My Day in 2020

I awoke at 2 a.m. Groggy. Reached out to Kermit…found once more he wasn’t there.

Picked up my book (The Richmond Slave Trade by Jack Trammell) and read for several hours. Kept thinking I’d finally found the book that is the key to understanding my home town in the antebellum period – the historical setting and how Richmond became the worst slave market in the country, the busiest. The author shows the historical slide from arrivals in Jamestown of the first black people, not necessarily slaves, to the rising horror of slavery that came to be what it was in Richmond in 1864-65.

It’s a terrible story, was a terrible undertaking and I am not proud in any way of my hometown’s actions.. A terrible one, but I want to know it. It shames me, but I must know it.

Went back to sleep about four and awakened about ten o’clock
Coffee! Italian, espresso, egg, bacon, onion, cheese and red pepper dice, cooked in microwave.

Wandering about…doing dishes, watching TV or listening to it as I blundered here and there. Shades up, alarm off…but not before I’d opened a door. Thinking about the day. Two jobs to accomplish…vaccuum all floors and shower, shampoo. Easy…breezy.

Shower. A call from Terri, she won’t be coming over today as planned around four. (Maybe not vacuum the floors, Pat.) She’s perhaps going to be able to sell some land they own. Terri struggles to remember a word and I supply it…my unexpected pleasure of the day, surely…to just easily remember to say a word I haven’t used in years…appraisal, I say and she says in a delighted tone..YES! That’s it.

Checked the news. Sat with another cup of coffee and stared off into space. Have a heavy new bell outside, want to see it blow in the wind without fulfilling the belief that it will awaken people in two counties. Hasn’t been disturbed for two days it has hung there. Been windy, too. Hmmm. Open air on three sides of the bell…the fourth is beside a wall.

Telephone call from an old friend, now in her 90s. Lives in Carolina; Thankful for this,
have been wondering how she was/is. Second unexpected pleasureof the day.

We chat a bit about old times. Then say goodbye. I call the woman I volunteered to call weekly; she’s a shut in and doesn’t drive. We talk a bit about her disturbance in that an electric company workman rang her bell to say the power would be off for a few hours. She’s outraged that he’d have her open a door to hear that. A bit too much, because she called CBS News to report it when she couldn’t get the electricity company. We chat…she has another call and we say goodbye for this week.

It looks like rain…I go outside to roll up the awning on the side terrace and get drenched by a passing cloud, dash inside. The telephone rings and it’s my daughter who has just today passed her teaching certificate test…she’s now certified. Needs to retake a math test from last year’s try, in the coming week. Says she will home school the children of a friend and her son this year. We chat, and it’s all congratulatory.

Brings back my study needs when my children were 7, 8.5 and 11 and I’d entered the university for the first time at 33. Me hiding behind the side of the house where no one ever went so I could thoughtfully read my Literature assignments.

I go back to to my reading from last night. Get up to brew some espresso. My daughter in TX calls and we discuss several issues. Need to make a loan and then she’ll return it when she gets refinancing on her house…air conditioner must be replaced. She’s the math gal and so like her dad. I can see that happens for her.

Everything outside is wet but not a lot of water fell. My dress has dried, was wet across the back. I pick up the computer and here I am, writing. It’s 6 pm here. The morning paper is still in the driveway, wet. The floors are not vacuumed yet. I’m making those few cups of coffee and about seven I’ll have dinner, something light. At 8 I’ll watch Alone, the final show of the season when someone will be awarded a million dollars. Alone. In an Alaskan winter. Sobering to think about. It is if chance wants to bring to my attention how not alone I have been. I find that really amusing.

I’d imagined I’d be alone all day but the outside intervened and it was fine with me.

Last updated August 21, 2020