Musings on a tattered life

Can you believe it was April of 2011 the last time I made an entry. I cannot blame Facebook since it has only been the last couple of months that I have started getting hooked in the universe.

I guess part of my issue is that with everything such else (kids, health issues, the violin) I have not been that involved with lace and this blog was begun as an area for my thoughts on tatting, though I did extend it to bobbin lace at one point. This post will touch very little on lace and may actually be a little sad towards the end.

I am staying in a motel in my home town. I do not know when I lost the habit of visiting, but I rarely return to this little town in South Texas. Kingsville.

Though I have not done any lace making in a long time I cut off a UFO and brought some shuttles and thread along with one of my tatting boxes.

I have been having a rough time with my knees lately and the osteoarthritis was exacerbated recently when I was a Walking Den Leader at this year's Cub Scout Day Camp. I loved being able to spend time with my youngest and the rest of the den, but obviously my knees cannot tolerate that much walking, especially in a semi-rough terrain.

I was going to have one of my knees replaced last September but another member of the family became ill so we put it off. I now plan on having one of the knees replaced after the first of the year.

I will be limited physically for a few weeks so I really want to have my lace making up to at least an intermediate level so I can use the craft to distract from my situation. I don't want to be struggling with things like how to join at the end of a doily or having to frog stitch (rip it rip it) because I forgot to put a twist in before going around a pin.

But now why am I back in Kingsville. Unfortunately over the last few years my visits have almost always been to say good bye to that which remains of a person after that which defines a person has left them. Most unfortunately the last four times the loss was self inflicted and all in one family.

So here I sit late at night thinking about today's trip and the things my mother and I will need to attend to tomorrow. The trip was uneventful and even given the nature of the visit very enjoyable. But as my doctor once said, I am a dweller and there is nothing I can do about that.

As one would expect I am having difficulty focusing, though I was able to maintain focus on my driving even with in the musings that occupied my thoughts for some 238 miles, tattered musings at that.

It always amazes me that as much as I remember disliking so many things about this area as a kid just how much I love this place. I especially enjoy the drive, watching the land become south Texas. It is just so beautiful. And then I think about my kids sitting behind me. The glow of movies on their lap tops lighting their faces.

We could see the Celanese Plant from the by passafter dark. I always thought of how amazing how the plant always reminded me of a ship at night, though more lit up than anything I had ever seen off of Bob Hall Pier. I explained to the boys that I had been told that there were three sister plants built and that the Kingsville/Bishop plant was the only one that had not blown up. I then engaged in a little hyperbole and told my oldest that if the plant were to blow up we would be in part of the hole. My middle son had already gone back to his movie.

I think that neither one of them was much impressed that their grandfather had spent his entire work life in that plant or that after the 1987 explosion of the Pampa plant most of their grandmother's family had worked on the rebuild, including their mother. I wonder if any of my in-laws are aware that the plant they help rebuild ceased production in 2009 and is being turned in to an industrial park.

My sons's lack of interest in the land and it beauty put me in a very meditative mood. One of those moods where memories just come, seemingly from nowhere. Though just as I recognize so many of the sights even after all these years I know the memories are also there, waiting to comfort or to torment, though mostly this day to bring calm and resignation.

I remember a drive many years ago. I must have been late junior high or early high school. My brother would have been about the age of my middle son, or even my youngest. I don't remember where we were going Corpus Christ or Mexico, just some forgotten trip, except for this one memory.

Paul was tired and back then cars didn't have seat belts. He laid down sideways and placed his head on my lap. Hard to imagine with my kids. Even tonight at the hotel my oldest insist that he will not sleep with anyone. So my middle one and I are sharing a queen size bed.

I remember Paul starting to breath quietly and then there was that little jerk that lets you know he had fallen asleep. Well I didn't know it at the time, it startled me. So I asked dad if he was alright and dad explained that we do that sometimes when we fall asleep. Then I remember stroking his hair for a while, watching him and hearing him breath.

Paul was born on June 11, 1958 a few days latter I remember sitting in the back seat of the station wagon and being allowed to hold him all the way from the hospital to our home. Years later we sold that station wagon and I remember feeling sorry for Paul. He cried. After all his world had always included that vehicle. And though I was rarely around my world had always included Paul, for better and worst.

On July 4, 2013 while I was alone, my wife at work, my oldest at Philmont Scout Ranch and my two other sons at Schlitterbahn on an Alter Server field trip, over two hundred miles away my brother was in torment and for some reason I will never know he chose to leave us. But for some reason I still have not cried.

Tomorrow I will see my mother for the first time in many months. Actually is might have been just after July 4, 2011. And just now as I finish these tattered musings I feel like I am about to cry.