A COLD AND A BROKEN

May 17

Yes, I just posted but I needed a fresh start. Just listening to Guy Clark, remembering the many associations he has for me, and the depth of his talent just got me going in a different direction. And I am trying to focus. I was embroidering and watching Frankie and Grace with my mom, but decided to hit the bed and write, to see if I could get to sleep earlier (not so far).

I was getting a bit iffy about writing, even though I know it makes me feel better. One of my friends was talking to me about invisibility. I am less invisible to myself when I write. Now see? If I were more positive, I would say "When I write I am more visible."

There’s been some good. When I woke up Saturday, I was so depressed I was trying to figure how to bow out of a Richard Thompson show that was a birthday gift. When I am not even up for RT, I am in a bad way. Fortunately, there was a part of me that remembered I could at least try to change my bad energy. I stripped my bed to wash out the tossing and turnings, and the recent nightmares. I flipped my mattresses. I sun soaked the down comforters that are my featherbed. I sun/air dried the sheets. 

RT was terrific. Christine Collister was on hand to sing harmony; I had not seen her since the first time I saw RT up at the Cotati Cabaret (it's a small converted church. RT and I discussed it once.) It's good to have a little female energy there. (Plus, RT played songs she knew so some gems from the 80's got sung.) Debee, John, and I had a blast.

On Sunday, there was a small birthday bbq planned for MN. As she is very fond of boysenberries, and ours are coming in, I thought an angel food cake would be a good vehicle. I had not made an angel food cake in long enough that it might as well have been never. The making of it was somewhat stressful as I did not have the right pan, but it was a good challenge.  

I did remarkably well with the egg white separation.

Hand beating the white? Next time, I'll use a metal bowl.

I also made a homegrown tomato/mozzarella/basil salad kind of thing. The tomatoes are a-comin' in. (And, by the way, that special spray thing to knock off the spider mites appears to be helping!)

I even sent MN home with some veggies, including a rather splendid broccoli.

Peter brought Porterhouse steaks that he cooked to perfection. 

This is all just avoiding the hard stuff. The hardest stuff is my mom. Her memory is getting quite bad and in the course of an hour she might ask me what day it is, or about some appointment, four or five times or even more. 

I tried to get her to go swimming. I got her all the way to the edge of the pool and she refused to go in. Of course, as soon as we got to the car, she said she wished she had gone. 

She's completely obsessed with Merle (she calls him Blackie, after her first dog.) She has been reading more, but that's not saying a whole whole lot. When I came home from RT, I could see that she had turned off the TV to read. 

It seems as if caring for her will take up more and more time. If I want her to keep any of her faculties, I have to spend more time doing activities with her, getting her out of the house, and that sort of thing. 

It is crushing. You've heard this process, this aging, memory loss, facility loss, dying process is crushing. It is crushing. 

I listened to Jeff Buckley sing Hallelujah on repeat for a good 30 minutes tonight. 

And it's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

I don't know how that obtains here, but it does.

Plus, my dear neighbors next door are moving. Hearts are broken.