Day of the Dead

Last week at work was just insane — hence the dearth of blogging — and I spent most of the weekend in recovery-mode. I was so knackered that I totally bailed on Halloween — went to bed at 8:30 that night.

But I did manage to pull together a Day of the Dead altar this year. I was in Chicago for the anniversary of Patrick’s death, and it’s been one of those years. My friend Jim lost his beloved Mari (and Isabella lost her mother), David Foster Wallace’s suicide hit me hard, there were two deaths on my dog walking route — Karen, who killed herself and Harold, who died of old age. And so, it felt like a year that needed an altar. I bought a lot of bright flowers (although I couldn’t find marigolds which are traditional) and set out some candles and pictures and lit some incense as an offering. Then Saturday night I just sort of hunkered down with my Beloved Dead, and watched Truly Madly Deeply — my favorite  movie about grief (which come to think of it. Anthony Mingella is one of the people we lost this year). It’s such a wonderful movie — Alan Rickman is sexy and annoying, Juliet Stevenson is wonderful — and it’s so dead-on about the bittersweet joy that is moving out into the world again after a big loss.

It was actually quite a lovely evening. I was still exhausted — I think I might have made it up until 10 that night, and I slept in to the extent that the dogs were confused, but it was a good, sweet restorative weekend.

And now, if we can all just make it through the next 48 hours — please please please go vote for Obama. Call everyone you know and tell them to vote for Obama. Do what you can tomorrow — drive people to the polls, make GOTV calls, bake cookies for people waiting in line so they’ll stay there. We can do this. I know that as a nation we can do this. (It’s even looking like there’s a chance he could win Montana, which would be SO exciting.)