Ashes to Oranges
Why does this look like a birth certificate?
Death is free, but a low cost cremation is $1,995. Knowledge I have now gained because when you read the newspaper the ads are almost more informative than the columns. The Sunday edition of the Chronicle becomes biblical in length because of articles about a Bear that burglarized a small town, homelessness, and how a Florida Man repeatedly left voicemails for a senator calling him a “moron” and accusing the senator of having an affair with a Chinese spy.
The ads that flank the criminal bear, the unhoused, and the Florida Man follow somewhat of a narrative path. Above the Nautilus Society’s advertisement for their Low Cost Cremation Plan (that includes choice of disposition, Release to Family, Sea Scatter, or Garden Scatter) and next to an article about how a Potrero Hill woman was assaulted by an Oakland woman sits the Peninsula Piano Brokers (Greg and Darlene) retirement announcement. After 36 years all pianos must go!
I imagine Greg and Darlene picked up their Sunday Chronicle excited to see their “Pianos. Pianos. Pianos” and hoping the ivories will soon be going going gone, but their note is a bit overshadowed by death and the 45 year old legacy the Nautilus Society has been serving.
Lately, the length of life has been swirling in my brain. Maybe it is another year under my belt, or the fact that this life of mine is somewhat becoming less of a quagmire and more akin to something with a backbone. I have trouble when the present days are great because I start to mourn them when the sun sets, because that is when the temporality of it all strikes. Knowing I do not know what is coming and knowing that difficulties will never retire and knowing nothing lasts forever, but forever is a long time. Life feels long in the best kind of way, and while having a lack of plans used to be something I loathed the most, I now love the idea of never knowing what corner is coming for me. I am freewheeling with a 9-5, in love with the idea that in two years I can move anywhere I want because I am only mine and no one else’s.
I would have only ever heard that the coldest winter is a summer in San Francisco, but because of one thing and then the other I know that spring in San Francisco is a most splendid time of year. There are occasional 80 degree days, the sun is out, and roses are blooming. It feels sweet and life feels good. The rapture of break ups, moves, job changes, mishaps, and bad luck will never stop the blossoms and daylight. It is cliché and has an air of patchouli oil, but it is all ashes to oranges, especially if you ask the Nautilus Society (and maybe do a Garden Scatter). I am going to die (and so will you), but until then, pick flowers, sit on the stoop in the evenings, because everything is going to go one way, then the other, and away all together.
