describing the stages, they are as neat and orderly as a flow chart. First Denial that morphs into Anger, as you shake your fist at God. Then you beg and Bargain. But nothing changes-- God's face is impassive. You sink into the miserable, neverending reality of it in stage Depression, and then eventually you wash your face, and emerge bigger and better, sadder maybe, but wiser into the stage of Acceptance. Something about this tidy taxonomy makes me gri...

The tempation to reflect as the calendar year flips over is too great for me to resist. I've ordered my 2021 calendar ( a pinup calendar, yes. Of Norse goddesses. Yep. I'm an adult, I can do what I want.) So I think that means I can, gingerly, gently, with much deference and genuflection, put this cluster of a year to rest.  But it eludes examination. It slithers out of my awarenss. What was this year, even? I have to consult outside sources. My memory is just a gray haze of heat, cold, panic, and immobility.  So I go to instagram. This is why I have it, by the way. It is a net to catch memories that my sieve-brain just lets dissolve.  Last January 1st, 2020, we got up before dawn, parked at the closed gate of the parking lot on Spencer's Butte, and scrambled up the bitter cold stairs. I had just pulled the kids out of bed, as is, so they were draped in blankets instead of coats, with thick fuzzy socks stuffed into slippers (aka flipflops). We looked around for the rising...