February 13, 2019

I don’t remember a great deal, first hand, about my father. He died when I was eight and a half years old. I wasn’t a sophisticated eight-year-old, not by a long shot. I don’t think many kids were in those days. Television didn’t have a huge influence on our lives, back then. You might say it was the golden age of parental controls. If it was a nice day outside, no Saturday morning was spent in front of the television, except for maybe a half hour or so. Then it was, “get outside and don’t come in unless you have to use the bathroom.”

Most of what I know about my father I gleaned from the few times, when I was an adolescent and then a teenager, that my mother would tell me little things about him. I do have a few personal memories, ones I’ve held close because there really are so few of them. I believe the trauma of losing him when I was at such a young age did something to my memory, which is why I don’t have many. I mean, I really didn’t know there was such a thing as a parent dying, and then one of mine did!

One thing I do recall both in reality and from my mother mentioning it was that the name of this second month of the year was generally preceded by a very bad word, when my father said it. I don’t know if that’s because it was the month of his birth, or if it was because traditionally, at least in those days, February was the harshest month of the winter.

Yesterday as I read the new winter storm warnings, and as I looked out my window at the white precipitation and heard the sound of ice hitting the glass, I realized this month still is the harshest winter month.

And of course, it’s this month in which we are flying for the first time in a couple of years. Go figure.

While I excel at maintaining a positive, and basically happy attitude on the outside, I do tend toward worrying on the inside. Some worry in life is unavoidable. I recall that for a few years after my father died, I lived in fear that my mother would, too. About a month after he passed, my mom “threw her back out”. She had to lie on the sofa for a time, and I was convinced she was dying.

If she was late getting home from work, or if she didn’t arrive home when I expected her, I would tremble in terror until she arrived safe and sound. In point of fact, she did leave us thirteen years after my father, when she was 57 and I was 21. She died at home of a heart attack.

To this day if somebody isn’t here when they say they will be, my first thought heads down that same dark fear-strewn trail. And into this rich psychological background and history, I’m introducing something new, something never before contemplated: a drive to Buffalo and a flight to Texas in expletive-deleted February.

I’m pretty good at setting my worries aside, and I have denial down to a fine art, so I’ll probably be fine. But still.

I’m not looking forward to the travel, but I am looking forward, eagerly, to the people who await me at the end of this trek. My best friend lives in Texas, just a half hour from San Antonio and I can hardly wait to see her again. Another very dear friend lives in Utah, and she’ll be in San Antonio at this time, too. The friend I’ve had the longest in my life winters in Texas, and there’s a slight chance I may see her, too.

I’ll be spending some time with my publisher, and what a magnificent bonus that is!

There are also some wonderful people who’ve been kind enough to read my books and support my career, cherished friends! Some I will be hugging again, and some, for the very first time. I’d pledged to attend this author/reader event, “Wild Wicked Weekend”, two years ago, and let me tell you the intervening time has sped!

There’s so much to plan and get ready, I’m in just a bit of a quandary at the moment. I haven’t even begun my list, and if all y’all know anything about me after all these essays I’ve written, it’s that I always have a list, and I have it early.

“Morgan, don’t worry. Clearly, you’re simply mellowing in your September years,” you might say. Ah, how I wish that was so! Unfortunately, the truth is a bit less cheery a thought than that.

I have a darn good memory – it’s just that lately, it’s really, really short.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury