Al Martinez: 'No day' becomes a time for reflection

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friend used to refer to the kind of day we were experiencing as a "no day" because it was neither too hot nor too cold, but existed in a neutral climate and was therefore unremarkable in any kind of atmospheric way.

It was the type of Sunday one drifts through in a dream-like state, acknowledging the realities of his surroundings but not truly absorbing them. There is a distance between a man and a no day, a separation of time and space that creates a world of its own.

I was in that kind of somnambulant condition on the afternoon we visited the Strathearn Historical Park in Simi Valley, six acres of land and buildings once owned by a family that had migrated to 19th century America from Scotland to begin a new life.

Our stroll through the area was like a walk through time's garden, engaged by an era of less hurried days, before world wars, space flight and electronic wizardries. My son Allen talked us into visiting the exhibit to get us out of the house and away from the traumas that had accompanied the death of our eldest daughter Cindy just a few days earlier.

But you don't simply stroll away from an emotional biome into a less troubled state of mind without being accompanied by a tangle of thoughts and feelings still too real to have floated off like a toy balloon. One must pay the

price of guilt and memory to be free.

There were nine of us touring the property. While most were able to lock in to a docent's descriptions of family life in the 1800s and enjoy the rustic serenity of a wooden church and the colors of spring's early gardens, I found myself adrift, lagging behind the main group, unable to bring myself into the moment.

Only in the house in which the Strathearn family actually lived did I manage to come slightly alert, for this was a place of community and I could relate to that. I could hear voices around the dining room table and music from a piano in the living room.

I lingered here for awhile to restore myself by remembering Thanksgiving gatherings at an extended table of our own and the chatter that was a happy blend of the young and old in patterns of laughter and conversation that continue to resonate.

The no day ended on a lighter note, with a family dinner that helped to make it meaningful as a time of transition from one life to another. We did the best we could thereafter with the day that had been thrust upon us, and lay in bed that night longing for the past.

Al Martinez writes a column on Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at almtz13@aol.com.

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