NO MORE, not for holidays, not for Rubber Stamps

 The first sign was that he had not made a rubber stamp this time.  He had always made a rubber stamp when he moved.  There was something about the act of committing the new address to molded rubber.  Something about the pushing of that new molded rubber into the old ink pad and stamping it down onto the physical envelopes that said

“This Is Where I Live Now”.

 

 

 

But that need seemed to have passed. 

He was not going to analyze it any more than that.

That part of doing those things was over now.

The fun and enjoyment of finding and fixing

up the ‘right’ image of head and face, and then later of their faces together,

did not assert itself to be done.

 

He tried to think of it as a stage of growth, though what he was growing into or away from he really did not know.  It seemed that after all this time he should have some sense of this, but no.  Life restarted each morning independent of the past.  Life pushed him up and out with no regard for what he had thought should be important.  No consideration of what he felt or had been feeling, Life proved to be unpredictable.

 

Holidays, for instance, used to be anchor points in a year.  Although commercially motivated now, it had always been thus.  Holidays that had begun for agricultural or religious or procreationally purposeful reasons had settled, formalized, and stratified into specific booking periods within each year, and he had come to rely on them for a rythym of sorts. 

 

That too seemed to be passing, or at least changing enough that he could no longer count on any sense of comfortable familiarity throughout the year.  The cultural shifts away from the Average White Old Guy society had also brought new and festive events into the stream to fragment and sparkle the passage of time across the months.  And when it came to the end of the still somewhat conventional calendar year, the flashing facets of changing newness amidst the competing holidays of all the faiths and ethnic groups did impart both a new excitement and a growing bewilderment of confusion. 

 

Maybe because of this he saw many pulling back, opting out, stopping certain things.  Many friends and acquaintances had long since ceased sending physical cards at the holiday time. 

Not that the seasonal greetings no longer came in, they always did, lots of them

. . . but almost all were digital now.

 

Heading into this new decade was to be the end of rubber stamps for return address envelopes and the end of sending physical Holiday Season’s Greetings cards.  He was sad to see these go. 

Almost as sad as he was at seeing his old big wooden art-table go.  The need for these things had gone.  The need for them to be gone increased.

 

He had a couple of the last of last year’s Greeting cards left, but he would send those out to his two sons in their far-flung addresses along with the requisite number of old family photo albums.  The photo albums were no longer needed either.  In fact, the return of the photo albums were the last condition of the divorce that was slightly older than his now used car.

He lifted his head, straightened up his jaw and chin, stiffened his upper lip, and moved forward.

 

He said to himself and the air in general, ” I need to change the “he” in that old !@#$% AWOG book-to-be. . .  The “he” is now ”JACKSON KELLEY.” 

And so the writing of the book was reborn to tell the story of the death of Jackson Kelley,

average white old gentleman.

 

“Kelley turned on his heel, the way he had been taught in basic training 4 decades ago,

and said goodbye, for now . . . “

 

( end )