From a Letter to a Friend

Do you remember the novel/movie Fahrenheit 451, where at the end all the book-lovers lived in the woods, where they memorized their books and walked around in the falling snow, repeating them?  I envision spending some time in a community like that where old nuts can live together but privately, getting some help if they need it but mostly just doing what they want to do. Do you know of any such place? Linda

 

 

I wrote that to a friend, and that's what I would like to find.

 

I look at elderly facilities  on the web, and I shudder.  Not a very pretty picture. I wrote a poem about it years ago, about the nice ladies I'd see at concerts at nights, in suits, their grey hair nicely coiffed, waiting to be picked up and transported back to their dormitories.

 

As a contrast, there was the other old lady I saw in Texas, she's an icon really, the one with her gray hair in a knot but waving in the breeze, in her long black dress, striding across a vacant lot on her business,  and I called the poem, "Walking to Meet".  The La Jolla ladies were Waiting to Meet...their bus, their friend, their Jesus Christ, or yet  perhaps a lover...I wanted to be the one Walking to Meet.  Walking to Meet my fate.

 

Then I realize I can hardly walk at all.  I 've gotta get it together and fast.  And not fall down and break my bones in the process.  And not be afraid to be Walking to Meet. Lord, I need your help.

 

YAZZYBEL

Timeless Time

Good morning.

The strange thing about being a widow is realizing how having your partner nearby you was conducive to all sorts of civilized behavior. Especially with regard to time.

I was out on the patio leisurely sweeping up and I was struck with the strangest feeling that there was NO TIME left.   No time to bother with.  Nothing to hurry for.  Nothing to finish the job for.  Nobody knows what I am doing.  Nobody cares. Nobody has any claim on this moment nor what is going to happen in ten minutes, or in an hour or by this evening at sunset.

It's ten fifty four a.m., a bright and beautiful morning.  I normally would be thinking, and am still thinking, that pretty soon it will be time to fix lunch.  What do I have on hand?  Then I realize, it does not matter.  If it spoils, what I have on hand and cannot use, I can sequester it away in the waste can undetected.  I had five eggs that were at least five weeks old. I remember buying that batch of eggs when the dr's told me he would be coming home right away from the hospital...I took those eggs and pushed them gently through the fence to tumble down into the deep grasses near where the fox lives.  Nobody knows but me, and now you, what happened to those eggs.  Nobody cares.

Last night I made a supper and ate it, and as I was eating it I noticed that it was four o'clock in the afternoon.  I'd forgotten to notice that it wasn't really supper time, so I ate when I felt like it.  Surprise!  It was too early.  But I ate it anyway because I was hungry.

It was a delicious supper. First I quartered a huge potato that's been around here and put it to boil; then I sliced a zucchini and some onion, sprinkled on some marjoram and a spray of olive oil, and  put them in the oven.  When the potato was done I put it onto a bowl and got a batch of kale out of the refrigerator and boiled the tender parts in the potato water.  Then I put everything on a plate, mashed up the potato, mixed everything up, and put on some salt and pepper.  Well, it was delicious and my tummy didn't know it was only four p.m., and I ate nothing else after that so I guess my tummy was right.

I have a lot of potato, kale and zucchini to eat tomorrow if I like. I may get a taco out, for lunch, if I am hungry.  Tonight I have a casserole of tuna, mushroom soup, and pasta that I made the other day.  Remember those? My husband never liked tuna fish anything. I liked the idea of having one on hand.  And there it is.  I may have it for supper, whenever that may be.  YAZZYBEL

What I didnt Write to my sister about her Choral Program

I have vowed not to voluntarily go hear any more Requiems. It truly seems to me that they are  a symbol for our Nation's "down" status...everyone is kind of sad and confused about what is gonna happen.

There's a wealth of musical choral literature besides Requiems, but now almost any serious choral presentation includes one and ignores lots of other beautiful things.  Not that the requiems are not beautiful, just that--let's cheer up, fellers.  All is NOT lost. Or is it?

The Widow's Life

It's very strange, being a widow.

It's just awful.  Awesome. Awful.

I am going around in a daze of trying to tie the loose ends together.  There are many to tie.  My husband had had a difficult two years before dying, gradually losing control of his life.

He'd never  been one to share just what was going on.  He had no yen to explain his methods.  He felt no compunction to teach me what he was doing and why. I probably wouldn't have listened anyway. Maybe he knew that....maybe.

Instead, we went on this way:  gradually I realized that things were slipping out of control, and tried on my own to start putting some order into my own finances. I did try to get him to have a weekly or even monthly consultation about what was paid and why but he wan't inclined to talk about things.

In spite of my reputation as the family grasshopper (I'd probably be happier if I were), I have been more than ready for over a year to take on the major responsibility for bill-paying, expenses, and so on.  On the other hand, I really didn't want to, as it was easier for me to go fiddling on and let him struggle with an increasingly difficult task. That he was able to keep on as well as he did is  a great tribute to his character, as well as to his stubbornness.

That is all gone now.  The ship will not founder, though it seems to be fighting the waves right now.  Good.  Gives me something to be tired about when night comes.  I remember when a Brownsville lady lost her husband years ago, and she told a friend of mine (we were very  young, and learning wisdom from the women older than we...so we listened to such talk) that afternoon was the hardest time of all, because that was when he came home, and they had the anticipation of dinner and a pleasant evening in front of them. After her husband suddenly died of a heart attack in the late years of their middle age, she'd find herself every afternoon with absolutely nothing in front of her.  Nothing...After the years of anticipation, preparation, in frustration or joy, sick or well, planning her working evening, nothing. She was right.  It's harder than waking up alone, harder than going to bed alone.  The long afternoon with nothing to do.
 
I swallow up the late evening with an early bedtime. It will be easier in a month or so when the sun sets earlier.  I take a benadryl so that I can sleep through the dark silent hours.  But there is nothing to take for having your husband not be  around for supper.

YAZZYBEL

On the Beach

Good morning.

Alex and Isabel drove off about forty five minutes ago.  May they have an enjoyable journey back across the US to Iowa.

The last of the big bouquets from Benjamin's work had begun to wither away so have dismantled it, thrown away the dead stuff and the trappings. I cut out a half dozen of the sturdiest survivors, calendulas, carnations and Peruvian lilies, and put them into a small vase.  White flowers are so lovely. 

The kitchen is adrift with opened bags of chips, many used drinking glasses, unused food...all may now be thrown away or tidied up as appropriate.

The cat gave me one desperate look..."What, left again?"....and went out to the yard to contemplate his future with an old lady.

I am left like a stranded shell on the beach. That    is not said for sympathy nor effect.  It is just true of  how I feel.  My husband's ashes are in the living room in a plastic box inside a pink plush drawstring bag.  I feel the effects of no funeral, no ceremonial; he should have had one.

My only choice right now and my only obligation is whether or not to go up to church.  Guess I will, though I don't much want to.  Don't much not want to either.  Stranded shells don't have much thinking or yearning going on.  YAZZYBEL

The Mystery of Relationships

Good afternoon.

My husband died on July 24, just twelve days ago as I count it on my fingers. I have been in a white fog since, in most respects. 

I have cried but little, but since I was exhausted by the time he died, and sick from running back and forth and sitting in bad hospital air, I have been choking and coughing instead.  I told someone, "I have been coughing out my grief....," and it seems that that's what it is.

I have had company ever since Theodore died. My sons have been so good to come and straighten old mom out.  And they have been needed.  Now the one who came first is gone, and the one who came second is still here.  His seventeen year old daughter is coming tomorrow.  Two of my sisters came as they'd planned long ago, to take some family things allocated to them, and left again within twenty four hours. 

But when I think of my husband, I wonder--who is it who died?  What happened?  Whom did I live with all those years, suffer with and from all those years, travel with, enjoy life and love with over the years..who was he?

We are born into life in these rather tidy packages, and the being within us tends to get mixed up with the package and the packaging...within our forms are these mysterious beings whom we may never know, whom we may never have understood any better than we really understand ourselves (excuses aside!).  My husband was so many people, so many different images, so many different temperaments, talents, strengths and bewilderments...Just try to write an obit for your nearest and dearest.  Who was that person?  He was so deeply aloof in a lot of  his personality...I don't think anyone could ever have got in there ever in some parts of him.  His dislikes were so firm, his likes and loves as well...but still, could he or any other person be pinpointed?  That is why we write fiction, I guess.  Reality is too difficult.
Too elusive.  Too unknowable, unfathomable.  That just must be true of every person.  Mysteries, all of us. Mysteries in our creation and our existence at all...who are we?? 
    
I must confess that I do not know....Does anybody?

 YAZZYBEL