Katherine Hepburn said there’s only one answer when people ask you how you are.

“Fine,” you say, “I’m fine.”

I remember telling you that, I think, and it always makes me think of the dialogue in Philip Barry’s play, “The Philadelphia Story” which he wrote for Hepburn, in the scene the morning after Tracy Lord got squiffed when she comes down with a headache (aka hangover), insisting that she’s fine, everyone’s fine, commenting on her own hearty behaviour.

Buckminster Fuller said that when people say they feel fine they really mean they don’t feel anything. Nothing hurts. That’s why people take Aleve, or whatever the current feel-good-look-I-can dance pill is, to feel no pain, to feel fine, for at least 12 hours.

I don’t feel fine. I feel tired. At this time of year, everyone feels tired. It can’t be helped. Christmas or its equivalent is the most effective deadline I know. Everyone runs like crazy to get everything done before December 25. After it has passed, it’s not like passing GO. Too late, you’re late, and you have too many loose ends and so much still to be done, but there it is, you’re too late, Stop now. After it has passed, you deflate a little, relax and let go. Maybe.

Everyone is toxic at this time of year. Everyone plans on detoxifying in January. It seems so far away and it is, eons, a whole year, in fact. I have always maintained that the seven days between 25 December and 1 January comprise the longest month of the year. I can hardly wait.

Get some rest.

When my children were little I had a very active imagination and exquisite timing. I could gauge exactly when an overactive child in a stroller was toppling and snap a protective hand in time to catch a falling head. I turned the handles of hot pots inward on the stove so that a stretching hand would not spill boiling liquid over a delicate head. I learned, too, by experience. My third child, first boy, was indomitable, thank goodness,

CRASHED AGAIN - Safari, not me. Just when I thought we were all better.

I was remembering accidents I prevented my children from having when they were little because of my over-active imagination and my exquisite sense of timing. Now, I am applying that same prescient care to myself, still preventing accidents that are about to happen.

It led me to memories that have been wiped away by Safari. It's okay. I still remember.

You be careful.