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Uber-fans, like me, of the 1979 classic All That Jazz will recognize those lyrics from a film that chronicles one man’s journey toward his demise. The movie is chockful of spectacular performances and never fails to fill my eyes with tears.

Yesterday, less than a month after my own mother passed away, I attended the funeral of a beloved uncle. Sitting there, during what seemed an interminable though well-intended sermon, it occurred to me that I’ve reached that stage in life where one by one, my elders and eventually my familial peers will eventually meet the same fate. As will I…

There will be more funerals, the gaps between each one and the next more slender; they will not occur as infrequently as they did even ten years ago. My mother’s remaining six sisters’ and their spouses’ bodies are in decline, some more evident than others. My husband’s family, even larger, tells the same story.

We will be attired in black, yet again, many times in the coming days, weeks, months and years. None of us know the when only that the if will never fit inside the equation. Never has.

Angelique, the Angel of Death, who troubles and endears Joe Gideon in the film, is beautiful and charismatic. Joe both adores and fears her. Not yet, he tells her at one point, and she demurs, backs away, allows him to live a bit longer.

May we all live – well and truly! – just a bit longer though one day, this same inevitability will arrive for each of us.

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Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. ~ Samuel Butler

We’re on the downward slope of July. August will be here before you know it. Mom always said once you hit Independence Day, summer seems to just fly by. That’s been especially true this year. And, so, every year, round about this time, I start daydreaming about fall and the cooler, drier air that comes – blissfully, beautifully, serenely – as we venture into the loveliest months of the year, back-to-school September and the crown jewel, October.

Today, our dewpoints are firmly entrenched in the mid-70s, well into the ‘miserable’ range. Outdoor tasks, I do them quickly, eager to return to the chilling balm of air conditioning. This afternoon, I turned on my TV, navigated to YouTube and enjoyed a hint of fall by way of autumn asmr ‘ambience’ videos. Soothing rain, pumpkins, haystacks, crackling fireplaces, cozy sits with a steaming mug of yummy goodness, a colorful throw and lighted candles in every corner and on every shelf.

Looking a bit further down the road, I know there will be a multitude of Halloween asmr’s to make me shiver and put a creepy, comfy smile on my face. Truly, I cannot wait!

It’s still summer though and we just have to deal with all that glorious sunshine and her attending heat and humidity. We have plenty of time for boating fun, wineries, live music, riding bikes, margaritas out on the deck and, one of my favorites, the sound of cicadas turning our Chanticleer pear tree into a living, breathing network of buzzing castanets.

There are two kinds of people here in the Midwest, those who appreciate all four seasons (some more than others, like me!) and those who grumble about autumn’s approach because of ‘what comes next’. I love the change of scenery throughout the seasons and prefer to view the cyclical changes year in, year out with a more positive frame of mind.

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Christmas. Just one week away.

How much a non-day event this becomes the older I get. Not a NON-day actually. Every 24-hour cycle is, technically, a day.

What I should have said is what an ANY day Christmas has turned into over the years. “Special” only because our society and our culture and our religious norms and the calendar itself say it’s so. The requisite time spent with family during the holidays – images of jolly laughter, yuletide carols, warmth and comradery – feels forced, somehow. Contrived. In reality, this time of year is often more stressful and chaotic than it is calming and cleansing. Expectations are high, emboldened by the trappings of social media, for a glitzy, candle-shrouded, Hallmark Cards experience to rival anything Hollywood could muster up on the big screen. We’re bombarded with photographs and images, tweets and postings positively dripping with hygge-inspired loveliness that render our drab, ordinary lives pathetic by comparison.

Here’s an idea. What say we treat every day as special, each day a Christmas? Loving one another, treasuring the earth, showing kindness, embracing gratitude every 24-hour cycle. And for good measure – and for sanity’s sake for ALL of us – let’s shrug off what we think and believe others are doing and how others are living their lives and just focus on what makes US happy for a change?

Now that would be cause for celebration.

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I’m thrilled to announce the first publication of one of my poems, Black Picket Fence, which appears in Persephone’s Daughters, Issue Five, Fall 2018. Their About page describes the online publication as ‘a lit magazine dedicated to empowering women who have experienced various forms of abuse and degradation.’

In writing Black Picket Fence, my goal was to revisit an episode from my early twenties, a stark memory of good intentions gone — nowhere — and the shame I experienced when faced with my sheer inability to comprehend how to react when confronted with the damaging effects of domestic violence. Now that I’m older, I recognize how very young I was and how unprepared I was – how unprepared most people might have been – in my situation. I don’t know what happened to this family. This memory has remained, a sad, shameful memory, over the years. I wish I’d done more. I wish I’d known then what to do. The truth is, I felt overwhelmed and powerless and I am so very sorry for my helplessness during this family’s time of need.

Here is the link to Black Picket Fence

Thank you.

Julie Allyn Johnson