MANY INTRICATE PLANS

November 30th

I am having a hell of a time calming down and focussing enough to work on my yoga class in a mere three hours. The force of procrastination is strong within me, as are the spirits of the existentialists who cause me to wonder why be alive? why do anything? I am trying to motivate myself by remembering why I wanted to teach in the first place: to share my pleasure and the benefits of yoga, as well as to supplement my income when I get Social Security, if the United States Government exists in any form by the time I get there.

So, having recalled my purpose, I will give that lesson plan another shot. Thanks for your help.

December 9th

That first class was a bit shaky as they kept changing the room on me. I had planned to do things at the wall but we ended up in a room where that wasn't possible. I was fairly dispirited that day. I continued to wonder why I thought teaching yoga would be a good idea. Then I recalled that I had a studio and a good regular practice that provided me with the confidence and inspiration to teach. Without that, it is a bit harder.

As a point of fact, I should be writing my class for tonight now. I have begun to sketch out some ideas. Last class was fairly easy to write and even better to teach because only three people showed up which gave me plenty of time to give everyone adjustments and so forth. One woman was impressed enough with the one class she took to bring a friend and they have to drive 20-25 minutes. That is a bit ... daunting. But a shout-out to Sonia, Susan, and Karen whose encouragement I feel when I get stuck.

Today is sprinkley and very grey. Janet and the cats think it is very cold. I do have on a sweater and slippers, so there must be some merit to their argument. Adding to that sadness was this morning's news that one of the Domineers, Jimmy, passed away this morning. Although he could be a pain, given his volubility and penchant for rhyming everything, he was very good-natured and quite an enthusiastic yogi. 

Of course, I cannot tell how Janet feels about it. She is generally sanguine about these sorts of things. The difficulty comes in trying understand if she is wise and just pushing away emotions, for which an argument could be made that that is wisdom as well. I, however, see it as more of her obtuse, pushing away her emotions.

Nina is driving me crazy with her thinking she wants to be outside. I have made the grave error of letting the cats out the window next to my desk. Now they think the laptop is part of the thoroughfare to the outside. I know if I let her out, she will only want to come in again, as is their way.

I, as is not uncommon, am sad, not only about Jimmy, but the grey day. And my usual musings about how to process and grieve what you didn't (and did) do with your live as you head into the last (hopefully) quarter or so. I am working hard on identifying places to let go of things and to understand that I am unlikely to do the things I thought I would do when I hit permanent unemployment. (Retirement is for the intelligent planners and successful.)

I cleaned my oven yesterday and hated every second of it.

Nina pretending to be a good kitty.

ORDINARY TIME

A Thursday — no — a Friday someone said.

What year was it?

Just after the previous age ended, it began.

And although the scientists still studied the heavens

and the stars still blazed — and if the evening wasn’t cloudy —

what happened did not occur in public view.

Some said it simply didn’t happen, although others insisted they knew

    all about it

and made many intricate plans.

— Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, Norton, New York, 2008

JUST GET UP AND DO IT AGAIN

November 23rd

Okay, this will be interesting. I am writing this, for the first time on my iPad keyboard that I just bought so that I wouldn’t have to haul around my MacBook Pro. I am writing from my eldest brother’s house in Oakland. He’s had Juna, his 15-month old granddaughter here. Now, he has his 95-year-old mother here, he has to put up a security gate for Janet just like he does for Juna. Janet is sleeping on the upper level where the bathroom is. There is something so “beginning and end cycle” about all of this. Poignant.

'Twas a long drive to get here. I considered not even coming as I finally had some energy to straighten up the house. I left it a mess for our beloved cat sitter, Ashley.  (This keyboard is going to take some getting used to, but I realized I won’t even post this until I get back as I don’t have my mailing lists on this device.)

On the way up here, on hideous I-5, we stopped in Buttonwillow for something like sustenance and gasoline. Food options being quite limited, we tried McDonald’s. Horrible. But I remembered that I was once driving this road with my brother David and we stopped at this very McDonald’s where I ran into an old friend from college, totally randomly, there in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. Jose and I took Portuguese together. He tutored me in Portuguese, I tutored him in English. Poor bastard had to read Tristram Shandy for a class, not easy for those of us for whom English is our first language.  

November 30th

Back in LA since Saturday evening. Thanksgiving was really fun as I had great tablemates and the excellent food just made it better. Janet enjoyed meeting Juna and Kasia. We all had a big walk on Friday, although Janet was in a wheelchair and Juna was mostly in her stroller. We walked in a part of Alameda that I didn't know existed, so that was cool. 

Driving I-5 is really a challenge and very stressful. There is so much jockeying and lane changing, which was not made any better by the amount of traffic. I am sure I would have purposely caused an accident had we driven down on Sunday. I don't do heavy traffic well anymore. I now have to adjust my driving to not scheme to immediately get in front of slower cars and change lanes all the time while driving at 80mph.

The cats were all fine and glad to see us. They are making the transition to being winter kitties which means more lap sitting and not having to walk the streets calling them in after dark. By the time it starts getting dark, they are ready for dinner and then (mostly) settling down or lap sitting. This is good. 

On the other hand, I am experiencing the let down. I was sick pretty much the whole week after I got back and still feel the very tail end of the virus or whatever it was. Feeling physically bad as well as emotionally adrift was not all helped by the suicide of a friend of a dear friend pretty much as soon as I got back. Sadness and stress all around.

This person had considerable physical, emotional, and mental problems such that she just could not find a purchase onto well-being. Those of us who have some amount of self-awareness and self-discipline happily (or not) benefit from the doctors and other mental health workers we have been fortunate enough to find. It's an ongoing struggle, but we try to adhere to (most of) their recommendations to stay on some kind of vaguely even keel.

I admit to some very dark thoughts and places lately. As is well-documented in these pages, there is little in this part of my life, this geographical location, to comfort and sustain me. My connection to the state of New York and my many loved ones there makes the comparison to life here a sharp and often sad one. 

However, again I will try to find some comfort and sustenance here. I have a new section of yoga class I am teaching tomorrow. Saturday, I can go back to my Covid yoga class and maybe remember something about a practice. Janet is doing pretty well, having gone back to dominoes today for the first time in 5 weeks. The kitties are excellent if too multitudinous. 

Just get up and do it again.

NOT SO HAPPY

 “We become conservative if we’re still trying to preserve the mythologies of our youth.”

— Philip Rodriguez

“The worst thing is she’s not at all depraved by nature. Just ignorant. And vain. And right now that happens to be fashionable.

— Sigrid Undset, Jenny, 1911

I’ve been sick with a post-trip kind of virus. I have kind of rallied today, enough to think Janet and I should drive up to Oakland tomorrow to visit with the extended family. Of course, Janet doesn’t really want to go, but she never wants to be too far away from the kitty posse.  If I had had another couple of days of being functional, I would likely be up for it as I do want to see and be with the whole family. I just feel bad leaving the catsitter with the chaos that is my house right now.

I wasn’t able to anything last week. I never even got all the way unpacked.

What I would like to do is stay here and hide. I have a new yoga class to get ready for on Tuesday. I have a newfound reason to downsize and move stuff along. I am tired. 

I admit to some post-New York letdown but we knew that would probably be coming. The weeklong virus made it worse. 

Also, on the Saturday after I returned, a close friend of a very close friend decided she had had enough on this astral plane and took herself out. L's passing was devastating for K who thought she should have been able to help. I was touched, but less so by the tragedy. But I can't say that I don't muse upon it myself. 

Being back in this part of the world does not delight me, notwithstanding a few folks, but this is so not my home anymore. I may end up getting to live here after my mother passes, but I am not the whole "me" here. 

Once I get back from Oakland and get a little rest, I need to muster my attention and energy to making my situation more palatable, more pleasant for my mom and myself. I have been appreciably more patient with her since I returned, but there is more to accomplish in that arena.

IT WILL ONLY BE A JOURNEY

I’ve been home a little over two days now. Last night’s post was written on the ‘plane on the way out. Somehow, I didn’t find the time or the mental space to sit down and write for the entire time I was there. I was so busy eating, drinking, relaxing, and reveling in the sweet sweet company of my friends, I was barely even thinking about anything more than what was the next stop or the next meal or the next bottle of wine (and there were many).

Now, Sunday, Nov. 14.

That's three days now. I am feeling a bit better and adjusting to the time as well. It's already 9:35 and I am not longing for bed yet. I haven't finished unpacking or washing clothes, but making progress.  The weather has been so hot it has been a bit of a shock from me, being a 30 degree difference from NYC. This is good for outside clothes drying, however, even if I don't have a lot of outdoor drying racks. Our dryer is broken and I can't decide whether to get this ancient one fixed or to look for a new one ... (maybe I should get this one fixed while I look for a new one?)

The heat hit me hard, coupled with jet lag, and a slight sore throat, causing me to lay low, in an unproductive way. 

My Town Hall yoga class is back on for December, which is not so very far away, so I need to turn some attention to that. As I haven't been practicing, I need to get back to the rhythm and groove. Visiting New York is rather like an out-of-body experience as contrasted with my days here in California. It was a solid 19 days of visiting, eating, drinking, cooking, and traveling on subways and trains. I am not back to practical eating yet, but I have stopped alcohol consumption and slowed way down on the cheese and carbohydrate consumption. I need to get back to going to the bicycle at the gym.

According to David, Janet did not have any incontinence issues while I was gone, or not that he noticed. I haven't seen any evidence in the three days I have been back, so perhaps that was a preview of things to come and not a new constant state. She does not seem markedly changed, if anything slightly more peppy. The time change had her going to bed extra extra early, then getting up in two hours, about 10-o'clock to ask for a sleeping aid. I suggested she watch more tv as she had gone to bed too soon.

Nina was so happy to see me that she woke me up about 8 or 9 times the first night I was here. She is still waking me up, but not as frequently. I can't say that I mind terribly. David spoiled them while he was here with more food than I generally give them. They loved him and, although he thinks there are too many (as do I), he enjoyed them. We Sybergs have different levels of cat indulgence and David was careful to not move any cats sleeping whether they discomfited him or no. I have no such prejudice unless they are sleeping on my lap.

Janet is off to bed, so perhaps I should wend my way to the front and batten down the hatches to get to sleep myself. Janet did not go to any dominoes games and just sat at home with David. I called the Domineers on Friday to see what they were up to, only to find that Joseph was having trouble getting his breath, so all festivities were off. Having not heard anything else, I think he is probably okay. I will call again tomorrow to see if I can't get her back into that routine.

THE WHITE HOTEL

when winter comes

adjust your voice to it

when the clock dies hide it

from the children

do not resist the urge to travel

it will only be a journey

and there is no arrival

but drive through the desert quickly

it is inhabited by those

in search of death

beside a gabardine sea you will find

the white hotel where bougainvillea

drips from the roof like blood

dim lights will be on in the hallway

a long moss carpet

flowing past a wilderness of doors

stairs crowded with unpredictable

lovers and assassins

in the bar new arrivals

celebrate reunions by throwing

their glasses into the fireplace

others just drop them on the floor

when anything falls down

in this hotel it lies there forever

all night they will sing old songs

when the shoe tree blooms

in the desert

and the ice plant melts by the sea

all night the water will rest

quietly in its blue tomb

at dawn when palm trees

wave their arms as they do at the slightest

change in plans you will watch

the waves send up

fine contingents of water

each retreating without losing its courage

thousands of white truces

negotiated on the sand

and with your pulse beating for distance

your hair turning to salt

you will walk into the water

and say because of its great depth

the sea can forgive anything

but do not linger 

at the white hotel or soon you will learn

that memory is the only

kind of loss we ever know

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

Louise and Erik's cat, Topper.

ON THE 'PLANE WAY BACK WHEN

October 23rd

Yes, I can still type, although not sure about whether I can write or not. 

I am finally on the damn ‘plane on my way to NYC and environs. I think I started my vacation when I ordered too much Thai food last night. It was too hot for both Janet and David and I did have some intense discussions with my GI tract but damn it was good.

I just found my car key in my bag, here at however many thousand feet. I got a text from Patrick (who drove me in my car) that he needed the key but then I got a message that said “Nevermind” so I will sit here for hours feeling like an asshole for not handing David the key. He did have plenty of time to keep calling me and he didn’t so I guess everything is okay. 

The weeks leading up to my departure have been intense for me. I found myself fluctuating between joy, terror, insecurity, fear, and almost unbearable anticipation. I couldn’t focus enough to write. And I brought this damn MacBook Pro with me so that I could write my blog and I damn well better. 

Other than my anxiety about the mystery of Patrick and David, and how they got home, I am feeling quite calm. Having double N95 masks is kind of uncomfortable and we are hours away from release on that count. Although I guess I can take it off to eat. I am quite hungry. Well, I see that Patrick left me a VM telling me that they were able to drive because the car was running when I got out. I could throw up. But all is sanguine at the moment.

I kind of want to watch the monitor and do some needlepoint, but I am far from my finished my re-reading of Tana French’s In the Woods which is the current bookgroup choice. 

Having the ear buds in is extra uncomfortable with a double mask, just saying.

But hey! I have a whole row to myself, which is nice. 

Janet’s continence is failing, particularly when she gets out of bed in the morning. Yesterday, she evidently dropped feces when she stood up, stepped in it, didn’t notice and walked around the house. We both cleaned it up, and I certainly didn’t say anything but I cannot imagine how that must feel. To know you are losing control and, at 94.75 years, that the end is hotly nearing. This morning there was urine from her bedside all the way to the bathroom. She does alright in the day time, but it is time for nighttime diapers. 

Too add to all the stress of leaving and not having gotten everything done, I didn’t check when David’s flight got in only to find it had been delayed five hours. So that was another monkey wrench. We were supposed to drive around some to give him a chance to orient. Go over procedures. DIdn’t have time for that or mental bandwidth as the day was spent being a bit sad about Janet and the undropped shoe of whether David would actually make it and what would we do if he didn’t.

The cats seemed to know that I was leaving. Fox was practically stuck to me. He rather tried to get into my suitcase, but, as usual, it was too full for another ten pounds. I always have things I have collected for people, which was my wont. Now that I don’t frequent thrift stores nearly as much, my piles of things are dwindling.

Back in 1978 or ’79, my (turned out to be) bff Martha brought me a beautiful hand-thrown mixing bowl from Vermont where she first went to college. Her oldest daughter just got married, so, although I don’t really want to part with it, downsizing is the current name of the game so I decided to bring it with me and re-gift it to A. Hopefully, I will have far less on the return trip, but there will always be this damn laptop. (I don’t really damn it, but it is heavy.

The mixed emotions about the trip were mostly about me. First of all, I haven’t done very much in the last two and a half years. I haven’t even read that much. So I feel as if I don’t have a nice store of anecdotes and bon mots to toss off. I have gained weight and aged, so that makes me a bit anxious. But mostly I am afraid of how much I will feel. Getting seen again. Getting stimulated again. Is is all heady. Having, like a lot of people, I know, in some seclusion, I am greatly under emotionally stimulated, visually stimulated. So that unknown was threatening and exciting. I am more sanguine now. 

I wasn’t going to drink on the plane as I don’t like to drink in daylight hours, and hell, until I went into slow motion internal meltdown mode, I wasn’t drinking at all. But hey, I am on vacation and will have hours to sober up again, I got some sauvignon blanc. Meanwhile, it lets me take off my mask for awhile. The plane is only about half full, too.

I think I have a good start here, so I am going to drink.

WHO HAS IT, AND WHO DOESN'T?

 "... that generosity might be the greatest pleasure there is."

— William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

So, I got my Covid booster and spent the next 36 hours in bed. I mostly slept, and will again, soon, as I am still woozy. I was hit much harder than my mom who mostly hurt in her arm and shoulders (always). My brain was pretty much gone. I listened to the latest John Banville mystery, Snow, but was so in and out of consciousness that I had to keep rewinding when I woke up after a few hours. I probably missed some things. 

Oct. 4, but just barely

I wrote this to a friend: Sometimes I look around at what I have here, the books, the clothes, the crafts projects and I wonder who in the hell I think I am. Would I have less stuff if I knew better?

I think the isolation is getting to me. As I have mentioned before, I just don't have many friends very nearby. On a weekend like this one, I spend my time at home. I think I have been out of the house once since Wednesday, for a silent Trader Joe's run yesterday. I had a long conversation with Martha which was satisfying yet helped remind me of my exhausting isolation.

It probably didn't help that I finished reading Ishiguro's latest, Klara and the Sun, which I rather liked when I was reading it, but felt flat and depressing by the end. I don't know what would make me feel better reading wise. As soon as I finished Snow, I started listening to I Alone Can Fix It: Donald Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, which is by far not a feel-good book. But it did engross me for a good four hours while I worked on my sewing projects. 

Cats helping with sewing.1

Realistically, what do I think my life would be or should be given all the circumstances? I know it would be better if my yoga studio hadn't closed, that I practiced several days a week, maybe taught, and continued to build those relationships. I can't blame that on anyone, not even the Donald entirely. But maybe I wouldn't feel so bone-wearying trapped and exhausted on almost all levels. 

When I have read about folks liberating themselves from their belongings, it always seems to happen in an epiphanic moment of shedding, as if living minimally were receiving instantaneous transmogrification. Whee, it is gone and I am no longer even eating pre-packaged foods! My carbon footprint is negative! Going out on a limb here, but I will bet it is a process. You know, so many times there is a process going on and you don't even know it. It would be helpful to know (does that mean choosing something? oh shit, I am bad at those decisions, too ... lately it seems I am bad at all decisions except maybe bad ones ...)

This digression comes late ... or early ... and I should get to bed so that I don't sleep too late and begin the dragging-and-behind-the-8-ball cycle again. I just sleep so deeply in the morning, and my dreams are generally so entertaining and make more sense than life. Also, I most often dream about friends so there is less isolation and loneliness there.

Cats helping with sewing.2

SOME QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT ASK

Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable, like

the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?

Who has it, and who doesn’t?

I keep looking around me.

The face of the moose is as sad

as the face of Jesus.

The swan opens her white wings slowly.

In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.

One question leads to another.

Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?

Like the eye of a hummingbird?

Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?

Why should I have it, and not the anteater

who loves her children?

Why should I have it, and not the camel?

Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?

What about the blue iris?

What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?

What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?

What about grass?

— Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992

IT'S SO THEY CAN BE FOUND

Lucian Freud – "The Sleeping Cat" (1944)

"We take it for granted that we all have our own story to tell, and that story is what makes us, us.  We can take it equally for granted that every single person we pass on the street has a complex interior world in their heads that we know nothing of."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space, New York, Bloomsbury, 2021

Saying goodmorning to someone in a text, I also wrote "Another day on the Catherine Wheel." Although I am not yet awake enough to really assess my level existential despair and/or to get anxious about the day to come. The coffee tastes good. Vera is wiggling around on the concrete outside. There's a plan afoot for Domineers yoga, and I think I am going to be teaching my nextdoor neighbor some yoga this evening as well. I will have to put some thought towards that.

David, my brother, has graciously consented to Janet sitting for two weeks, so it looks as if the New York trip is on, in the neighborhood of 10/27 to 11/9. I admit to a great deal of anxiety about it. That is understandable after not having been there for two and a half years, most of it spent in semi-seclusion. Is semi-seclusion a thing or are you either secluded or not?

So evening yoga didn't happen due to a sprung wire in a youngster's mouth and ensuing emergency trip to orthodontist. Stationery bike happened and a light yoga session with the Domineers happened, too. 

I am restless in general and nervous, almost afraid, about going to NY which is not for a month. Maybe the very idea of a trip is such a big step after being in California for so long. I worry that I won't have anything to talk about to my friends. Well, maybe I will get to go to some pretty places and read. Plus, I think I will get to meet my great niece! 

Mom and I have to get up early Shirley to get to her monthly eye injection for her macular degeneration. I made her shower tonight as she has little concept of time anymore and everything takes longer than she thinks it does. She may well NOT be the only one for whom this is true.

NIGHTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

I carry joy as a choir sings,

but quietly as the dark

carols. To keep the wind away

so the hidden ones will come

out into the street and add

themselves to this array of

stars, constellations and moon.

I notice the ones in pain

shine more than the others.

It’s so they can be found,

I think. Found and harbored.

— Linda Gregg, The Sacraments of Desire, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, 1995

NOR DO I EXPECT THE NIGHT

Sunday, 9.26

Really nothing to report. 'Twas a quiet quiet day with not much planned so that was a small victory, no? I did a bit of sewing with Christina in the evening, I had gone to the gym, and finished watching Succession so I am all set for the new season in a couple of weeks.

Really nothing I am thinking about. The weather has been unseasonably chill.  Although the sun did come out this afternoon, the day was largely lightly overcast. Just blah.

Monday, 9.27

Another day, hunkered down over needlepoint, streaming whatever I can find to add to the dull buzz and keep me occupied enough so that I am not thinking about the fact that I can't think nor really feel anything but (now) vaguely dissatisfied and bummed out. I did my gym time early today, thinking that I would be having dinner with friends in Long Beach, but plans changed. I took a nice bath in the afternoon and then followed that up with a 2.5 hour nap. No drinking. No over eating. No spending money. I feel rolled up like a hedgehog or hunch-backed for protection. 

DEAR LIFE

if I use my imagination

I can create a river

where I can fish

swim or drown myself

there are always choices

after I have eaten a bad meal

I do not demand my hunger back

nor do I expect the night

to be less cold

because I lack a coat

pain is a room I measure

each time I am in it

and each time I leave

I forget its dimensions

the wind blows over the desert

telling me nothing

but when I forget the force

to which broken stones complain

I will be lost

when I cannot feel the vine’s

need to hold onto something

or when I am happy

only in the presence of others

I will be lost

to the God of Joy

or the God of Sadness

I could tell everything

and each would accept my story

and claim me for his own

but to the God of Remorse

I have nothing to say

and no time to say it

I am holding on for dear life

as my chariot rolls

into the future

faster than I would have thought

possible on its square

wooden wheels

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

I USED TO READ AT PARTIES

 " ... and I use 'recognize' in the philosopher Plato's very particular sense that we recognize the truth when we encounter it, rather than have to discover or learn it."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space

I have certainly experienced that physical shock of recognition, which is usually accompanied by sorrow and dread or at least disappointment that one can no longer lie or deny some truth. 

"... inwardness was always tensional and — as Byron saw by invoking Lucifer — it was not so much the path to inner peace as providing a new area of conflict."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space

Yeah, that inner space of near constant conflict if self-recrimination can be thought of as conflict. 

Later ...

That's what happens when I start reading again. Things jump out at me.

I haven't really been able to articulate my general senses that dread, truth, loneliness, reality, and regret are woven in some kind of net around me. It all pierces so much ... I am mixing my metaphors here but I already warned you that I am not particularly close to any reasonable explication here.

Not only do I feel my own loneliness and detachment from the bigger river of activity, I feel for my mother in her horrible arthritic pain, loss of sight, loss of memory, loss of really appropriate friends (she is still stewing over Joseph and the puppy) ... and having to live with someone who doesn't want to be here and can be short-tempered. And then the other stuff of the country falling apart. And the pandemic. 

There was a review or rather a musing about the HBO remake of Bergman's Scenes from A Marriage. 

"It is a profound insight on Bergman’s part to notice that loneliness involves a detachment not only from other people but from reality in general. As a child, I had trouble forming friendships, and turned instead to fantasy. I could imagine myself into the books I read and, by embellishing the characters, supply myself with precisely the sorts of friends that I’d always longed for. If you have engaged in this kind of fantasizing, you know that the thrill of creativity eventually collapses into a feeling of emptiness. This is the moment when loneliness hits. You’ve prepared yourself an elaborate psychological meal, and you realize, belatedly, that it can never sate your real hunger.

One is often loneliest in the presence of others because their indifference throws the futility of one’s efforts at self-sustenance into relief. (If you spend a party reading in a corner, you come to see, no matter how good the book, that you are not fooling anyone.)"

— Agnes Collard, The Problem of Marital Loneliness, NY'er 9/25/21

(I used to read at parties because I didn't want to really participate or couldn't find the correct engagement. Or I really couldn't put down the book.)

I don't know where this leads. Another day, another foot in front of the other, more dread, more feeling that I am caught in a continued wince of existential pain. I really could use some relief so that maybe I could turn some energy around and maybe get productive here or there. 

That's it. The above is where my better self is thinking, trying to feel it enough to express it in more than phrases and quotations. 

SO, THAT'S WHAT'S UP

I just don't feel like writing. I think about it all day, but thinking is as far as I can get.

I am very depressed and anhedonic. I'm not interested in much of anything. I am escaping into the usual, streaming some series I have probably already watched, and working on a needlepoint project or two. I endeavor to do a chore or two, some laundry, some ironing, a few of the dishes, maybe water the trees, but I just want to zone out. 

I have had some good talks with KH and SMS who are similarly despondent. We all share a feeling of ubiquitous dread, waiting for some other major shoe to fall ... more virulent strains of Covid, another political setback, major earthquakes, the end of Roe versus Wade, the further ascendency of idiocy ... I don't know.

My malaise is compounded by my life with Janet. She is back with the Domineers but not happily. The host Domineer got a new puppy, pretty young. My mother has been haunted and in severe mental anguish as the host Domineer abused the puppy, got angry and threw him against a wall. I wasn't there, I didn't see it, but Janet returns to and mentions it several times a day, although she continues to sit next to the host Domineer and play dominoes with him and the rest of the group. 

It is entirely true that it was a bad idea for this man to get a puppy. He is not of great patience. He is also in his 80s, in poor health, and unlikely to live for too very long. This dog will outlive him.

But this is not germane to my mother's anguish. And she is anguished. She thinks she should have called the ASPCA on the host Domineer. I am saddened and confused by the all of it. I don't know how to comfort her or to help her find some peace in the situation. I would not call most of these folks highly evolved, although I don't think they are quite that cruel and self-indulgent as to hurl a puppy across a room. 

Getting Janet up and going gets harder every day. We had arranged for me to teach yoga to the Domineers but it grew too late what with getting Janet ready on both Tuesday and Thursday. And by the time I get her out of the door, I am in no good or positive mood to be teaching anyway. 

Underlying this is, of course, early mourning for her passing, although I think she will probably make it well past her 95th birthday in February. She just gets more frail and less present, at least with me. Patrick stopped by today around the time she got home from dominoes and she was very engaged. 

So, that's what's up: I'm down.