Mondays with Mike: Counting blessings

Happy New Year from our friends’ place in Urbana, Illinois!

Beth and I have been bathroom refugees since December 26. That is, we’re having our bathroom redone, and since we only have the one, we got outta Dodge while the work is being done.

Our adventure started with a staycation of sorts—I used credit card miles that piled up over the shutdown to book four nights at the Hotel Essex on Michigan Avenue about three blocks from home. The whole thing kind of flummoxed Luna at first. Where they usually made a right, Beth commanded her to make a left, and they zigged where they usually zagged. But it was pretty terrific. The hotel was right across from the Hilton, where Beth swims, so that was convenient. (We would’ve stayed at the Hilton, but I didn’t have enough miles.)

Here’s to a prosperous and happy 2023!

Plus, the hotel restaurant had a great happy hour, so we invited friends from the hood to join us at ourswank new digs.

On Friday, a generous friend loaned us her car and we drove south to Urbana to visit our friends Steven and Nancy, who were Hanni’s people after she retired. We also saw my nephew Aaron and his children and his fiancé.

We ate great Chinese takeout, and yesterday, I whipped up the best batch of black-eye peas and collards I’ve ever whipped up.

It’s been swell.

Eating black-eye peas and collards is a Southern tradition that is believed to bring good luck and good fortune (literally). I learned about that tradition decades ago from my friend Pick, who grew up in Virginia.

Driving around Urbana-Champaign always is sort of paradoxical—our former long-time hometown feels totally familiar, but what with the new high-rises, campus buildings, and new restaurants and shops I’m not familiar with, I feel like a ghost.

But overall, it’s pretty wonderful, and I’m at a point in life where what familiar things remain trigger an avalanche of memories. Which trigger other memories (like eating black eye peas and collards with Pick.)

The past year has been paradoxical, too. My work is meaningful and the non-profit organization I work for is thriving. Beth is going strong, as she posted just last week. We’re mostly healthy (but for a herniated disc that is steadily improving thanks to my physical therapist.)

But there was loss, a lot of it. There was our friend and neighbor Janet, Beth’s niece Stacie (not all that long after the premature loss of her nephew Robbie), my Urbana friend Barry, the irascible and inimitable Brad, Flavio of Printers Row Wine, and the regal, one-and-only Wanda Bridgeforth.

A couple of these losses are felt more intimately—because of the frequency with which we saw them and their proximity, I keep expecting to run into Janet and Brad when Beth and I stroll around the neighborhood. I can recall their gaits; I’d recognize their silhouettes as I squinted to see them approach from down the street. Every once in awhile I think I see them.

When Beth and I experience a loss, our friend Hank, of Jewish heritage, always sends the most comforting of thoughts: May their memory be a blessing.

Their memories are indeed blessings. As was the good fortune of knowing them.

Here’s to a safe, healthy, and happy 2023.