A Bad Roommate

I couldn’t clear my throat, and my packed sinuses gave me a headache. I took a rapid antigen Covid test early the next day (4 a.m., couldn’t sleep anyway). It came up negative. Continued to feel worse with fatigue, body aches and a low-grade fever. I tried the test again the next day, and the T line turned an angry dark red. Positive.

Fifteen days later, I feel much better. I sound less like a cigar-smoking bullfrog. I sleep better at night and haven’t felt feverish in two weeks. I’m starting to cook, wash dishes, mow, and trim. The only symptom that lingers is fatigue.

This kind of energy shortage doesn’t feel normal. I don’t feel exhausted like I would after taking a long hike or working outside on a hot day in Florida. This feels like I’m driving uphill in the wrong gear. I’m in fourth but need to downshift into second or third. I can move forward, but the power is missing.

My stamina has improved somewhat over the last ten days. When I had to mow the lawn about two weeks ago, I slow-zombie cut it in two twenty-minute intervals spread over two days. Yesterday, I did the whole yard in forty minutes. No breaks. Afterward, I managed to run to a hardware store, work on the wooden awning I’ve been building for the studio door and cook a stir fry for supper. However, my dimmer switch turned down to half-power right after we ate. I trudged through washing dishes and putting a final layer of paint on the awning. When I sat down to spend time with Judy, I wanted instead to retreat to a quiet place where I could stare at a wall and perhaps fall asleep.

My daughter told me her Omicron version of Covid left her with a cough lasting three weeks. My brother’s Delta infection affected him for a month. I’ll hit the three-week mark this coming Tuesday and hope that I can return to normal by then. My mild dose hasn’t completely shut me down, but I’m beginning to feel like I’m living with a dead-beat roommate who steals and never cleans. I want to get the back rent and kick him to the curb.

Volunteer

My wife and I volunteered to teach art and science sections of a Vacation Bible School program at our church. Judy initially thought she’d assist two teachers who would develop science projects and lead lessons. She discovered, too late to back out, that she was the only volunteer. I knew that she’d have difficulty getting through the week by herself, so I agreed to be her assistant.

We ended up having a good time working with interesting kids. Some were unwilling attendees who needed gentle coaxing to participate. We taught them about rocket propulsion by firing balloon-powered missiles along strings running to a planet Mars target. We gave them materials and let them work out designs for Martian landers. Their payloads were marshmallows. If a lander set down gently and didn’t dump cargo on the floor, the budding engineer could eat the marshmallow. One girl made a parasail out of construction paper and string. Her lander floated down slowly with stately grandeur. Her marshmallow barely wobbled at touch down.

Judy and I didn’t know if any of the projects would work and felt trembly at the start of each day. Flopping in front of groups of fifteen to twenty kids can be painful. But by the end of the week our confidence grew, and we had the satisfaction of watching kids learn to enjoy science as they tried new things.

****

Earlier this summer, Judy and I took a short vacation at a state park in northern Florida. The cabin had a screened-in porch where we sat mornings and evenings to catch a breeze and look out over a lake. I studied the construction of the porch, the screen door and the deck. I made the mistake of saying, “I think that I could build something like this on our front porch.” Judy’s eyes popped wide open. Oops.

I started on the porch at the end of June. I finished the supports this Monday. I’ve got two weeks left before my regular work schedule kicks in. Three steps remain: fill in gaps between the support frame and the porch roof; build and hang a door with a latch; make screens and install them in the support framework.

I had hoped to finish the project by our anniversary in late August but know now that I’m not going to make it. Perhaps I’ll reach completion by the end of September. Problems keep multiplying, but I’ve been able to figure them out so far. When I run into difficulties, I stare at a trouble spot until an idea pops into my head. Then I discover as I cut, sand, paint, and drill whether my plan works.

I’ve never done a project like this before, and in some ways it feels like I’ve jumped from an airplane without fully understanding how my parachute works. The experience is stimulating and somewhat terrifying. But this exercise in physical labor and problem-solving has given a lot of satisfaction. Every time I step back and take a look at the porch, I see tangible evidence of progress. That doesn’t often happen to me any more.

Slog 2016

I drove from Orlando up I75 through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and southwest Ohio.  I pulled into my parents’ driveway the afternoon of the second day, stepped inside and placed my bag on the worn, stained carpet near the TV.  Mom rose to greet me.  Dad stayed in his recliner.  His arthritis had chair-bound him more in recent years.  Getting to his feet required painful rocking back and forth to gain momentum to push upward.

On the second day of the visit, I decided to clean.  Grime clung in stubborn layers to the kitchen linoleum.  Yellow, brown and dull orange streaks stained the cabinets.  Counters near the stove grew a fuzzy skin of greasy dust.  I figured that a decade must have elapsed since the last thorough scrub.  The scum might have been left to accumulate due to bad knees and weak vision:  Mom and Dad couldn’t have seen the gunk much less bent down to sponge it away.  But Dad shuffled up to me as I shined the last tile and said, “Not much use mopping when all it’s going to do is get dirty again.”

Mom fussed at me for working while on a visit.  She said, “I thought you could come here for a break.”  I said, “I don’t look at it that way.”

We went out to eat supper at an old-fashioned diner in a down sliding neighborhood in east Dayton.  I took hold of Dad’s forearm to help him exit the driver’s seat and felt frail tendons and muscles shift under the paper-thin skin.  I remembered when he used to sledgehammer slabs of concrete gripping the handle one-handed.  Mom and Dad shuffled inside.  We sat at a booth with a chrome-edged table, stained menus and torn vinyl seats.  The limp vegetables swam in margarine, the gravy tasted like it had come from a can, and the meatloaf settled in my stomach in a sodden lump.

Dad asked me to trim his toenails the next afternoon.  The yellowish gray nails on his big toes had grown thick and long and acquired the tensile strength of braided steel wire.  His shoes no longer fit as the stubborn nails added unwanted length.  I tried a nail clipper but feared it would break under strain.  I used trimming scissors instead and gradually shaved a half inch off each toenail.

Dad mentioned that they had trouble seeing when they backed their sedan down the driveway.  Bushes on either side had grown high and wide.  I found an electric trimmer on a cluttered work bench in the garage and set to work.  I took pains to shape them into evenly rounded forms.  Dad stood at the front door to critique my labors and said, “I would’ve cut them shorter.”

Mom fussed again:  I should be resting on a visit instead of working.  She didn’t know that I had one more job planned.  The fir tree in the side yard had ragged brown lower branches and grown close to the driveway and over the line into the neighbor’s yard.  Dad pondered the need to clear the dead wood and cut the fir to a more manageable size.  I started hacking with an electric chainsaw.  The tree smelled of mold and rot.

I filled one large can after an hour’s work and still had another two hours of labor to finish the job.  I took a break and sat with Dad on the front porch.  He offered to get me a beer.  I said, “Not till I’m done.  I want to keep all my fingers attached.” 

I went back to work and cut toward the trunk near the bottom.  I looked up through a tangle of branches and saw Dad standing a few feet away.  He watched intently but didn’t offer advice or yell.  He hadn’t come to point out my shortcomings as a worker.  The look on his face told me instead that he’d give anything to be in my shoes.  He wanted to do something useful again.

I filled all his trash cans with branches but only reached the halfway point.  Someone else would have to trim the rest.  Dad got me a beer.  Mom yelled at Dad for “making Denny do all that work”.  She said, “You come here for a visit and a rest.  You shouldn’t have to do chores.  We can take care of that!”  I didn’t argue the obvious point that the disheveled house and yard presented contrary evidence.

Mom and Dad snored in their bedrooms as I tiptoed out the door the next morning.  Drivers tried to kill me a few times as I passed through Columbus, and I had the odd notion as I braked and swerved that I’d been suddenly transported to Interstate 4 in downtown Orlando.  There weren’t any palm trees lining the road in Columbus, but the motorists were just as crazy.

Victoria’s nephew, Jake, opened the door to a rental in Cleveland.  “Vicki’s out with Tony.  They’ll be back soon.”  I trundled my suitcase into a small living room where I’d be sleeping on the sofa for one night.  My brother and his wife returned a few minutes later but didn’t linger over greetings.  Victoria served as the captain of Team Ohio at the Transplant Games and had things to do.

We spent most of the day in an airless convention center room handing out t-shirts to the athletes and helping them register.  That evening we drove a few blocks to an auditorium for the opening ceremony.  Guys on BMX bikes careened and leapt up and down ramps and over obstacles.  Music blared.  A large screen flashed inspirational photos and slogans.  I slipped out to a food stand in a side hall and bought beers for myself and Jake. 

The show had changed gears during my absence.  After I returned, the screen no longer flashed, the riders had exited, and the emcee no longer sounded like a cheerleader at a pep rally.  He called a man out onto stage and handed him the mike.  The man spoke about receiving a heart transplant a few weeks (perhaps days) before he would have died.  He recalled feeling excited, overjoyed and guilty after the doctor told him an organ had become available.  He’d been given a chance to live, but someone had died to give him that chance.

A man and a woman were called to the stage.  The man introduced himself as a kidney recipient.  The woman said nothing, but the emcee revealed that she had donated her son’s organs.  A kidney had saved the man standing before her.  The recipient quietly thanked the woman as she wiped tears out of her eyes.  They hugged a long time and murmured a few words.  I drained my beer.

I sat down the following morning with Victoria at a dining table at the rental.  I could hear the hum of the refrigerator and songbirds chirruping.  I drank coffee, ate a doughnut, and told her about my parents.  She talked about her hectic schedule, her plans to visit a friend in Wisconsin, the politics and logistical nightmares of managing Team Ohio, and friends who had died after their transplants failed.  We were leading up to a topic we’d avoided yesterday.

She’d met my brother five years before at a bowling tournament for transplant recipients.  They’d both suffered long term kidney disease as children and received organs from their brothers.  Their first marriages had ended badly.  They had a lot in common.

Victoria asked, “So, how are you doing?”

I told her that Tony’s numbers worried me.  She nodded and said, “We’ve got this.”  A few friends had already lined up to donate a kidney if his transplant continued its slow decline.  Nephew Jake considered Tony his surrogate father and had volunteered.  Preliminary paper work had been filed at two medical centers, one in Cincinnati, one in Cleveland.  Tony’s condition didn’t merit putting his name on the donation list yet, but his urologist predicted failure within a year or two.  Victoria added, “I suspect that his last stent is the real problem.  I think that he’ll improve once they change it out.”

I felt some relief and thought that our session had ended.  But she looked intently at me and asked again, “So, how are you doing?”

“I feel a lot better now that I know what’s going on,” I answered.

“And?”

“And kind of twisted up.  I feel like I’ve failed him somehow.  We’ve been lucky for so long I thought that the kidney would last forever.  I stopped worrying about him years ago, and now it’s all coming back.  I’m not sure that I can stand watching him go through it again…I can’t do anything for him this time.”

Victoria said, “I’ve seen other donors go through this, and your reactions are perfectly normal.  But you don’t have to worry about Tony.  We’ve got this.”

I left Cleveland late that morning and got lost after missing a crucial exit on the outskirts of Akron.  I bushwhacked through farm country in southeast Ohio on back roads, found Interstate 83, and reached Charlotte, North Carolina around 9 p.m.  The bypass loop confused me, and I did a half circuit around the city twice before figuring out how to take the correct exit to a road leading southwest to Athens, Georgia.

I pulled over outside a village north of Athens at twelve.  I had no idea how to reach my son’s place from there and considered parking for the night.  I called Alan, explained my dilemma, and said, “I’m so damn tired.”  He figured out my location, and his fiancée guided me to their condo on Barnett Shoals.  They set a plate of chicken, green beans and rice in front of me and kindly let me eat and collapse.

Alan sat down with me the next morning as I ate breakfast.  He waited until I’d finished my coffee before pushing his laptop in front of me.  I saw a news item about a mass shooting in Orlando: The Pulse Night Club massacre.  The gunman had started his killing spree about the same time I’d been driving through north Georgia.  Alan and Amy spared me the night before but knew that I’d find out as soon as I turned on a television or booted my laptop.  None of the victims would have been within my circle of friends and acquaintances, but my son knew that I’d be upset that another such incident had happened and had happened ten miles away from my home in Winter Park.

They took me out for dinner that night, and I bought them ice cream from a shop in downtown Athens.  We strolled the grounds of the University of Georgia and saw an impromptu memorial for the shooting victims near an arched gate.

I drove back roads through south central Georgia the following day and passed through Milledgeville, Flannery O’Connor’s home town.  I cruised by a museum dedicated to her memory and considered a visit.  She had once been the inspiration for my narrative paintings, and I still considered her a giant among American writers.

One of Flannery’s best-known stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, told the tale of a family driving on a country road.  The mother tortured her son, his wife, and her grandkids with her nonstop chatter and whining.  A band of outlaws waylaid them and shot them one by one.  The mother received a spiritual revelation and cried out in compassion for her assassin just before her execution.  The killer stood over her body and said that she “would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”.

I decided against stopping to visit Flannery’s shrine. At the climaxes of her stories, self-deluded characters suffer sudden moments of painful revelation that irrevocably change their lives.

I didn’t want any of that business. I just wanted to see my wife and daughter as soon as possible. 

Lazy Days

I had ambitions for Spring Break at Valencia College. I planned to weed trouble spots in the yard, paint the underside of the porch roof, take my car to the garage, and work on a stalled novel. Instead, I slept late, read, drew and painted a bit, gave classes at Crealde, and put extra effort into cooking meals. Bidens continue to infest the kitchen garden, the tire pressure light (liar) still glows yellow on the dashboard, hanging chips dangle down from the porch roof, and not a word has been added or subtracted from “Stitches”. Built-up fatigue leapt on me afternoons and after supper in the form of deep naps, the ones where you wake up an hour later and can’t remember who and where you are.

I may have given myself permission to take a few lazy days in anticipation of my next break. My work load this summer should be lighter, and I fully intend to conquer myriad household jobs such as painting the living room, grouting every surface that comes in contact with water, hiring a company to replace windows, trimming branches off the front yard magnolia, finishing the stalled novel, completing 5-6 paintings, attending art openings, and taking short trips with Judy.

I will spring forward the day after I turn in final grades to attack my job list with unmatched fervor. I won’t take time to sit under a tree to read, smoke a cigar and sip whiskey. I won’t take daily naps in a comfortable recliner. I’ll never indulge in pleasant pastimes while work remains to be done…if I can locate my doppelganger and offer him terms.

Gray Yesterday

It was gray yesterday and the day before. I looked out the window into early foggy light, and a wave of nostalgia flooded through me. I saw myself in downtown Dayton with red brick factories around me and lowering skies above, and I could almost smell the combined scent of hot popcorn and diesel fumes, the aroma of the Gem City’s urban core. I might as well have been standing at the corner of Third and Main waiting for a bus. Hello, Morning Depression.

But my wife and I had a pleasant chat over breakfast, and I drove to work in what I thought was a good mood. However, I found myself offering sarcastic advice to drivers around me: “Choose a lane. It’ll be all right once you finally pick one…Oh please cut in front of me so that you can beat me to the next red light. There you go. You won!”

My door wouldn’t close after I parked at work, and I tried to free the seatbelt from the latch while juggling my coffee and supply bag. Spilled coffee on my shirt, pants and bag and said, “Shiiiiit.” I looked inside the bag and found partially sopped class hand outs.

My boss handed me a cup of fresh brewed coffee and offered lemon cakes left over from the last opening. Sugar, caffeine and kindness lifted my mood, but my demo drawing went fast and faster as I burned off the remnants of irritation. My students worked happily and made good progress, and I felt almost cheerful as I packed up to go.

Stopped at the Publix next door to buy our weekly groceries. I reveled in the luxury of not having to thread my way through an obstacle course on each aisle. Mondays afford excellent opportunities to shop in near isolation.

The bagger at the check-out made a comment about winter weather, and I said, “It’s been so gray the last few days that I’m having Pennsylvania flashbacks.”

The cashier jumped in and said, “Oh my God. I used to live in northeastern Pennsylvania right after I got married. Every winter it turned gray and ugly, and I got so depressed. I began to wonder why my husband had moved me there (Did he really love me?), but one day he came home and asked how fast I could pack if he took a promotion that would move us back down south. I immediately pulled out a suitcase, stuffed in a few clothes for me and the baby, packed my toothbrush and a leash for the dog, and said, “I’m ready!”

Late Night at the Donut Shop

We cleared stale donuts from the display shelves and threw the discards into empty flour bags.  I stuck my head out the back door to check for bears before I threw them away.  Raiders from nearby woods marauded late at night to ransack our dumpster.  We put out fresh cake donuts (the yeast donuts still rose on trays in the incubator) and dealt with a rush of  2:00 drunks.  The bars had just closed, and our staggering, bleary, mush-mouthed clientele wanted coffee to counter the booze and treats to sweeten the bitterness of oncoming hangovers.  The shop cleared around 3, and Katie, the night manager, called a break.

She lit a cigarette at her table in the corner and stared out the window.  Harry, the lead baker, kept her company but didn’t eat a mid shift meal. Anyone who sat with her could smoke, drink coffee or eat a donut, but  sandwiches, fruit, and microwaved left overs were forbidden. She couldn’t stand to watch people eat anything but candy and breakfast food as her father had abused his little girl every night as she struggled to choke down her suppers.

I took a seat at a booth with JoJo, and she talked about her boyfriend, her muscle car, and her obsession with the band, “White Snake”.  She noted that I drove a beat up Mazda and wondered about the virility of a man who owned a rusty beater that wheezed when it climbed up a gentle incline.  I told her that I couldn’t stand to listen to another White Snake song, and that the band members were nothing but Led Zeppelin wannabes.  She threatened to punch me, and our nightly ritual came to a close.

A grizzled man wearing an old coat slumped through the door and sat at the booth at my back.  After a few minutes we heard him moan.  I turned to look and saw him clutching his chest.  He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes tight shut and moaned again.  I said, “Hey, are you all right?”

He slumped to the side, turned his head so that he could look me in the eye and groaned, “My heart…”

JoJo jumped up to sit beside him and held his hand.  I  rushed to the office and called an ambulance.  I saw the stricken man sitting more upright when I returned, and he smiled sadly as he whispered his life’s sad story in JoJo’s ear.  She patted his shoulder.

EMTs arrived a few minutes later, and the lead guy rolled his eyes when he saw the victim.  He said, “Hey Charlie, how’s it goin’ tonight?”

Charlie pointed to his chest.  The EMT said, “Another heart attack Charlie?  Third time this week, isn’t it?”  One medic leaned idly against a booth, and the lead slowly pulled a stethoscope out of his bag.  He gave Charlie a once over and said, “You’re fine.  Just like always.”  The medic turned to me and said, “He’ll live to 100, just you bet.”

Charlie hurried out as soon as the EMTs had packed up and gone.  JoJo and I finished our coffees and trudged back to the kitchen.  We glazed the yeast and filled the cream donuts.  JoJo kept dashing out for cigarette breaks, and I cursed when I dropped a pan of chocolate icing on the floor.  We worked on the specialty donuts and the eclairs around 6 a.m., and got into a fight about how long I’d taken to do my share of the work.  JoJo repeated her claim that she did most while I lagged behind.  I told her to work another shift if she didn’t like mine.

We glowered at each other as we punched out and went our separate ways.  Charlie was the real target, but he was long gone.

My Feet Hurt

Quantum Cubist Self-Portrait, graphite, 12×9″

Woke up at 5 for reasons unknown and watched a grainy black and white youtube video of the 1952 Yankees/Brooklyn Dodgers World Series.  Jackie Robinson played second base for the Dodgers and Roy Campanella played catcher.  Young Mickey Mantle led the Yankees to victory.  The batters swatted at pitches with wide, flat swings.  Baggy uniforms billowed and made the athletes seem slow of foot and wide of ass.

Drifted off, woke to my alarm at 7:30 feeling much groggier than I had at 5.  Stumbled through making breakfast, cooking lunch to leave behind for Judy, and packing an apple and a sandwich to take along.  Felt rushed and slightly hassled as I drove to work but arrived five minutes before the doors automatically unlocked at Valencia Building 3.

The classroom was only partially wrecked from the last class and the Friday clean up crew, so it took just ten minutes to move easels and chairs into position.  Set out three models of human skulls on upright wooden boxes for my Drawing I class.  Arranged a complex still life (a skeleton, fabric, bricks, boots, cow femurs, an angel statue, and a lamp shaped like a horse’s head) on the gray stage for my Drawing II students.

2/3 of the students showed up on time.  Did a brief intro for Drawing I and then switched to Drawing II.  I showed them Picasso’s early cubist paintings, had the students draw 9×12″ boxes and divide them into 8 sections using curving lines.  Told them to draw chunks of the still life in each area.  The kicker was this:  each time they drew another section they had to move to another position.  Cubism=multiple viewpoints rammed together into one shifting, churning space.

Cubist Still Life, graphite, 8×6″

Drawing I drew skulls and learned portrait proportions.  Then they drew me and themselves, and after lunch they paired up and drew each other.  Usual mistakes:  eyes drawn too large, faces elongated, heads turned into bowling balls with facial features attached haphazardly, noses shortened and shrunk to Michael Jackson proportions, necks too spindly to hold up a head, mouths too small and narrow to chew a hamburger, brains shrunk to subhuman proportions, facial proportions of the drawer transplanted onto drawings of other people.  Students struggled for a while, but improved.  A poor student surprised me by drawing an accurate portrait of another student after having butchered my face.

 

Gave my usual speech about proper etiquette when a model is present (our first model comes next week).  Told them not to make remarks or jokes about the model, not to touch the model, not to fraternize (the model is not a future date), not to photograph the model, and in short, to treat the model with respect.  These rules are based on bad behavior by previous students.  I concluded: “If you have an issue following these rules, then I will have an issue with you, and then I will issue you out the door.”

Two students stayed after.  One wanted to show me her latest work in computer graphics.  I gave her a few color theory tips.  The other wanted to convert me into becoming a computer artist.  Told him that I like the tactile experience of working with my hands, of making things out of physical materials.

He persisted, so I trotted out my standard and most effective argument.  I asked him, “Would you rather make love to a woman or look at porn?”  He stammered and said, “I’ll have to think about that.”  Discussion ended.

Put away wooden boxes, still life props and skulls; arranged easels in a circle around the room; erased the blackboard, locked the closet, turned off the spotlights.  The weekend cleaning crew came in while I packed my bag, and I told them that the paper towels were out in both dispensers.

Trudged through the building and met two students in the lobby.  We cringed greetings to each other sharing the hope that neither student or professor would feel obliged to start a conversation.

The day had turned hot and muggy while I worked inside, and the walk to the car seemed long.  My teaching adrenaline faded away, and the effects of walking on concrete floors became apparent: my knees felt numb and my feet hurt.

 

So Damn Tired

I got home from work yesterday and felt so damn tired that I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I usually zombie in front of the TV watching sports until some semblance of animation returns, but the only televised event I could find was the Masters.  Watching golf is one of my warning signs for oncoming depression, and I turned away as soon as I could.  But not before I heard an announcer tell me that golfers are fragile, that a missed shot can send them into a tailspin.  Just after that, a man flubbed a five foot putt.  He looked at the camera briefly, and I could tell that he hated his life at that moment.  I didn’t blame him.  I hated him too.

I felt too tired to do anything, read anything, but too alert to collapse on my bed and nap.  My fatigue drifted into irritability.  I soon decided that a retreat to my bedroom was the safest course of action, but my sense of purposelessness only grew as I watched random videos on YouTube.

I knew that there were better things to do with my time, that I could exercise to burn off tension, meditate to smooth the rough spots in my mind, but found myself staring at the computer screen instead.

And I began to wonder if old age can be like this.  What a perfect hell to be aware but unable or unwilling to do.

I went out and washed the dishes.  I watched a movie with my wife.  We sat together on the sofa and held hands.  I finally began to feel better.

I woke up this morning to the realization that I’ve got work to do.  My spiritual life needs an upgrade if I’m going avoid turning into a bitter asshole as I grow older. A few of my relatives have gone that route, and I don’t want to join them.

But I’ve also seen some folks grow in joy even as their energy and physical abilities diminish.  I want to get on that track before it’s too late.

 

Man Cleaning

Laundry room debris field

I’ve done my share of cleaning house over 30+ years of marriage.  I stayed home with the kids when they were little and waged the losing battle of keeping their chaos at bay.  I once told a college class that managing a house occupied by two toddlers was like composing a term paper with a drunk roommate deleting key passages whenever the writer looked away for a split second.  All accomplishments are doomed to erasure.

Doing chores while surrounded by little barbarians gave me a fatalistic approach to house cleaning.  I got in the habit of taking care of the worst of the worst, nibbling at the bits I somewhat cared about, and letting major areas collect dust and debris.

Dresser top of lost hope

Recently our circumstances have forced me to take on more of the chores than I ever did before.  The kids are grown and gone, so there should be less to do.  But now I’m starting to see things through my wife’s eyes and realize that the cobwebs growing from the ceiling in the back room really shouldn’t be allowed to hang down to eye level.  The strange odor in the laundry room behind the Christmas tree boxes no longer lingers, but its fossilized source really ought to be removed (dead lizard or corn snake?).  Ancient stains on the side of the fridge could be scrubbed off, as well as stratified layers of greasy fuzz on the kitchen ceiling fan.

I eventually come to the conclusion that I could start at one end of the house and scrub inch by inch.  Repainting and patching could follow.  New curtains could replace the moth eaten ones over the front window, and the coat closet could be excavated for usable tennis rackets, tennis balls, and vacuum cleaner attachments from amongst the debris at the bottom.  The job seems endless.

And now I begin to understand a major difference between the sexes.  Women tend to see housework as a manageable project that produces a cozy nest if the right effort is applied, if their housemate abstains from random acts of stinky sock/wet towel dropping.  Men see the interior of a house and shut down.

Housework induced catatonia in males is not always caused by laziness, but more often by willful blindness in the face of overwhelming odds.  The blindness has no evil intent, but is more a matter of self-preservation.  A man who has taken the time to do a thorough survey of his domestic environment is like an astronaut spacewalking and contemplating the stars.  He feels so small compared to a vast number of tasks spread over a mini-universe of domestic space.

When confronted by the infinite, it’s best for a man to pretend that the majority of it does not exist.  He pops a beer, sits in a recliner and waves to his friends, the spiders hanging all around him.  He might knock down their webs down in a day or two, but at that moment he just wants a little company.

Entropic night stand

All About After

I don’t care for the aftermath.  Taking action feels a lot more powerful, and living in the moment offers less time to consider one’s regrets.  After is an ugly guy who comes for a visit, sleeps on the couch, eats up all the food in the fridge, and won’t tell me when he’s leaving.  But After gives me an opportunity to arrange recent events in a framework that makes sense.  Then I can move on.  Then I can make peace with What Is.

My Daily After is the butt end of a day, and I’m the last two inches of a smoldering cigar.  While I’m in the middle of teaching a class I’m usually caught up in the process of communicating with students, evaluating their work, giving advice and planning ahead for the next exercise.  I sometimes teach Drawing I and II simultaneously and have little time for a breather.  When a class is over I answer follow up questions and tidy the studio before making my exit.  On the walk to the parking lot I download the emotions I’ve pushed aside in class.  (An instructor must create the illusion of self composure at all times.)  As I trudge to the car my adrenaline fades, and my books and equipment feel heavier the longer I carry them.  Then I discover how much effort I’ve expended.  My mood dips, and I relive each mistake just made in class.

My Rejection After varied during my dating years.  Sometimes a girlfriend dumped me long before I was ready to call it quits, and my feelings for her lingered painfully for a month or two.  Other break ups left nothing but a sense of relief and freedom.  Time and reflection sometimes gave the realization that I had been mercifully spared.  But in one case it took me three years to figure out that the object of my desire had treated me badly and always would.

The Grieving After:  My sister suffered a long decline as she died from ALS.  During a visit I presented an even tempered demeanor.  I reminded myself as I talked to my parents, brother and sister that my emotions were not the most important thing. Time spent with my family was not about me.  My true state of mind asserted itself on the plane ride home.  I took an upgrade to first class if the ticketing agent made an offer, and I ordered a complimentary whiskey before the plane took off.  I felt no shame as I gulped my drink even if the morning sun had just crossed the horizon.  As we flew south I stared out of the window at the passing clouds, and a heavy sensation filled my chest.  On the trip home from Orlando International my wife drove, and I sobbed.  I became functional after two or three days passed, but during the down time spoke little and kept to myself.  I found it difficult to adjust to the concrete realization, reinforced over and over during my visit, that dying is a process of losing everything.

My father in law died in 2008.  The kind and solicitous representatives from the funeral home drove us from the grave site to my mother in law’s house.  The man riding shotgun opened the door to let us out of the limo and quickly turned away without saying anything in farewell.  I realized that the funeral directors had finished their work, and any compassion shown at the viewing, service and interment had been part of a contract just ended.  We were on our own.  My mother in law drove us to her favorite local restaurant for lunch.  It had rained hard at the cemetery, but now the clouds scattered and weak sunlight brightened the wintry hills of eastern Pennsylvania.  The crowded dining room hummed with conversation, and the checkered table cloth and vase of artificial chrysanthemums made our table insistently cheerful.  Our group said little at first, but after the food arrived we chewed our salads, ate our bread, and told a few stories about the man we had buried an hour before.  We even laughed at a few jokes.