Zone of Totality: Another Year, 2016

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Another Year, 2016

Holiday in Savannah

(click the photos)

Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Years... anything to keep us from admitting the monotony of the repetition of short days and long nights. The holidays have become a self-fulfilling prophecy since each year the accumulating parties, festivities, travels, presents, and revelations of holidays past flood our memories. So we do our best to make something memorable happen again. We celebrate ridiculous gods and customs, dance around whatever our various embodiments of Stonehenge happen to be. For all that, the long nights may still hold dark thoughts, depression, the realization that our world, general and particular, is no paradise.
The demise of 2015 was no different. Facebook now holds many of the details of those days in my own and friends' lives. So let me here give a glimpse of the roller-coaster ride from mid-December to now. It was a good time to do some contemplation.
Around the Solstice, Will and I drove to Nashville by way of Starr's. Getting high on the porch and experiencing the bonding of the three of us rocked. Will and I engaged in our usual soul searching. Starr was a delight, as always. The trip from the Mountain to Nashville was all up and down. High up on the campus of Sewanee, we enjoyed the ambiance of that elevated realm of learning and intellect, as well as an ironic embrace of tradition in a very liberal arts world. I loved sharing the University and reminiscing of those extreme times circa 1968-70.

Sewanee

The trip to Nashville to see some bands was, for me, a tedious waste of time and energy. I don't think it was much better for Will who had to drive us all the way back to Atlanta from midnight until 4 AM. Tired, we were no longer engaged in enchanting dialog.

The East Room

For Christmas itself, Darryl and I spent a few days on another mountain at Amicalola Falls. We did have some good food in the Lodge there; however, the fog and the pouring rain and thunder obscured the scenery. We did manage the short hike to the top of the roaring waterfall itself, plunging precipitously into the abyss created by the dense fog.

Amicalola Falls and Fog

Then came Savannah. My father fell and broke his hip on Christmas eve and ruined Kathy's plans for Xmas dinner the next day. After a successful operation to repair the fracture, Dad spend days in the hospital and went to a rehab/nursing home for "recovery" for the next 100 days. John and I spent several evenings with him in the hospital and I convinced the nurse to feed him ice-cream each night since he pushed away his dinner.

John and I managed to spend one warm, sunny day at Tybee walking on the beach around the pier and going for shrimp at Coco's Sunset Grill where, oddly, I managed to fracture a tooth. Dealing with the tooth and a new $1400. crown took up my first week of the New Year when Darryl and I returned to Druid Hills. I have to add that The Savannah Bed and Breakfast Inn disappointed us with a small, if pleasant, room where we were bombarded every day there with construction on the terraces and patios. Still, I was able to visit there at different times with Buz, Ben, and Effie.

New Years's Eve, Darryl and I wandered over to neighbor Gerry's for the midnight celebration, fireworks, and champagne. The party set the perfect mood for taking on yet another year, one that will bring the madness of another presidential election.