a blot in every way

It's wild! It's gay!
A blot in ev'ry way.
The birds and bees with all of their vast
Amorous past
Gaze at the human race aghast,
The lusty month of May.

More lyrics from the musical “Camelot”

When you live in San Francisco, you have to be ready for the weather to change drastically on a dime. Yesterday was warm and bright, but today was windy and bone-chillingly cold. I’ve been going along in my May reverie, enjoying the tra la ness of the month, the lustiness of the roses blossoming on my deck, trusting the sunny feeling that’s been steadily growing, but today I find myself caught without the layers needed to warm me up with the chill that is in the air.

My mother is in the hospital with a fever that won’t come down. The place where her breast once was is infected and full of fluid. I talked to her at length yesterday, wishing her a happy Mother’s Day, and telling her what we were up to here in the city. Talking to my stepfather today, we pieced together that she had thought I was my sister, and that she had talked to my nephew, Zane, instead of my son. She thought I hadn’t called, and was touched that Deanna had called twice. The fever has me cold with dread.

This afternoon my other sister Stacy called crying and miserable. Her partner’s niece has been a fixture at her house for the past year, coming over with her baby for comfort and coddling since her husband has been in Iraq with the Army. The niece recently had a mental breakdown, which appears to be the dramatic onset of a bipolar disorder. She’s fighting the diagnosis and refusing to be treated. The husband is back from Iraq on leave, and yesterday the niece violently attacked him and is now in jail. This has cast a mighty dark cloud over the planning of my sister and her partner’s wedding in June.

And then I opened an email bearing the news that a lovely woman in my extended pagan family lost her 26 year old son this week to viral pneumonia. The loss of this son brought home for me the sickening number of mothers who are grieving and will be grieving young sons and daughters killed in this evil war.

I wish I could say that bad things come in three, and that was it. If only. Sometimes when it rains it actually does really pour. It’s pouring today, although the sky is clear. I am sad and I can't warm up. Tonight I will let myself feel it and pile on the blankets. Maybe tomorrow the sun will be out in force, and the lustiness of May will assert itself once again. Weather changes suddenly here, but tonight, I'm not counting on it.