For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
(Kahlil Gibran 1883-1931)
We laughed until we had to cry / And we loved right down to our last goodbye
(David Foster, Just For A Moment, 1985)
I am the stable bow in my children’s lives. Even as they race ahead like arrows loosed into time, they often find their way back to the bow that launched them. Bridgette graduated from high school on Wednesday. Everything is different, now. Come fall, I will be an empty nester. I’ll have time to take long walks and get coffee with my friends. Unfotunately, the ones I’ve cherished the most have died. I will have the most spare time I’ve had in 27 years and my most trusted friends are dead.
Louisa died from cancer in August and and last month Heather died from cancer. Two days ago, blogging maven Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) announced she has a rare form of cancer. All three women were born after me.
Left: Louisa and Me, 2017 | Right: Heather and Me, 2020
Facebook Decay
In other news, Facebook continues to decay. Just yesterday, I shared an excellent post by Penelope Trunk on this blog’s Facebook page, and one (yes, one) person liked it. Sadly, the algorithms increasingly prioritize engagement over substance. Meaningful content is buried beneath a deluge of superficiality and sensationalism. The content in my feed is like the stories that appeared in the National Enquirer in the late 1970s: Woman Lives After Having Head Cut Off or Man Gives Birth to Alien Baby. Now that I’ve completed the final Senior Sunday post for my youngest child, I can quit Facebook once and for all. So long, 30 friends who interact with my content. About six years ago, after a weird online stakling event, I unfriended 800 people. I miss most of them but have never been happier.
Erik and Lyle (Far Left) “I used to stand behind Lyle a lot, that’s pretty much my fixed position.”
(Erik Menendez, Court Testimony)
Back to Trunk’s post, which is about childhood sexual abuse and the infamous Gen-Xers, Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989. If you’re just waking up, the brothers have served 30 years and might be paroled on June 13. I would love to hear your throughts on Trunk’s post.
It’s Been Awhile
About 15 years ago, my friend Tracey posted a tweet that haunts me every time I return to this blog after a long, dry spell: “Every blog I read starts out, ‘It’s been awhile since I posted…'” I’m ambitious and never wanted that to be true about me. Still, I wonder what happened to the voice I had before SEO and AI. Perhaps I will find it admidst the quiet remnants of my once-bustling nest. There were many things I wanted to write about it as they were unfolding but it wasn’t right to expose the babes and the twigs and feathers while trying to nurture flight. But now I am open to the wind and I’m not lifeless yet.
Jennifer, Class of 1985 | Bridgette, Class of 2025