May, May, go away

May has a worrisome cruelty underneath, and I cant seem to let it go.  My father died in May. My mother too.

May arrives, the azaleas bloom, the lilacs too now. But the beauty is not enough.

Today, this year with the pandemic, I didn't visit my parents' grave. I stayed home again. And tomorrow too. I'm not dead as yet and hope to remain in this state for the foreseeable future. Hope to live to vote in November, live to get my shots: flu and someday, for the novel coronavirus. 

I've always been something of a stay at home, but I balanced this tendency with small scale excursions: lunch, coffee, an exercise class, an art workshop, some local live music, a lecture. Little, short, nearby diversions for mental health,.

Now its just scary grocery store trips. And I struggle with everyone else to figure out how to get stuff delivered. It's tricky. 

And though the world is opening tomorrow - I am not fooled. The virus is still here. And I am still securing against it. I don't care what opens. Each time I think of going out from sheer restlessness, I think  - is it worth dying for?  

I proceed with caution only. 

A certain lack of something

This was how I felt before I adopted my three kitties.

Weathered,
patched with odd bits,
a jumbled collection
re-assembled without instructions,
left outside everything to rust away.

I carry on though. Not so sure. Positive but aware of reality. Carrying memories. And a tiny spark of hope.


originally posted 8/16/2016

Short Poem on Aging: Surprise

Can't understand how I grew so grey.

It crept up over 10 years or more.

Inside I feel like I'm 22,

except when I feel like I'm 94.

......

Terrifying realities

It must be frightening to live in a world where you are positive there are no muffin cups and baking muffins in one of those things you love to do.... And in the store your hair-brained ditzy daughter says "but we have several boxes at home." And you say, "No, we don't have any, I know what I am doing! You can be sure of that!"  And you get home with the new box of muffin cups, and when you go to put it away, you open the cabinet door and lo -- there are three unopened boxes. That must scare a person right down to their slippers. Enough to push all four boxes behind the olive oil spray and close the cabinet door and never mention it again. At least until the next time you think there are none.

We are getting old, but do we have think about it in advance?

The Blindness of Spring

We grow like the scent
of  gardens in soft rain,
in sweet perpetual increase.
----
We revel in sunlight
refuse to contemplate the dark,
view winter premonition
with aloof disdain.

This is a poem layout from my old Metaphoratorium website and it lived on several versions of my websites dating from around 1998 or so.....  --Mistryel (Mar) Walker

Another ER sortie - blood pressure, the theme park

After Mom's weekly 2PM trip to the Wound Clinic, we were sent to the ER since her blood pressure was 220/115. At 4:50PM, the reading was  up to 249/134. YIKES!  Now, they tried administering meds slowly. Every time her BP went down briefly and then started back up again.

BUT .....  nonetheless by 11:30pm the cumulative does of HEAVY blood pressure meds finally took full effect. (Or perhaps her sodium levels had ebbed over the course of the day.) Her pressure tanked to 93/43 and they were afraid she would faint in the night as she had several weeks ago (Her last ER trip was because her BP was too low and she had fainted on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Go Figure.. )

So after spending from 2:30 PM to 12:15 AM sitting in ER cube 14, they admitted her. They let her go at 11:30 AM the following day Thursday (yesterday) when her BP was finally normal again.

Treading the edge of the void

Have missed a lot of plans this week. I missed Rose Drew's Wednesday reading, missed Conflencia, Hudson Valley Writers open mic, and finally Shijin/SubQ. This has been a tough week. I am stressed and weary. Mom is home from the hospital this afternoon, after a fall when she was out visiting friends on Wednesday afternoon. It's been a week a very little sleep.

It seems we have lost a lot of folks lately and I am painfully aware of the fleeting nature of our lives. This makes me want to persist even in my current misery and make videos and write poems and paint paintings every day, even when I am living quietly and small, cheap and close to home. Who knows how many days we may have.

April 18 Poem - Home care

the prompt is to write a poem about an interaction

Home care

One woman bends
straps the blood pressure cuff
on the other who rolls her eyes
tries to relax

One woman dabs gauze
sprays wound wash
the other wonders
if the next fall will be her last

She's had this thought six times before
or more, the other listens, concludes
the blood pressue is still too high

Doc will tweak the meds,
but no answers today
They both smile.

--Mistryel Walker

Thanksgiving feast at Elmer's Diner - AAA+

I started this post but it was really hard to write considering a friend had died on Monday afternoon. So finally a week later I am posting it on its original date.....

My family on my mom's side always had a big gathering on Thanksgiving. For me, thanksgiving used to mean driving a half hour or more to a crowded busy place full of a dozen warm gabby relatives. Aunt Pearl always cooked a giant bird, the kitchen would humm with activity, the table was stocked with tons of food, 8 different impossible-to-resist desserts, a long day of eating and talking and family opinions. Often rapid fire conversation, feeling too full, and being sickishly on the verge of a headache.

Over the years most have moved far away or died. Mom says she doesn't want to travel on a holiday weekend, nor does she want to be invited to well-meaning friends family dinners. She doesn't want to cook nor eat MY cooking.. (No one could blame her for that...)

SO - Last year we went to a new diner in town - Elmer's. (There is a long post on this blog about it...) This year, despite invites from relatives in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we went to Elmer's again. Except we decided we would have what we wanted instead of the requisite Turkey Dinner that we were supposed to eat. So mom had salmon and I had a chicken & mushroom dish made with my favorite wine Merlot. The food was great and we didn't have to do the dishes!

The staff is very friendly at Elmer's and we were very well attended. Our waitress even ran outside after the meal because mom had left her hat in the booth.

So then, after, we went to the brand new dollar store open for the first time that day. A mom bought a few bargains, then set her money down on the moving belt in this brand new store and the bill slipped between the belt and the counter and disapeared leaving everyone gasping and full of consternation. They were very nice and polite and sent mom off with her change. After I got her situated in the car, I went back and they were taking the panel to the counter off and a man reached his hand up and over something there and retrieved the bill. WHEW!

Too much excitement!

bad day down on the farm

What a horrible day for everyone involved here. my 86 year old aunt (visiting from Florida) fell early this morning and as it turned out - broke both knees as we were getting ready to leave for Foxwoods. My aunt is now off her feet for eight weeks. Her daughter spent the entire day with her at the emergency room. And Maisy, instead of a fun day at the casino, or having a party or going to dinner for her 80th, we have spent the day having high blood pressure while awaiting news about my aunt. Oh yes - fabulous day. Move over Friday the 13th.

Maisy and I visit the Mohegan Sun

This year Maisy asked for a couple of chauffeured trips to the Mohegan Sun instead of a Christmas present. ( Chauffeured by me, I mean.) She can't drive that far anymore but loves to go for a half a day. It's something she wouldn't otherwise get to do. Since I am without pressing appointments at the moment, I agreed.

Yesterday we went off into a grey, low-light sort of morning. There were spots on Route 16 and Route 2 where low clouds, fog-over-swamp and water reflecting the winter sky all blended into one shade of white. Stands of dead and limb-less trees poked though erie white air. Despite the surreal scenery, it's a long haul, but we pulled into the garage around 11 a.m.

It's peculiar to me to visit a casino. I am not a money gambler, and am simply not wired for this particular thrill. In all my life, I have only played the slots once or twice for five minutes. Once, I tried keno and won ten bucks. Even the win seemed, well, uninteresting. So for me, a visit to a casino means people-watching, reading or scribbling down a poem or a sketch.

After we arrived Maisy got settled in the penny parlor, leaned her cane up against the machine, took off her glasses, put her gratuity card in the slot and started pressing buttons like mad. I took off on two laps around the circular building. The crowd was still light for the start of a weekend, and floor seemed thick with attendants.

One thing at the Sun, there are mechanical wolves, high up, looking down at you. Their heads move around and sometimes seem to follow you as you walk. Sometimes one will wag its tale as you approach, flex its ears, and seems to follow your progress down an isle. I figure there must be cameras in the eyes. I swore one was watching me as a sat cross-legged on a bench for half an hour watching the flocks of passers-by.

After a while, we had lunch, just sandwiches at the food court, then Maisy headed for the quarter machines to get serious. I went to the Birches, ordered an after lunch Amaretto and orange juice at the bar. I sat in a cushy chair by the walkway to read my new Harper's. I think I heard thunder several times that afternoon, though it was hard to tell over the hysterical beep and jingle of hundreds of slot machines.

I had checked on her several times, made two final laps around the casino, and she was finally ready to roll. Around 3 p.m. we left under a bleak sky and promptly missed the entrance from 395 to onto Rt. 2. We shot way north in the wrong direction without realizing it, then had to back track in the rain. Finally on 16 we drove out from under the clouds into a brighter, reddish sunset.

Merry Christmas Maisy

Where falling off a chair can lead....

My uncle, my father's younger brother, fell of a chair while he was setting the clock back a few weeks ago. (This not one of my fictional "uncle" stories which are based on other uncles. This is more of a journal entry.) This uncle broke a knee cap and shattered the top of the leg bone. He is an internet Junkie, and had to spend eight days without his computer in a rehab facility. OMG!!!!

In any event he's home now, but cannot climb the stairs to the upstairs room where his computer was located. So, this morning, his son David and I came over and dragged the whole setup downstairs where he is living in the firstfloor den. Dave strung the 50 feet of phone wire and carried the heavy components down the stairs, while I hooked it all back together again.

When we left he had 19 email messages to investigate and the whole word of forums and message boards on a DSL thread. I have never seen a happier man, not even one who had recently won the lottery.

Thankful? Yup! Thankful the diner was open!!!

For the very first time this year, my mother and I celebrated our Thanksgiving in a diner. Not a fancy restaurant but a simple humble diner.

She is almost 80 now and has never once eaten out on Thanksgiving - until this year. In the old days sometimes there were 30 people from Mom's side of the family who arrived for this holiday meal at her sister Pearl's house. Later it was  her daughter, my cousin Linda who made the meal.

Things change though. Some relatives moved, died, grew up, became estranged. My father died in 1984. In the last few years, Thanksgiving has been smaller. With a cousin or two and their children, either been at mom's, or at my cousin Denise's house near Hartford.

This year, Denise went to see her grand-babies in PA, with whom she is utterly obsessed. Their mom is prego again and sickish, not fit to travel. Dense and her husband passed through yesterday on their way to the grandbaby palace. They stopped here for lunch. we had ham and cheese and bagels. But that left Mom and I all on our own for THE meal on Thursday.

Somethings never change - nobody ever suggests that I cook anything. (Prudent choice...) So, today we went to Elmer's Dinner. She had the turkey special with cream of Turkey soup, I had the turkey special with a salad. It came with mashed potatoes, apple stuffing, candied yams, greenbeans and carrots, coffee, and pudding. They cooked it and took away the dirty dishes.

When we eat with the family there are six or seven deserts, and left-overs for weeks - months if you count the freezer! Thanksgiving is normally a caloric high-fat disaster. NOT THIS YEAR. We had a successfully moderate day foodwise. We didn't eat the potatoes, scrapped off the gravy. I did enjoy the apple stuffing and the pudding. The salad was great too. The Turkey was tender and hot and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

In the parking lot on our way out, we passed a family arriving for their meal - a middle-aged husband and wife, a wild ten-year old child, and an elderly couple. The older gent was a bit wobbly, grey-headed and all dapper in a black and white modern art sweater and sun glasses, but his wife looked out of it, and was maneuvered deftly into a wheel chair. Life does have its necessities. So today, I am thankful for diners.

The Mysterious Arranger - eccentricity and aging

At the far end of the hospital room, an 85-year-old waif paces in slow motion.

“Someone is making decisions about me everyday, and I'd like to know who it is," she says in an anxious voice, eyes lowered. She has outlived several sets of associates and two careers. She's a PhD, a shrink, now with only passers-by to analyze, an eccentric former opera singer, without an audience.

"Sit down here and talk to me," she says tapping on the chair seat with her cane. "You know I am a trained professional," she adds. I vaguely wonder if it’s true that those in the psychiatric profession undertake their calling to understand their own complexities.

I am visiting a relative who is ill, who happens to occupy the other bed in this hospital room, not here for an hour's advice in trade for $90.

"You know four people in that bed have died in this room while I have been here", she confides, pointing to the bed where my mother sleeps. Oh swell, now there is something else to worry about. Is this frail woman delusional or homicidal or has she been here that long?

Later she complains that the hospital has held her against her will for six weeks while her relatives try to close-up her house. They say she is a little odd, artistic, musical, academic - lives in piles of papers in creative disarray.

I think of my desk, which bears a striking resemblance to a landfill. I think of my collection of broken glass and mirror bits (each with an interesting shape) which someday might get glued together as oddball sculpture. I think of piles of things that often develop on the floor which seem to persist for months. I am 55 and still able to throw out unwelcome busybodies. But what about when I am 80?

There is a tyranny to the housekeeping expectations of relatives and social workers. The unconventional elderly who have lived full, intelligent lives as eccentrics, can be as easily harmed as helped by their efforts. The system itself has no understanding of lives dedicated to the practice of art, to nature, or to some other all-encompassing purpose, or lives that have for decades been happily, well, messy.

Life began in a messy puddle that might have been prematurely wiped up if some authority were running the show. The human race spread over the face of the globe entirely without indoor plumbing so who are these folks trying to kid...

The mysterious arranger is a case worker with a rule book. May the fates shield us from her gaze...

---- Mar Walker