I find that when I am upset or depressed or whatever, a visit one way or another to a place of bitter sadness can bring me to the point of tears – the tightening throat so strong you can barely stand it . . . and then the slipping out of a few tears. And, then, you seem to buck up, feel like trying some more. I can’t go here by choice – Like, hey, I’m going to my sad place now – but then I’ve never been one who could at will go to her happy place.

But it happens. And it doesn’t have to be an event or time in my life.

The Roses of Picardy – the song I mentioned in The Whales of August – can take me there. Some thirty years ago when I watched The American Experience PBS show about Theodore Roosevelt, the score had that song as background for the time in his life when he found out Quentin had been shot down and killed in France. I think the script referred to the long walk up to the house to tell Edith and the scencry was that of Sagamore Hill. And a tinny WWI recorded voice sung of roses.

Sometimes such encounters will open the door to things in my own closet that I try not to think of . . . and I do think of them, and somehow feel better for awhile, at least physically. And in that closet there is a jar with a magical firefly that glows forever and I look at it and know that it is love that will never cease – that it shines for those I have held most dear.

I suppose it is all just a biochemical thing – stress hormones exiting in tears. I’ll take it.

Tomorrow I will get up early and take Alison to work and then I will come home and put the blasted polyurethane on the floor. It is water-based; it can be re-coated in two hours; with luck, it will be dry enough by noon that an errant foot will not stick to it like honey. We are going to keep Colin up and hope he sleeps in most of the morning; pills and chilled drinks and bread and peanut butter will be set out in the dining room tonight.

We have a 50% chance of rain and thunderstorms today and then tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. That will be good for drying. I suppose I will turn on the exhaust fan and have regular fans blowing in the two doorways. It is advertised as low-odor so I will not have to have a magical pole attached to the applicator – you know, the kind that twists around corners, goes upstairs, goes through closed doorways.

THEN, after a break of a few days, I will lightly screen sand the floor and put on two more coats. Or, if this first outing is a disaster, I will not. My sources assure me that once all the coats are cured completely, we can, if we so wish and can find a time when the place is almost empty, apply oil-based polyurethane. But I am getting sooooo far ahead of myself.

Some people put white rugs down in the public areas of the house and then ask guests – you know, people who are invited into the house – to take off their shoes. I have always found that annoying. However, the thought has crossed my mind to charge a toll for walking on it when it is done. Of course, Sydney would be exempted and thank heavens I have one of those doggie nail grinders. It was one of those products I almost ordered from a TV pitch and then walked into CVS drugstore and saw some for sale.

For some reason talking Christmas trees popped into my mind. Were they on TV ads years ago? You know: call now and we will send you TWO – just pay shipping and handling. When the grandkids were quite little, I bought one in some store and listened to it go off all day long . . . and then an eyelid fell off, and eventually, the eyeball itself hung down. Something happened to the mouth – but it still sang. Gosh, I felt so sorry for it, I couldn’t call it pathetic . . . until I bumped into a box in the attic one spring and heard its little tune filtering through the cardboard. I don’t know how I finally put it out of its misery. In a way, I miss it: the clacks and clicks of the mechanism when the electric eye spied someone passing by.

Perhaps it is my spirit of Christmas past. Cripe, Scrooge had a pretty young girlfriend and I have a short, singing tree?