WHAT WORK THIS TAKES, YOU THINK

Another tough day. Mom has fairly eschewed her philosophy/religion (Church of Religious Science), but she likes to go to post-cult lunch with her friends. Neither of us are much in the self-starting mode on Sunday morning, so unless she is feeling exceedingly chipper, it is a bit of a push to get her there. For me, it is just a slug of coffee and whatever I can throw on to drive her over. Although this morning, coming to any functionality was fighting up from the bathymetric deep. I wasn't sure I was going to ever make it to walk-around consciousness.

I'm out of sleeping meds, so that doesn't help. I took some over the counter pill, but I still woke up often. Vera and Butterscotch taking turns for pets and fighting did not help. And in my restless and distressed state, I fight the covers as with a mad sex intensity. No audio book nor podcast can bore me to a deep sleep. Perhaps I could try the British history one again. No reason not to resist the Roman occupation, right?

Mom is desperately sad about losing Ariel. This is no real surprise, but at this point, I worry about anything that affects her being. The other kitties are just not familiars, not to me nor her. They are perfectly fine, but there is generally only room for one familiar per person. Cooder was my familiar. Emmylou is too independent to care that much. And the others aren't that kind of kitty. Oona and Idris are young enough that they could grow into those roles, but I am not holding too much hope.

Hell, I don't have much hope for anything right now. The depression and anxiety have me nearly shaking in some cases, comatose in others. I vote for comatose if I have a choice. At least lying down to watch tv or read is a defensible safety measure at those times. 

I have been able to push on in small measure, thinking that almost any progress is something. I managed to get over to Staples for more bankers' boxes and staples so that I could pack up the extraneous books and cds for now. They are not housed in the best place for access or enjoyment. I am not sure what to do about that. I am listening to lots of music lately, Alicia de Larrocha playing Albeniz at the moment thanks to MW.

At least there is a breeze today. It is hot on the patio. It will be hot back here as the afternoon wears on. I think I will try for a nap or something. 

At any rate, Mom often complains of being unsure in the world and doesn't want to walk around. She says she feels tentative. She wanted to go back to bed and skip lunch, but I felt that one day in jammies was enough. Even when I dropped her off at the church, she flagged me down to see if I would take her home. I waited until I saw that she was safely inside and then a beat before I drove away.

Of course, she came home and was much more sanguine and philosophical. 

I know she is mourning herself as well as Ariel. And Carl and Verne and my father. There is a lot to mourn, even when you aren't all the way to 91.5. I think some of my nauseated malaise and panic is due to her imminent passing and, of course, my wasted life that has left me with very few options for luxe, calme et volupté somewhere in my future. I think many of us are suffering from intense trauma.

I have taken down my Diet Coke consumption and it is weird. Trying to drink plain old cold sparkling water.

A few weeks back, I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting the poet, George Yatchisin (and the most charming Chryss Yost). He happened to post a couple of his poems on his Facebook page and I think they are damn knockouts. I hope this is okay, George. Stolen from http://levurelitteraire.com/george-yatchisin/

A Reading

“We find the body difficult to speak.”

–Jack Spicer

My best poem would have no words

but now I am writing.

Vacant at the mike she eyed over

the crowd, letting love lap in—

what a room of listeners can do for you.

While her work was like

truth in its kimono at dawn, colors in full light,

I could only latch on to one word,

as she twice misspoke “epitaph” for “epigraph,”.

as if such gist, a hard-felt coming or going,

deserved merely a name.

There are numerous words one must weigh out like change,

that jingle on the tongue’s pocket

the way love tumbles

about us so much. My friend,

who had loved her alone but not for long,

he had to watch her words, the right and wrong,

leave lips his had touched. But no more for that.

Instead, he had to watch her with another,

watch hands at backs like fingers

at a typewriter, the alphabet

broken to keep favored keys from crashing,

and the first words coming slow.

That may be why we’re so eager to get in bed

with others, to hear one truth in silence,

to settle into that clatter of nothing.

That may be how she didn’t misspeak,

sensing words are for endings, epitaphs

when nothing else is left to say.

Auto Safety

Words, yes, them again. They’re always between

1.         And there’s no real need to mention love.

It waits on street-corners with four-way stops.

No one will give love a ride—they know.

It’s funny how strangers always want to

be friends, just to change their names, just to see

the four-speed transmission of your smile find

a new gear that’s then theirs. It’s all they want.

Until they want more—loose change, a brown button,

something like love. And unknown, it’s hiding

in the back seat, holding the lighter in.

Everyone’s in an unrecalled Pinto

when fate strikes for what must be the last time,

surely, until something else happens.

More Than Anyone Cares to Hear about Cashews

So I followed the link

to the “list of culinary nuts” but

it wasn’t as bitchy fun as I’d hoped.

It did lead to the mystery

of the cashew, which dangles

from its fruit like an appendix,

something waiting to be removed.

Poor pseudo-fruit, the actual cashew apple,

in Central American called the marañón,

shaped more like a pear, anyway,

its nut protrudes from it

like a tilde off an “n.”

The locals brew that easy bruising fruit

into a spirit, sweet, but not so much

you don’t want more.

Of course we’re in it for the nuts.

In consumerland they come clean,

shorn of the shell that’s kin to sumac

and rich with noxious oils that sicken

at as much as a touch. So for you,

others will roast them, outdoors,

hoping for their cents an hour

to avoid the acrid smoke.

What work this takes you think and

devour another, salt on your tongue

like Portuguese tan and fat,

roasting on a beach in Goa.