My mother is a believer. She "belongs" to a religious brand. She doesn't "practice" much, but she has faith. She has told me that she didn't fear dying because. . . . Once in awhile, now, some people from the church come by to see how she is doing. A couple in Utah who used to live here calls from time to time. On Sunday, she had three visitors and a phone call.
Otherwise. . . .
Yesterday I took my mother to the bank and to her auto insurer to pay her bi-annual premium. As she was getting into the car, she looked at me, eyes full of fear, and said, "I'm dying." What concerns her is that she keeps losing weight.
What does one say to such a declaration?
Hemingway's literature is all about that. His first Nick Adams story, "Indian Camp." Birth is accompanied by pain and death.
Since we were born, there has been something out there that wants to kill us. When we are young, we can for the most part outrun it. But it is there, waiting. Sometimes it sneaks up and gets you mid-life, but if you get old, you can no longer run. It is inevitable.
"It tolls for thee."
I said none of that. I didn't say anything. I was for whatever reason stunned by the fear. After all the proclamations. . . I was simply surprised.
She is haunted now. She sits with it when she is alone.
Red is in town. She texted and said she wanted to spend the evening together tonight. People don't understand. I can meet you in the afternoon, I said, but I have to be home to fix my mother's supper. My life is not my own.
I saw an old friend at the gym yesterday. I haven't seen him there for a long while. Frenchy. He is the fellow with whom I did the one commercial photo shoot at the spa if you remember the picture from a week or so ago. He asked how I was doing as one will. I told him I had to move in with my mother. He told me his own mother was 91. I knew she lived in France. He doesn't see her more than once a year. But his brother lives there, he said, and he goes to have lunch with her every Friday.
"Every Friday, huh?"
"I don't think I want to live to be that old," he said. He's younger than I. I told him I had my suicide packet, "But that would be a really tough day. Maybe tomorrow, you would think."
Everybody I know, or mostly, think they want to go out on their own terms, but I've seen enough now to know that is not the case almost ever. People, it seems, cling to the fear.
Except Hemingway. And a few others.
I won't put up my "Team Bourdain" poster again. But watching and living this. . . .
Yea. . . there is something out there that has wanted to kill you since you were born. It still does. And it will. We just have to keep pretending that it won't happen.
"Not today. Maybe tomorrow."
I'll stop here now and put up another post. This was just to say. . . .
* * *
Just as I stopped and started again, I had a text from Red.
"What are your Turkey Day plans?"
No shit? WTF? As I say. . . people don't understand what I mean. How can they? Nobody does this. Who does this?
Everything stresses me out now. Even the things that should be fun.
But let me go back. I was at the gym talking to Frenchy.
"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" he asked.
"Buying champagne," I said.
"Which?" a lady on a machine next to us asked. She was a heavyset German on the furthest end of middle age.
"I like Roederer,' I said.
Frenchy, it turns out, is from Champagne. He explained things about the making of champagne I didn't know. The German woman was very excited to talk abut wines. She has wines shipped to her from all over the country. She liked beer, too. Of course.
When I got up in the morning, I thought I had "a day off." No doctor's appointments. No house workers.
"I need for you to take me to. . . " said my mother.
So I was late getting to the gym. And while I was there, I talked a lot. When I finished it was afternoon, and when I got to the car, I had a text message from the cleaning crew. They were on their way.
What?!?! Shit piss fuck goddamn. I had shit laying around all over the house from my attempts to make gel plate prints. And there were cameras and lenses and camera gear spread about, too. I raced home. When I pulled into the drive, they had not yet arrived. I ran in and began to straighten up, and just as I finished, they pulled in.
I told the woman who owns the company that I had just gotten everything picked up.
"How's your mom?" she asked as I handed her the money. Then she took my hand and put a fifty dollar bill in it.
"There won't be much to do," she said. "It won't take us long."
This is the second time she has done this since I've not been living at my place. I am going to buy her a nice Christmas gift this year.
So, still in my gym clothes, I had to leave to let them clean. I decided to go to the Cafe Strange. I don't go there anymore, but I don't go anywhere anymore. I went there so that I could have a cafe on leche and wait out the cleaning crew, and the liquor store is right across the street, so I could pick up the champagne, too.
When I walked in, the woman behind the counter was one who seems to be on medication. She is never very friendly or personable with me. Today, however, seemed different.
"What's up?"
"You are."
"That's right," she said.
I ordered. As she made the coffee, I looked around.
"You got another Photo Booth," I said. "Do they both work?"
"Brett is trying to fix the old one, so he got the digital one while he works on it."
"Oh. I just thought it was because the line for it was outrageous."
"It is sometimes. When I was growing up, we had a Photo Booth at the mall, but these kids haven't had anything like this. We get people driving a hundred miles to use it."
"You're kidding?"
"Not at all. Crazy, huh?"
I took my coffee to the smaller sitting room and went through some of my mother's paperwork that I had been carrying around in my courier's bag for a long time. When I thought I had been away from the house long enough for the cleaning crew to be done, I went across the street. I didn't buy Roederer. I bought Veuve Cliquot. Even that was $60/bottle. I planned to take two across the street for T-day dinner.
I had a few minutes at home before I needed to get back. I took laundry from the dryer, folded it, and put it away. I showered. I looked in the closet to see which clean t-shirt I would wear. Then it was time to go.
At the grocery store, I had to make a decision. After the big steak the night before, I didn't really want another hunk of meat. I decided on raviolis. I eat them about once or twice a year. They are not in my diet plan, but tonight was the night. I bought some sausage to put in with them. And a creamy pesto Alfredo sauce.
Man, that was an easy dinner to fix. Boil water and in three minutes, dinner is ready.
My mother didn't like it. She ate a few ravioli, but she only wanted the slices of sausage. It just wasn't in her hillbilly palate. Most of my hillbilly family can't stand to eat outside their fried foods menu.
I, on the other hand, ate way too much. For me, this was forbidden food. Flour and cheese with little bits of chicken stuck inside. And slices of sausage. Plus a creamy sauce? If I wasn't at my mother's house, I may have slipped out of my drawers.
Whatever.
Later on, after my mother went to bed, I stubbed my toe on a couch leg that was hidden by a skirt. I broke my middle toe, I'm pretty sure. It hurts like hell this morning. Still throbbing.
Selavy.
No appointments today but for Red. I need to coordinate. She tells me she has a lot of stories to tell. That is good, for I haven't any. I'll steal hers. Maybe she has photos, too. You know how it is. Girls and cameras. They are privileged. They are allowed to do anything. They are never "creepy."
Shit--I just realized that the last time I saw her was last Christmas. My mother fell and broke her wrist right after that. Since then, I haven't had an entire month to myself. I've lost almost a whole year to caregiving.
"That's no way to think about it, Bud. You've gotten to spend time with your mother. I wish I still had my mother."
I know. I know.
What I do have is A.I., right? Q sent me an A.I. enhanced song he made. Maybe he is getting the bug, too. Here is an A.I. song that is totally created from algorithms. I think I want to learn to make A.I. music, too.
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