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The Urge To Splurge

Or, rather the lack thereof, is something I have noticed in me for the last several months. While it used to be fairly common for me to want to break away from routine, albeit briefly, by taking a day trip, or getting a bit tipsy with my father-in-law, or by buying some new pipe or other doo-dad or toy... that feeling has been absent in me. Even if I try to conjure it up, it really doesn't happen.

I am more comforted by sameness, monotony, reliability of late. I suspect it has to do with my mother's passing in March.

Because of an unanticipated change in plans last Thursday, I did not get to drive across town to visit my mother's gravesite as I typically do each Thursday evening. With the turbulent weekend I have had, I was out of town and hence could not visit then either. I did, however, go on Monday afternoon, as quickly as I could get things tied up for myself and my students working in the lab. The rodent breeding studies are moving slowly, and we have been troubleshooting possible reasons for the lackluster success.

I drove across town (~45 minutes at this time of day) to the cemetery, and purchased a red rose from one of the florists I pass en route. I sit beside the graves of both my beloved mother and my beloved father and try to talk with them. Obviously, and sadly, the conversation is, of course, significantly one-sided. How I wish I could talk with both of them again. How I wish they would answer me in some way I would know. I laid the rose atop my mother's grave and slowly drove home.

PipeTobacco