Back in 1990 when I was moving to Toronto by myself, I went out and bought some furniture for this wonderful two-bedroom, two-bath apartment I had rented to live in during my tenure as CEO of BT Bank of Canada. Given that my tour in Toronto had been likened in the industry as my being sent to a Russian Gulag, it was not so Gulag-like on the ground, but actually rather nice surroundings. The one item of furniture from then I have kept all these years is an etagere that stands about five feet tall and is probably 20”x12” with five open shelves. It’s crafted in the empire style so it could be considered a bit on the fancy versus contemporary side, but despite that it is a favorite of mine for its simplicity in displaying various antiquities and objects of interest gathered from our travels. It’s probably more cluttered than it should be, but above it on the wall is a gilded framed oil painting I have owned for almost as long. Wherever I have lived, that painting lives above the etagere. It’s darker hues are a good match with the finish on the etagere and it too has the look of something from a curio shop. I have noted before that the painting, by a well-known Argentine artist, is titled Solo en la immensidad or Alone in the Vastness. I love that painting and it really speaks to me for some reason, which is interesting. I have certainly felt alone at times in my life. That has even driven me to moments of true loneliness. But whatever I may have felt in that regard has not visited my door for twenty years. That’s how long I have been with Kim and I hope never to feel alone again. The life and death events of the past week have brought the whole topic of life partnership to the fore.
I have just had Kim’s family in attendance at Casa Moonstruck for three days. I joke with Kim that its a good thing I have gone into this new better version of myself at the moment because I don’t seem to mind preparing meals, serving and cleaning up after them. That’s a pretty big change for this old lazy bastard and I attribute it mostly to my Zepbound-led dietary adjustments because it has caused me to go out to buy food in supermarkets (mostly Trader Joe’s), put it into portions, and then prepare it myself. That’s what I was doing and would have been doing if we didn’t have Kim’s family here, so it didn’t seem like such a big deal to me to expand the volume and do it for her family. As for cleaning up, I both have more energy on this diet and I am very conscious of making Kim’s life as easy as I can right now, so even cleaning up after a meal seems more therapeutic than anything. Much has been written about how doing things for yourself can be a very liberating action, and so it has been for me. Expanding it to doing for others is just another notch up on the totem pole of personal spirituality. Add to that, I have taken care of all of the paperwork associated with my brother-in-law’s death, including crafting the death certificate and writing the obituary. It reminds me of that week in January of 1994 when my father died (strangely enough, not so very far from this hilltop) and it fell to me as the oldest son to take care of all the paperwork and arrangements for the cremation, burial site, memorial gathering and ….the eulogy. I learned then that whatever time and effort one expends in such a selfless endeavor is repaid in feel-good many times over.
But now I am all by myself (other than my constant companion these days, good ol’ Buddy) on a sunny Saturday afternoon. This is truly the calm before the storm. You see, the final show of Kim’s vocal ensemble, Encore! is today. I saw the show last night and it was absolutely marvelous. It showed all the value that Kim put into it as its new Staging Director over the past four of five months. There is always a cast party after the final show and for the third year in a row, that will be here on our hilltop. We’ve got the drill down pretty smoothly at this point and the arrival of 70-80 guests for a Saturday evening extravaganza is not as difficult now as it was the first time. We tend to make a bigger production of it than others might, but its catered by our local deli and the drinks are all about one CostCo run for wine, soda and water. Kim hires two of our cleaning crew gals to do the basic heavy lifting and clean-up, so what falls to me is table and chair set-up and a few other things like trash and recycle bins and driveway lanterns to provide a more “magical” feel as the guests come up the hill to our little Shangri-La. This year I bit the bullet and bought some more folding tables and chairs (thank you again, CostCo) so that we didn’t have to keep borrowing them from friendly neighbors. We did the seating math and we have fifteen seats on the patio (which is a truly special spot with the Mexican star-lights hanging from the bottle tree and the running water from the spa waterfall), 20 seats on the driveway parking area (which is near the food and drink under the shade sail, which is trimmed with sparkling Tivoli lights that I keep up through the holidays…I will also leave the basalt fountain on to be perfectly feng-shui), fifteen soft seats around the fire pit on the deck (looking out at the twinkling lights of the Freeway and surrounding hills), ten seats at the round dining room table, seven seats at the kitchen table and another ten seats in the living room. That makes for total seating for 75 without too much of a squeeze. We could easily put another 20-30 out on the driveway parking area if we really needed to, but I doubt we will ever have that sort of capacity crowd.
The girls will clean everything and I will break down all the tables and chairs afterwards, so this party is well in hand even if Kim can’t lift a finger. It will prove to be an exclamation point on an otherwise hectic week and I’m just glad that her dear old friend Matthew is down from L.A. for the night so that he can be there to help me pick up the pieces (of Kim) in the morning. He has known Kim longer than I have by about a dozen years and having met her while he was directing Vermont summer stock theater he gets her and he gets her jam for tonight’s show. Meanwhile, Buddy and I are just sitting here watching the clock. The show is starting right now. The girls show up with the ice and their take-charge ways in two hours. The food arrives an hour after that and then the troupe of bards finds their way up the mountain. We’ve invited some neighbors, on who’s graces I have prevailed for guest parking, and I have told them they are free to drop by if they are without other plans. But right now, I am all by myself… again, looking out over the sunset on the western horizon, wondering what next week will throw at us…