Points are Pointless

And the dress for the fancy wedding saga

I am surrounded by young people. I have girlfriends who call me Grammie, and I know I help them by listening. This is my foundation now.

My pickleball teacher is in his 30s and is avoiding his family. His mom sent the police to do a wellness check. He was shocked she found him in our fair city. I am honored to listen to his trials and tribulations in a neutral way. I hover over the conversations, determined to "not make a point" or give advice. Trials and tribulations is the only time I use the word "tribulation." It means the cause of great suffering. I have gathered the sense that she is his tribulation.

I asked my daughter if she minded that I was a mom to many. She assured me she did not and wrote it out in a Mother's Day card. I was relieved and touched—that thickening in your throat feeling that catches me completely off guard. I do not take it for granted in these times of turmoil and sad power grabs. Feeling is more reliable, or truer, than thinking. My younger friends grow with me; I go to births and celebrate life's accomplishments and see the harder parts. There is something about a 20- or 30- year age difference that frees me, and giving becomes getting.

One of them (I want this pronoun to sound lusher)—them, or capitalize it... one of THEM—and I were talking about relationships, and I mentioned my partner. She said, "It sounds like you are trying to make a point, and making a point will never bring you closer." This was a dawning moment, and now I reflect on all my "points" and I keep them simmering below the surface before blurting. Often they release somewhere and fizz away. My life is a series of dissipating points. They no longer hold me together. It is as if I finally get to swim again in fresh water.

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• The Substack world is a pleasing place to land in the world wide web and I read more there as opposed to weeping. Here and here are two of my favorites from this week.

• Update on the dress for the fancy celeb wedding, I have not made much progress. I ordered a dress and two folks close to me called it the worst dress they had ever seen on me. LOL, do not hold back and another person very close liked it. It is too small by a lot thus eliminated. I don’t hate it but it does not look pretty to dance in … narrow and if you could see the back, it is half zipped up due to not fitting. Stay with me. I will send pics on Wednesday.

• I am selling these trade beads that I bought 30 years ago at the New York Gift Show. As they leave me I wonder where they were before.

See you later on the screens, Darcy

and here is a bit more…