PRETENDING THE END

"... she had tired of the gossip and long relinquished an interest in happiness ..."

– Colson Whitehead ... book unknown but probably The Underground Railroad

(Found in an old notebook with no proper attribution)

 December 4

Notwithstanding teaching a good class last night, yesterday was another low and getting lower point. Caregiver burnout is a real thing, Seeing your mother blind and deaf is still another. Perhaps that added to the near delirium I felt. I was bemoaning that there is no "Guide to Successful Suicide" that I could find.

Palliatives such as "hang in there," and "it will get better" are useless. It is not going to get better for me. Like many other people who are female and now senior, if not elderly, there is no income stream or a way to get an income stream to support ourselves. Somehow, when I put up with (nearly always) being underpaid, I failed to visualize and calculate how much this would ruin the end of my life. 

I did have quite a bit of fun at my jobs.

So, it is not my poverty or how I got here that is so much the problem. The problem is that I am not allowed to easily and comfortably slip out of my misery. That's the ultimate unfairness.

However, in an attempt to find comfort and at least get decent sleep, I remade my bed with my best flannel sheets and fired up the down comforter. (Figuratively, of course.) My The Company Store Featherbed lasted me 40 years when an infrequent washing tore the fabric. That featherbed had seen a lot. I think of my kitties who slept with me on that featherbed, not to mention a person or two. So, I bought another one on payments. 

Again, whatever comfort I can find, I am going for. But it is not going to help overall.

Bebop is enjoying the softness and loft of having the down comforter back as she is contentedly making biscuits.

December 6

When you have a new coffee making system and you finally get it right and make a good cup of joe. This is likely the high point of the day. Well, that and the fact that it is a beautiful morning. Plus, the mom is still abed, the cats are all out, and I get a moment of awake calm.

Isn't "biscuit" an excellent word? From Wikipedia "The word "biscuit" itself originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-cooked". A friend had a kitty named Biscuit. Here's the entry. 

I am back to the days of not being able to fall asleep, and waking up feeling dread in so many directions. And it isn't even January yet. Again, I wish there were such a thing as assisted suicide. I will never be able to understand how killing yourself is bad, yet no one wants to take any care or ACTUALLY give you the kind of help you need. 

I wonder if I have ever felt that feeling you hear "it's great to be alive" I have certainly have had a lot of fun and laughter and beautiful meals, friendships, and, for all the concerts I have been to in my life, I would say 95% of them were terrific to transcendental. ("Beautiful music" makes me think of the song The Continental from The Gay Divorcée.)

But the idea/reality of being homeless (although I have had some offers of shelter from very very dear friends), impoverished, and not getting to live anywhere near the sort of life I would like gets a big "thanks but no thanks". I guess I am not really a survivor at heart.

Bebop is crouched at the end of the dining room table from whence I write. She is still very skitty although she has been here for three years now. She will let me pet her a bit more if I come upon her when she is deeply asleep and too drowsy to immediately bolt.

Even the sounds of a relatively distant train when all else is calm can be nice. Then, again, I like trains. 

It may be teaching yoga is the only thing that makes me want to stay here. I don't know how it came to be so, and I think I am far under-trained, but my current students are near ga-ga over my class. And in this I have succeeded. My class is small (about 8 - 10) people, it's very very friendly so that newcomers and newbies are not intimidated. It's nice when someone who has only come to yoga twice is eager to sign up for the January class. Yoga hits some of my strong points: humor, compassion, observation, and humility. But it ain't any kind of reliable income and I am not getting any younger. Janet taught until she was 88 or 89. She stopped when her memory really started to go and she couldn't remember the names of the asanas. 

At any rate, I should get her going so that I can take her to Costco and get her fitted for hearing aids. Now this is an excursion in which you can pray for me. 

Here comes Idrisse.

MOONTAN    

        for Donald Justice

The bluish, pale

face of the house

rises above me

like a wall of ice

and the distant,

solitary

barking of an owl

floats toward me.

I half close my eyes.

Over the damp

dark of the garden

flowers swing

back and forth

like small balloons.

The solemn trees,

each buried

in a cloud of leaves,

seems lost in sleep.

It is late.

I lie in the grass,

smoking,

feeling at ease,

pretending the end

will be like this.

Moonlight

falls on my flesh.

A breeze

circles my wrist.

I drift.

I shiver.

I know that soon

the day will come

to wash away the moon’s

white stain,

that I shall walk

in the morning sun

invisible

as anyone.

—Mark Strand, Reasons for Moving // Darker, Knopf, New York, 1968