I don’t  multi-task very well, but my Prius has a Bluetooth function so I can’t resist talking into the air while driving from my north office to anywhere else.

I hit the person’s number on my phone before putting the car into gear, and begin the call.  Drivers in surrounding vehicles must think I’m daft, talking into the emptiness around me.  I like that notion.  Yesterday’s call reached a friend in Chicago.  We had not talked since the holidays.  The post-mortem of his Christmas / New Year’s and mine took me all the way from Liberty to my Rotary meeting in Waldo.

After parking and clicking “end” on the steering wheel to terminate the connection, I sat thinking about the friends with whom I’d spent the holidays.  Crazy good friends.  What a lucky broad I am!  I laughed outloud, startling myself and a man passing near the Prius.  I waved at him and he lifted his hand just a few inches, shaking his head, hurrying by.

My friend La Puma thinks I should find a new mission now that I’ve hammered myself into a joyful person.  I’m not so sure.  This living complaint-free can be addictive.  I’m out to infect the world.

It’s the seventh day of the twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Jean Luc Picard and I share a favorite drink: “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” Here it brews in the infuser mug which Jenny Rosen gave me for Christmas. Ms. Rosen counts high in my list of crazy good friends.

I tried to pay for something a few days ago, and the cashier turned away.  She walked from her station and stood a few feet from me.  I could see her eyes but they seemed unfocused.  Is she deliberately avoiding me?  I could not say.  I debated a few minutes then put the item on the counter and left.

Yesterday I walked over to the receptionist in my part-time office, wanting to tell her that I expected a visitor.  I’m only in the office one day each week and the receptionist just started a few weeks ago.  She does not work for me but does admit visitors into the suite.

As I approached, she stood and turned her back.

I felt a blush rise to my face.  I flashed back to the store clerk.  What is happening, why are these women ignoring me?

Then I saw that the woman held her notary seal and book.  She entered the conference room.  I heard her ask someone, Do you have your driver’s license?

I returned to my office, thinking of the assumption that I had made, of leaving the store a few days ago without making my purchase.

I lingered at my desk for a few minutes before I went back out into the reception area.  The woman again sat at her desk.  She called out New Year’s Greetings.  She assured me that she would show my visitor to my office.  She did not seem to realize that I had previously approached her.  I tendered my thanks and made no mention of my first attempt.

It’s January 6th, the day that we celebrated “Little Christmas” during my childhood.  The china wise men would finish their journey across the table to the little cresche, resituated by a child’s hand next to the chipped lamb with one missing leg which kept an endless watch over the Christ-child in his worn, painted manger.  I’m not a practicing Catholic but the thought of standing over that scene in my mother’s house warms me.

I don’t know if “Jesus Christ”, a baby, later a man, really existed.  But I do know that appearances can be deceptive.  A baby could be a savior; a pauper can be a king.  A sales clerk might be having a bad day.  A receptionist could be in the middle of another task and mean me no disrespect whatsoever.

The friend who walks past without speaking suffers from a hearing loss; your greeting eludes her.  The bus driver’s child lies in a hospital bed; his scowl has nothing to do with you.  A radiant smile often hides a broken heart.

It’s the sixth day of the twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

As night settles around me. I feel rueful.

Here I am in the opening days of the first full calendar year of my seventh decade.  I truly did not expect to be cruising towards 61.  Oh, sure.  I promised my son that I’d live to be 103.  But did I expect to have to carry out that commitment?  Probably not.  I kept getting prognoses from dour physicians that they just thought I would wear out.

I don’t have cancer, ALS, MS, Parkinson’s, or HIV.  I have a heart condition that is considered more of an aggravation than anything else.  I have a bunch of weird diseases that keep nibbling away at one system or another.  Propioception, ambulation, hearing, sight.  Just enough erosion to be cussedly inconvenient without actually taking me down.

Annoying, right?  Wasn’t it Yossarian who wouldn’t get well enough to be released nor sick enough to treat?

But I’m not complaining.  It’s the fourth day of the twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining and I feel pretty damn good about it.  Life continues.

My GPS Lady directed me north on Kingshighway Blvd. to Bircher, a little street leading to the I-70 west exit towards Ferguson where my cousin Theresa Orso Smythe and her husband John live.  You are on the fastest route and your road is clear.  You should reach your destination by 10:22.

She reckoned without my detour off the highway at Jennings Station Road.

Pictures from old classmates posted on Facebook had prepared me for the rubble of demolished storefronts and the rundown houses.  What stores remained, and a few newer brick buildings, held unfamiliar businesses.  At the red light before the turn onto West Florissant, I stared northwards, straining to see the abandoned, boarded church where two of my sisters had been married.

As I neared McLaran Avenue,  I slowed to gaze at Velvet Freeze, thinking it looked unchanged.  I did not recognize anything around it. The gas station where we filled the tires of our bikes no longer exists, forgotten now, along with the silent attendant who wore a shirt bearing someone else’s name.

A block north, I idled in front of 8416 McLaran.  Untamed bushes snarled down the northern edge of the driveway, alongside two rusty cars and a pile of trash.  I knew the trees that once rose above the roofline had been taken out.  I did not expect the eerie stillness.  I sat in my car, wondering who lived there.  I could almost see my mother’s face at the living room window.  I could nearly hear the voices of my brothers and sisters, calling through the morning air.

I put the car in reverse and raised my phone, with its camera function ready.  I snapped the picture from just south of the house, overlooking the neighbor’s driveway.  Everything looks good from some certain  angle, even dirty snow in a city street.

A few hours and two more family visits later, my long New Year’s journey finally ended.  With a full tank of gas,  I left St. Louis behind and headed for home.

Joyce and I get into the elevator of the Drury Inn where I will stay the night.  We had visited in my room before our three-hour dinner.  She had left the package of her Christmas present on the dresser.  Now we both felt exhausted but warm, comforted, pleased from our reunion.  She would get her package and we would say goodbye.

A family crowded into the elevator after we did.  Two boys, a heavy-set blond mother, assorted towels and accoutrements of their New Year’s Eve. Joyce turned her face to them, light radiating from it, her teacher’s instincts rising with her maternal ones.  Have you been swimming? she asked the older boy.

A grin broke across his face.  You should see the pool, lady! he crowed.  His mother spared me a weary, pleased smile.  The younger boy giggled and shook his bundled towel.  A couple beside me, checking in toting champagne, exchanged glances.  The woman placed her hand on the man’s arm.  We rode the rest of the way to the second floor in giddy silence.

It’s the first day of the twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  The old year falls on the cinders of forgotten complaints.  Newness unfolds.  Life continues.