Falling

There’s a scene in Monty Python’s holy grail set amongst a plague. No great wonder, plagues swept through Europe like colds through a nursery school. Python’s twisted little riff on the plague years involves some old guy being drug out of his house and protesting “I’m not dead yet . . . I’m feeling much better . . . I think I’ll go for a walk . . .I feel Happy!!!”

Well, today, I feel happy.

Don’t know when it happened or why, but as uncool as it is to bitch that you’re having a hard time, it’s even uncooler to go about actually admitting to happiness. So I won’t beleaguer the point. Might have something to do with a) it’s not Monday, b)I got some sleep this weekend, not as much as I could have, but enough, c) I went to Thriller dance rehearsal yesterday. It’s like a scene out of “High School Musical,” corny as hell and great fun. Not to mention a great workout d) I’m running a 5K race tomorrow for breast cancer research and feel virtuous, and e) had a great week of getting things done and talking to friends, f) my students actually studied for their midterm and many of them aced it, and g) Dan and I had a couple of great talks and no-one wants to kill the other this week. It’s like things hit an equilibrium, or like I did. The weather finally cooled off a little, the mood in the house cooled off a little, the mood at the school cooled of a little and I chilled out a little. It’s hard to tell, but I think it’s that last one that’s most important.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t be bothered to care about or do anything that didn’t grab my attention. I’d just disappear behind a book and be gone. Somewhere in the last ten years, I found my inner twitch, though, and the bugger bloody makes me crazy. Everyone else too. I can guarantee that half the reason I’ve been grumpier than a treed cat in the rain is that I think there’s shit I ought to be doing and that I’m not doing it. Maybe its cause I got a lot of it done, but I’m chillin like a Martini this week. I don’t know how long it’ll last but I’m gonna roll with it for a while.

My mom often quotes some philosopher who says “let death be your advisor,” the idea being that you don’t stress or fuss about that which doesn’t matter. I’ve never really dealt much with death nor had any fears of it. Mocked it every Halloween I went costumed as a death thing. Matter of fact, a couple of years ago, I went as death for Halloween. I love Halloween. That year was tops, though. I was death, Dan was a Borg (complete with foam rubber costuming, tubes, wires and a shaved head) and we made a punchbowl of Bloody Mary’s and threw a great party. Then I got trumped when our 7-foot friend, Harley, showed up as dead and I had to cede that perhaps my version of death was like the “dia de los muertos” death – kinda little and impish. Because I was also studying 17th century poetry, we joked about my being the “little death” – a 17th century euphemism for orgasm.

That Halloween has yet to be topped til last year when, 5 months preggers, I did the Zombie dance and ended up at the local watering hole afterwards to drink soda water with lime and totter about in my zombie makeup amongst the elaborately costumed folk who’d either danced with me or come out to see it. Doing it again this year kinda reminds me of why I like Halloween. Grown adults get to put on costumes and go about doing things they wouldn’t otherwise. You get to play dead: not the real dead with the soul-wrenching, bone-grinding grief that we all know that death brings, but the mockery that we make of it to thumb our noses at it. It’s the same spirit that produced “Scary Movie,” Python’s “Holy Grail,” and every bad-B horror flick that camps up the dead. It’s like a Tarot deck where the Death card isn’t disaster, it’s just change, the end of something and the beginning of another. This week has been the end of something and the beginning of another, and I’ll gladly paint my face and get my ghoul on for the holidays.

It seems to be in the very air, too. The winds have changed and smell like rain and cool winds, old leaves and damp asphalt. I go visit houses that smell like good cheese and pumpkin, hot tea and cinnamon, with some baked goods just to remind you that the great winter feast holidays are just around the corner. The halls of the college are filled with activity and smell like coffee and the order of an academic semester underway, but without the frantic, desperate activity of the beginning and end, just the slow roll of time marching towards the holidays.

And that makes me happy.