It’s been a weird beginning to 2026.
For starters, I had to write 4 letters of condolence and one letter explaining why I am not in a position to loan money. Ever. All very difficult to write, and normally, I would ask Charlie to write them. Or at least, review what I wrote and edit/polish my attempts. I mentioned to someone how hard it was to write and, without hesitation, she suggested ChatGPT. She wondered how we ever managed before ChatGPT. I thought to myself, before there was ChatGPT, there was Charlie Haynes. He could write anything: a poem, a short story, a nice letter, a sweet haiku, all within minutes. I had come to rely on him for those tough assignments. He went above and beyond with a gem that would often become a keepsake.
Secondly, I made a New Year’s Resolution not to spend every weekend at home. Or alone. It hasn’t worked out the way I had expected. For New Year’s Day, I invited 9 people to dinner, 3 came (so I had a lot of leftovers). The following weekend, my plan to go to an art opening in LaGrange was sidelined by a medical issue on my part and the specter of bad weather. It only rained some. Last Sunday’s invitation to dinner was cancelled, also due to bad weather. This coming weekend, I made plans to take my grandson & granddaughter out for birthday dinner. And there is bad weather on the horizon again. So we’ll see.
It hasn’t been all negative. I spent a lovely Friday afternoon in Madison GA celebrating the 80th birthday of a dear friend who had had an especially challenging year healthwise. And my young Italian friend invited me to breakfast after his Saturday morning marathon run. He introduced me to his three very charming friends, and because we hit it off so well, later that evening we met at an ABV opening in East Atlanta. It’s so nice to have an art gallery on this end of town, and not have to drive through Atlanta traffic to Buckhead on a Friday or Saturday night. It was so much fun!
Circling back to the weirdness theme: Trump marked the first anniversary of his return to office with a demand for Greenland/Iceland, he can’t remember/decide/figure out which. All because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize after ending 8(?!) wars. Someone suggested showing him Alaska and giving him a prize. He won’t know the difference.
The aforementioned birthday dinner was, in fact, cancelled, I spent the weekend preparing for a potentially serious ice storm: grocery shopping, draining the rain barrels, fixing a clogged faucet on one of the barrels, putting gas in the car, having the garage door repaired, and sealing the leaky windows in the house with rice tubes to minimize cold air. What followed was not another dreaded Sunday alone but a pleasant day of reading a good book, uninterrupted heat, good food, some nice text messages from my grandkids, including an invitation to listen to a piece of music, and watching Guillermo del Toro’s exquisite and visually stunning movie, Frankenstein. Twice. I’m not sure why I was so affected by a film based on a classic written by 18 year old Mary Shelley. I didn’t really know all that much about it but I watched it just because Oscar Isaac was in it. More than a gothic horror story, it spoke eloquently to grief and loss.
While you’re alive, you have no recourse but to live.
I think that’s why the film stayed with me: it wasn’t really about monsters at all, but about love, abandonment, and the unbearable persistence of grief. It felt like an oddly fitting companion for this moment—a strange, beautiful thing encountered unexpectedly, on a weekend that didn’t go according to plan. Which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good description of this year so far.
The last frame of the movie really stuck with me:
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.
Lord Byron