It Hardly Matters

I wake in the night, 2 a.m., all the lights in the house ablaze.  I get up, put on my shorts, and walk into the kitchen.  There is my mother leaning on the sink looking like a wounded animal, eyes crazed.  I ask her what she is doing.  

"I don't know.  I don't know where I am.  Did I have my pills?  I don't know if I'm dreaming. . . ."

Morning.  She has just gotten up.  I ask her how she slept.

"O.K.  Off and on."

"Do you remember last night?"

"I don't know.  Not really." 

I am tired and unwell.  Some days now, many really, I think I need a doctor, a hospital.  But what would I do, put my mother back in "a home"?  

The sprinklers hiss.  The beige carpet runs wall to wall like an endless sea of bland monotony.  

At night I think of places I would like to go.  One day.  If only I could get away for an entire day.  But it would be cruel, like giving a prisoner with a long sentence one day of freedom after which the constraints would seem even greater.  

Constrained, a man dreams only of sleep.  

Somewhere, I hear there is a man who can really throw a ball better than anyone.  It is his special talent, and people go wild and pay tremendous amounts of money just to see him do it.  There are a few, rather, who can throw balls of different shape, size, and texture.  There is a fellow, I understand, who does magical things with one on a wooden court and another who uses a racket to hit the ball over a net.  

Millions watch and give them silver and gold beyond belief.  

There is another fellow who is good at imitation. He can create himself in many different ways, changing his hair, his voice, and even his gait if required.  He, too, is paid beyond understanding for this talent. 

There is a young woman who makes up songs about relationship revenge.  When she is old enough, I have been told, they might make her Queen.  They say she was a very good student in high school.

It is a strange land, and I can see it even here in my own small world, but I truly don't understand it.  

Some nights, however, even those wonders cannot sustain me.  Days can be terribly busy and nights so very long.  

There is a man at my house who I hope is good at fixing things.  He doesn't get pots of silver and gold, but he gets enough.  There is another fellow who says he can fix my roof, and yet another who says if I pay him, he can paint my house.  I will do all of this and pay them what I have to fix a house in which I no longer live.  

I must take my mother to more appointments than I can keep up with.  Tomorrow the osteoporosis specialist, the next the audiologist.  I am still waiting to get the three appointments set by the cardiologist.  My mother got two epidural injections yesterday morning.  She did not feel well when I brought her home.  We have both been sick with something--chills, gastrointestinal distress.  I brought home Greek salads and roasted chicken for dinner last night, but neither of us ate much of it. 

We did, however, drink chocolate milk.  

The day is here and is again incredibly gorgeous.  I would like to go to the coast and sit at the National Seashore among a billion birds and wild pigs and snakes and alligators and watch the fish in the clear brackish streams.  

Rather, I will meet my obligations and duties, and I will go to my house to answer the difficult questions the carpenter will pose, after which I will ask him to tell me the Pythagorus theorem. And for that, I will pay double.  

And as always, the tedium of the day will end with an early evening of dinner and dishes and t.v. and bed.  Many people have it worse.  Still, it hardly matters.