A Chance to Breathe

I miss TCM.

When I was younger, second two years of high school to be specific, I spent a lot of weekends helping my Tata repair his rental properties. He was a smart guy, in his younger days holding on to his houses after he moved out, rented them, and kept them long enough for the value to go up. Shrewd, but not unfair, especially now with land prices being what they are.

But when I was 15-16, I spent weekends fixing up the houses on those properties. A lot of interior and exterior stuff, laying brick, tile, redoing dry wall, and so on. After a long day of doing that, we’d return to his house where I stayed the night and ate some of my Nana’s finest cooking, something else I miss. After she turned in for the night, he’d watch western after western after drama after drama, after western on TCM.

Or any old movie channel, really, but TCM was on more than not.

TCM was a key sticking point for me because I remember the hosts, in their fancily dressed sets, creating the atmosphere of a comforting home with a fireplace burning and a well-crafted film on. That’s what resonates with me when I put it on. Comfort.

I don’t get to watch TCM a whole lot anymore. I’m a millennial, you see, and we invented the streaming industry that’s slowly breaking apart. We hate ourselves. But every so often, when I’m somewhere with cable, I always put it on.

It’s on the TV right now, in the room that I’m staying in for the next, up in Sedona. Just watched WINCHESTER’73 and SHENADOAH is on presently, an all James Stewart day.

My wife returned from Italy two weeks ago after going for nearly two weeks. It was a tough time for me, alone with all the boys, but I know it was worth it. She played in a jazz music festival. She learned. She practiced. She grew. How could I say no? Yes, we had just finished moving in to our new home, and yes, the house wasn’t nearly unpacked, but it needed to happen. And it did.

And it broke me. My brain, I mean.

This summer has been tough. It’s one of those things you don’t realize until long after the fact. If I imagine myself in May, the start of the month, up until now, we’ve been through it. Terrible family news, a huge life-changing decision, the follow-up on that huge life-changing decisions, raising the boys who are coming in to their next phase of life (the Terrific Threes, or the phase where the word “No” comes up a lot and gives me a searing migraine), and then trying to get things back on track.

Life doesn’t stop. You don’t get a break. You make the break.

So, my wife gave me mine. She sent me up to Sedona for the next couple days to refresh. Restart. To get a mental health break and hopefully come back even stronger than before.

I hope to log a lot of my work on here, being more active than I have before, but I also hope to prove that I’m the kind of writer that when given the chance, I can do amazing things.

Wow. That sound less…LESS…in my head.

Anyway, here are the books I’m reading this week. Stay tuned.