Well, It is August...

After last August not being all that terrible as far as Augusts go I decided to ease back in to trying to possibly if I could maybe find August fun again. Maybe. No pressure...

It was going okay there for awhile. I got my hair cut, which I had been really looking forward to. I got a handful of lovely messages on my birthday which made me happy. On Facebook, back when I had my birthday public before I pulled it down, I used to get a ton of messages. It was a thing, right? You got the little it's so and so's birthday today reminder and you popped over to their wall to send them a wish. Just a flood of notifications all day. Well, after leaving Facebook that number has dwindled to just a few. But those few are people who have taken the time to put a reminder someplace to send a message and that's really lovely to me.

Then Brent surprised me by bringing home a piece of German Chocolate Cake , which is my favorite cake, and some birthday candles. It was delicious and even if it hadn't been the thought behind it was so lovely. A true Cake and Compliments moment. We only lit one candle because 58 would have been a little overwhelming for one piece of cake...

I even made dinner reservations for a birthday dinner out on Friday. And it... was not great. New restaurant so maybe it will get better, but it was really disappointing. Brent said the worst part for him is that it had taken so many years for me to finally wade back into celebrating my birthday again he was afraid I would just pass again next year because why bother?

Which sounds like me. But the birthday cake was great. So maybe we just do that again instead. Which we did. On the way home from the very mid dinner out we stopped and got another piece of cake for me and a piece of cheesecake for Brent and those were both very tasty.

Then we started to close in on peak bad August...and...

It's been seven years since Mom passed. You learn how to carry the grief after a few years. It's hard sometimes, it's easier others. It's always there. You sometimes fall into the pit of despair without realizing it's coming, but as time passes you get better about being able to avoid the landmines. And after seven years I've gotten pretty good at it. I mean, that was the whole reason why I was trying to made August joyful again.

And...

This past weekend when Brent I were at the grocery store I cannot remember what triggered me saying it but I said, "I don't think Dolly's long for this world." and we talked about her cancelling or sending in recordings for events and honors. How we both thought that since Carl Dean's passing she had faded more and more. But when I said it I didn't think it was coming so soon. And I didn't think it would rock me back so much.

There are celebrity deaths that hurt more than others. I talked about it when David Bowie and then Prince both passed so close to each other. How I could understand the grief a lot of my friends felt about Bowie, but that I hadn't connected to him like that so it was just more of mild sad for them and what they had lost. But Prince? Prince was rough. Gwen Ifill (NPR) was another one that made me so sad. I think both of them for similar reasons.

Prince was the soundtrack to my youth. I've joked about sexually imprinting on him like a deviant duckling, but in a way it was true. He was the first celebrity I can remember thinking...wow...now I wasn't sure what that wow meant, but I knew it was something I probably shouldn't mention in church.

Gwen Ifill was also a voice on my radio that saw me through a lot in life. Maybe not a sexual awakening, but a way to understand a lot of other things about the world. Hearing her every morning as I drove to work made her seem like more than someone out there, but someone next to me in the car helping me navigate.

Dolly is like that. Dolly has been the background music of my entire life. My folks watched the Porter Wagoner show so technically Dolly was part of my family before I was. She reinvented herself continuously without ever changing who she was. Her music styles, the acting, the philanthropy, all of it just different facets to her whole being. Her whole sparkly being.

My favorite recent Dolly was her getting back to bluegrass. Especially the album Little Sparrow. Which now, looking up the date it was released that was 25 years ago, so recentish. Her bluegrass version of Collective Soul's Shine is one of the best covers ever.

Dolly was Dolly. So big that up until now I've not mentioned her last name and there would be not doubt that it was Dolly Parton I was talking about. First name only needed. Just Dolly. And the world is mourning. It might be the most unifying thing we've experienced in the last few decades. Even Trump posted something respectful that wasn't all about him (at least at the time, I mean he is who he is so who knows what he's saying now). Dolly was loved by everyone and I think it's because we all believed she loved us too.

And she was kind of a Choose Your Own Adventure celebrity. There are a ton of MSM posts right now talking about how she wasn't political, with an equal number of rebuttal posts saying, the hell she wasn't. But she wasn't political theater so it really was easy for people to miss. She was radical kindness in action. And sadly, radical kindness has become political over the years.

But Dolly's passing has made me incredibly sad.

And then today came the news that Tim Curry also passed late yesterday. Tim Curry meant a LOT to my generation. I mean, Rocky Horror was a rite of passage. Knowing the in movie extra language was sort of a code for "one of us." Theater kids around the world bonding as the weirdos that we are but in a space where that was not just okay, but fucking celebrated. He had other roles that stood out as well. (I loved him in Legend though I knew if I ever got to meet him not to mention it) His stroke quite a few years ago really slowed him down, but he was still doing voice over work and his voice...oh my...that purr. Often imitated, never duplicated.

It's been a tough stick in the eye. At least that's what I'm blaming the random tears on.

Today is the seventh anniversary of Mom's passing. And today I mourn two other icons from my youth. Ones that never knew me, but one that I am sure loved me anyway, and one that would have listened patiently as I explained how much I loved his commitment to playing Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island because it made the repeated viewing when Katie was little so much easier.

Today is a day of mourning. And I'm not going to fight it.

And maybe that's the lesson.

Be grateful for the surprise of your sweetie bringing you sweets, but don't expect the whole month to be sweet unless it's bittersweet you are after.

August gonna August.