Getting things out for breakfast.
I’m brain dead at present, but, as writers are wont to do, I’ll push a few tired words onto the page. I did promise: a Wobbly every two weeks, and I’m a week behind. We’re living, for this month (check previous Wobblies for backstory), in a room about the size of hotel room. Not any hotel, but an old one in New York, say, that’s been renovated, but still has the cramped space of an earlier generation’s modest expectations. Our TV sits on the dresser that has had its decorative mirror removed for now. There are the two orange barrel chairs, the bed, a small drop-leaf table we bought for the occasion, and two dining chairs. And a closet stuffed so full It takes a crowbar to get things out. Seems like.
I’ve slept better lately. When I do lie awake, I’m arranging furniture in our new apartment-to-come. It’s an odd shape, a challenge that I adore.
Poor Molly. This is the last load, from one end of the building to the other.
Molly’s adjusted okay. She has us to herself in this small space. We’re stumbling over each other, but she’s winding around corners, under the bed, on the chairs. She’s liking the bird songs outside the open window today.
How are we, really? We’re good, I think, so far. It’s true that we live among a number of people who can’t remember, who repeat themselves. Like us, only more so. I feel a sweetness here, not just the staff, but the residents. Warm, thoughtful. One resident passed by our dinner table, leaned over and said, “You have ears!” meaning hearing aids. Yes, I said. “So you’re one of us!” she said joyfully. Infirmities are out in the open. It seems that the mental struggles of youth and middle age have transmogrified into physical ones that make it easier to empathize with each other. Who hasn’t seen the expression of true caring on passersby when they meet someone with a walker?
This is it. Our whole space at present.
The writing? How do you write in a maelstrom? I ask this by way of a suggestion to other writers whose lives are in turmoil, transition. I think it’s best to simply keep our eyes open, our ears open. To receive, receive, for now. It’s too soon to fasten the feelings and the impressions into language. Keep observing. Not by way of thinking, “What shall I say about this?” In fact, not thinking much at all for a while. Not waiting, just living.
At the same time, it’s important to keep the motor running. Write something every day. Later it may go into the trash bin, but maybe not. Just make sure the synapses don’t forget their practiced pathways.
I put Molly’s favorite blanket on the bed for now. She circles, getting ready for what she hopes is her long morning nap. She stares into space. She settles. The former stray she was keeps her ears on alert, her eyes slit open. She clocks this as sleep, much of the time.
Jerry goes out the door, which shuts slowly. Her eyes are now wide open. She’d like to go out into the hallway, but she did that once this morning and our chasing her back in scared her. So this time she just opens and then closes her eyes again. She is not in transition. She is in pure cat. An inspiration.
The P.S. . . . .
I am after all not brain dead! A poem popped into my head from whence I do not know.