September 11, 2023, Kittery, ME- I rang the doorbell to an old friend’s home, in mid-morning, and was glad that he was home and agreeable to a visit. He looked slightly better than when I last saw him, four years ago, though he is moving slowly. We reminisced, as always on such visits, about the old neighbourhood, whose make-up has gone from mostly European ethnicities- Irish, French, Italian, Polish and English, to largely Brazilian and Cuban. He, unlike me, still lives in the house of his youth-inherited from his parents, whom I adored.

Many of the gripes he had with others are similar to behaviours he has himself exhibited on occasion, as have I. Not answering one’s phone, in times of busy-ness, or while driving (not everyone has Bluetooth), or when someone has already called three times in a span of two hours, is an understandable situation-though it probably hurts the caller on some level.

The things that rankle us about others are also the things that most bother us about ourselves. Mother gets irritated, when I am too fastidious about placement of napkins or eating utensils on a table, but guess who taught us that etiquette? I don’t like getting three Messages a day, from the same person, generally about small matters-but I have been known to Spam people about things that are so crucial to me. Life is certainly a big opaque mirror.

The rest of the day was spent with Mom, though I got in a half hour of exercise-as Saugus has a Planet Fitness. I also had dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, before heading up here, to a cozy room, in rainy Maine. In between, there were a trio of Lifetime movies, each with similar plots and dialogue to the other two. It makes Mom happy- and I recall the devotion she had to the repetitive activities of ours, as toddlers. It’s different in tone and intellectual level, of course, but letting her routine be repetitive is only fair.

The mirror remains opaque.