Wow, I’m planning to post this on inauguration day? And last post was on the day of the insurrection. Does anyone really care about my small mouse-tracks of words today?
So much is big, overwhelming, horrible, or bigly hopeful. Yes! Here we are in our condo, all the action happening elsewhere. In here, you should know that those of us with retirement incomes, those who don’t have to go out unless we want to, could just as easily be in the middle of the riots, in the middle of the inauguration, as much as we feel the impact. I’ve noticed that my jaw gets tight, my back begins to hurt, even when I’m not always sure what triggers it. Things. Things in the stratosphere. Nothing is separate.
And then, too, in here a day stretches out through fourteen hours, sixty minutes each. My little volunteer job has evaporated. I write my monthly newspaper column and my now-and-then poetry commentary for IPR radio, and this blog, of course, but some magical ingredient necessary to keep the other writing going has been absorbed into the world disasters. Even reading feels oddly hollow. I read way too much news.
I have two books at press at the moment. Should I feel excited? Not so much right now, in this booming, exploding world. And I suspect for a long while, even with the vaccine, we’ll be virtual, so there’ll be no traveling to give readings.
I feel I’m becoming more basic in our little house on the prairie. I’ve gotten pretty good at cutting my own hair. Who but the two of us care what it looks like, anyway? I’ve bought very few clothes. (Oh well, yes, some cool boots from L.L. Bean.) The clothes I have—other than my jeans and cords and warm shirts—hang listlessly in the closet, going nowhere. We order from restaurants only to support them, since putting restaurant food on our own plates and eating it at home is no fun.
I’ve been cooking more. Freezer is stocked, refrigerator full. I kind of actually plan ahead. We’re alternating meat and meatless meals, partly for the variety. I made a very good vegetable quiche last night. Tonight is leftover beef stroganoff plus roasted vegetables I need to use up. See, that’s not like me at all. It’s not even eight in the morning and I already know what we’re having tonight. Not like me at all.
How long since anyone has visited? How long since we’ve seen our children and grandchildren in person? In our little house on the prairie, we hear the winds blowing, war and rumors of war out there, and we’re throwing another log on the fire (oh well, turning on the gas fireplace). Our hearts burdened with the country’s suffering, with the world’s suffering, but making breakfast as always.
Where are the wry comments, the flighty metaphors? Where are the snows of yesteryear?
So. Cooking and cat-petting. Cooking and Molly. Ah, did I tell you about Molly? We’ve mourned our Wally for over a year now, and lo and behold, from the same friend, here comes another lost cat who needs a home. Molly’s still skittish and eating voraciously, maybe making up for her time in the wilderness. She won’t be the Buddha-cat Wally was. But there are other ways to shine. I think she is Tara, the female Buddha. She may be here to show us that nothing is ever the same.
I’m not sure I recognize myself. Do you know what I mean? This feeling is also age, of course. It hurt to get out of bed this morning. Tight muscles. But I get up, I write some words, as a matter of discipline. Once in a while I write something that makes me feel a little excited to have written it. Now and then I read someone else’s words that are so perfect I have to interrupt whatever Jerry’s doing and make him listen. Good enough.