More Glimmers, More Progress

 A "glimmer" is the opposite of a "trigger": it's something that activates positive neurotransmitters rather than negative ones. It's a sign of hope and blessing.

I just had a glimmer!

And by "just" I mean here in my office when I password-opened my phone.

Instead of seeing the homescreen when I opened it, an old photograph of Will was revealed beneath the lockscreen. No reason it was there. It just appeared.

As one of those "woo-woo believing" widows, I'll take this as a "sign" of presence.

On the I'm-doing-the-things-we-used-to-do-together front, I made more progress. In a previous post I noted that I managed to walk down "The Alps." Well, on Sunday night I watched The Simpsons by myself for the first time since Will stopped being able to understand it. I don't know the exact date but I'm figuring that his most severe and deepest decline occurred in spring, 2020. So at least since then.

Still from "I Saw the TV Glow"

AND, yesterday I went to an early matinee art film. What's special about this is that the few movies I've gone out to see by myself have been those that forefront special effects and cinematography. So last year that included just Barbenheimer and a couple of Met Operas. But yesterday I just picked a movie I'd never heard of, with an interesting trailer, and trucked off around 1:00 to see it. It turned out to be a peculiar and visually stunning art film called I Saw the TV Glow. The film connected up with me because of it's message about the paradoxical liberatory/imprisoning nature of media consumption. I mean, I myself have a history of similar obsessions. (Just ask about my 8th grade passion for Ilya Kuryakin!) When I left the theatre, I had to talk to both the worker-bee gal at the door and the two other people who saw the movie and ask what they thought. I told the couple that it reminded me of films I used to see at the Telegraph Theater in Berkeley. The man said, "It's gone. There are no more theatres in Berkeley." I felt a little sad, but also happy for the years of summers in the Bay Area and the hundreds of matinees Will and I went to together.

So, still crying each day but the tears are now putting a sparkle to what I see.