Change in the air
September 28, 1988
It isn’t particularly the stench of Denmark that bothers me these days, but rather the perpetual indications of change.
If Michael can be believed, this comes as the result of stars and planets – Jupiter moving into retrograde as to leave him without protection.
For me, it is a clash of realities, hinting more and more of change.
Death does that for me often, sweeping away the old to bring in new, as if the universe needs to remove obstacles before setting the stage for some other reality.
The world changes completely with my grandfather’s death twenty odd years ago.
Alice’s death in 1975 did the same, a second significant crack in the already fragile vase we called our family – not just in my part of the family, but in her nuclear family, too.
Alice held together the family when my grandfather’s death threatened to tear it apart. Although she could not control the petty squabbling over money and the boat business her bothers engaged in, she kept us all from falling out of touch, so that we still gathered at her place for each holiday.\
After she passed away, there was little except love of my grandmother to keep the brothers together, and even then, they tended to visit her separately, if at all. Some like Albie moved out of the area entirely, too far away to come back. While others like Harold took up refuge at a remote part of the state, coming to visit from time to time, but often hurrying away when old squabbles seemed to be reemerging.
Their inheritance after my grandfather’s death gave each brother a grub stake – a business they were supposed to run together, but could not, and so one brother brought out the shares of the others, until finally only Ted owned the business in the end, and eventually, he sold it off to come here to Tom’s River, in order to live what he saw as a normal life.
Harold, Frank, maybe even Albie, all got their share and moved on, buying their own houses elsewhere, setting up their own lives.
I don’t know why I am writing this now, but there is a sense of change in the air. Maybe it’s because my grandmother’s sister recently died, and I am expecting the shock waves of change to hit from that. Maybe the stars are aligning and I’m just now savvy enough to pick up on it consciously.
I just feel change in the air.