With this past Thanksgiving and the approach of Christmas, Im beginning to realize just how much I enjoy having my folks here, spending time with my mom planning the meal, listening to her suggest nostalgic dishes that I havent had since I was a child or even just discussing the need to launder the dining room table cloth that has remained in place for at least two years and is growing white with accumulated Farley hair. It feels odd to be making a big production out of a meal after at least 2 years of canned soup and Top Ramen. Generally I view food as mere landfill and rarely give it a second thought, but perhaps my mother will help to change that and if so, I may once again find myself going north of 200 lbs. But unlike when I was in my 20s, it wont be muscle pressing my feet more firmly into the earth but middle-aged fat, so despite this newfound interest, Ill try to keep my enthusiasm tempered. But of course, its not really about the food anyway. Nothing against the loving presence of the dogs, but its nice to spend time with family, with fellow humans. Ive let myself become a bit of a hermit in the last few years and not in a particularly inspired way. Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Edward Abbey, all had hermit tendencies, but still remained inspired by the beauty of nature and the more refined depths of the human mind and soul, and as such were not really every truly aloof or apart, but instead were merely at the vanguard of the human experience, where at its furthest reach the next step is to the place where all is new and alive and undiscovered. Thats hardly the place where Ive found myself in recent years. I wake each morning to find myself not in the place where Ive dreamed of, but instead still in a place where all I do is dream, and far too often Id forsake even those dreams for a few hours of silent and blissful sleep. Im used to being alone-- at least I used to be. Not because I particularly enjoy it, but its just the dubious reward of being socially inept. I used to take my lunch breaks out at a picnic table, or in my car when the weather was cold, not because I was intrinsically antisocial , but just because it felt nice to relax in a place where I didnt have to worry about seeming awkward or ungraceful. But I remember when I first returned to work after Willas death and went out to my car to eat my lunch. After only 5 minutes the isolation became unbearable. The next day I went to the break room instead, hopelessly awkward and out of place among the 20-something CNAs who gathered there. It was a forced effort, but eventually I made a friend and the isolation of the car no longer seemed a burden, and Im sure the girls in the break room breathed a sigh of relief at being once again able to gabble and gossip about the old cranky nurses that made their lives hell. I eventually lost that friend, but by that time I was finally numbed to the depredations of grief, the sense of being alone faded and I was once again able to sit in my car and gnaw on a carrot and stare at the drifting snow and not feel as if my soul was evaporating into the void. But really, this isnt where I intended this babble to go. This is actually a happy day and got lost in the effort to try to put it into context. As always, it seems to come back to Willa, and though I dont regret a single hapless day that I spent with her, I do admit that Ive rued many of the days since her death when I just pissed my life away mourning a dying dream rather than finding a new dream to sustain me. Gone is gone, and as brutal as that seems some days, on other more sane days, that fact is the wonderfully firm bedrock that so often proves elusive on other days when trying to justify the things one should have done but somehow were neglected. Thanksgiving went okay. None of us at the table were great conversationalists, and for me, just sitting a table with other people seemed a strange and uncomfortable experience. But I have to give credit to my mother who single-handedly kept the conversation going among the mute and stupid crowd at the table. I never paid much attention as a child, but it now seems to me that my mother is the one who captained the ship as my father steered us far off course towards vague dreams and aspirations that always left us feeling somehow lost. Yesterday my father asked to have his plate warmed up--an odd compulsion that just recently surfaced. So we stuck it in the microwave, but that proved insufficient, so we put it in again and when even that was unsatisfactory, my mother just said, its warm enough.. I hesitate to say that my Dad has dementia, but his thought processes are less than clear and he can be childish in his demands.. Yesterday he was pushing the limits and as I just gritted my teeth I was proud to see my mother just set the limits as she did when I was just a child, giving and giving and then just finally just saying no. Men can be such complete assholes and though Ive not transcended the mold, its refreshing that we all have mothers to make us reconsider our presumptions and Ive come to think that Mothers Day is the most holy day of all. No man will ever admit it, but there are a millions female saints behind each stupid fool that thinks he has anything to say and sometimes there really is nothing left to say and silence is the better option. But only a woman could find the grace to keep her lips sealed and just let silence play out as the men stuttered and stammered and tried to talk their way out of a deep hole that only endless talking can contrive.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 23:18:54 +0000
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