October '21 sketch

 Core wounded identity, the enabler. 

Placation.

Mom is an interference pattern.  I regain calm through meditation.

I wake up with a bit of a headache.  From the Bota Box Cabernet Sauvignon from two nights ago, probably.

I get my morning sadhana in at least.  Then fall back into a nap, after a terrible sleepless night of anxiety, realizing all my sins.  The time just totally wasted. 

The day before mom pleads with me.  She's a nervous wreck.  The only thing she'll settle for, she says, is to go to The Press Box.  She says she's just realized that her mother is dead, and says that this place is not her home.  We were just there, last night, mom, I tell her.

But every day, no, I don't know what to do with her.  I hide by sleeping late, until her shout rises, "Hello?!" or some other expression.  "I'm hungry!"

I drag my self up or down the stairs depending where I slept to the kitchen, worrying about what to do feed her.  

Will I ever work again?  What happened to my literary life?  My mind is clouded.  Anxious.  I had cider last night, maybe four cans.  A headache lasting from two days ago.  From the Lexapro?  The cheap box wine?  Mold in the cellar?  I treat the flea problem down in the basement, not with the fogger bomb I purchased from the hardware store, but the peppermint clove oil spray I sprayed over the concrete floor after moving my bedding up to the second floor.  I left the fan on in the heating air conditioning system and I'm upstairs watching the television with mom after giving her evening pill and the strong fumes come through the vents, prompting her reaction, "you're trying to kill me..."  I crack open a window, go down and click the wall unit to fan from On to Auto.   Later I soothe myself listening to Todd Norian, Shanti Mantra, music from YouTube.  And I can understand why I like the night, a break from her constant consciousness.  

I wake tired and anxious, and the green tea, while giving me some pep, makes me more anxious.  Mom suggests we order a big pizza as I check in on her first thing, rising from my air mattress when she lets out a shout.  There's a cauliflower crust pizza, Price Chopper brand, in the freezer, so I go down, turn the heat on--pouring rain earlier coming down heavy with a Northwest wind--and then get the oven preheated to 450, have some tea.  

Later, when mom asks, after she's had what she will eat from the slice I give her, giving me her pepperoni, what might we be doing later, I tell her, well, it's Sunday, we'll go get the newspaper and take a look at the lake, the waves will be up, and she says, "whoop-tee-shit," and inwardly I wince, taking the blow with a slight inward bow, my shoulders sinking just a little bit more.  With the wind up there's a small boat advisory from the weather service, waves 6 to 9 feet up toward the mouth of the St. Lawrence.

With the rain I go down to the basement and lift the water collection pan out of the back of the dehumidifier and jostle it up the stairs to pour out in the toilet.  I take a shower.  

The duty of another is full of peril, I remember, one of my father's sayings.  The duty of another is full of peril.  Let that sink in, here in this situation.  My failed literary career.  At least I should have gone into the academic side, somehow, too hard to make anything come out of your writing.

It's hard to do anything, fearing interruption or attack, hearing her creep down the stairs, hello, is anybody here?

Yoga, or at least a sadhana session, would be good today, but it's hard to concentrate enough once both mom and I are up.

Mom makes me nervous.  That's nothing new.  Feels like I'm standing around with my dick out in the open.  I take a propranolol, half a tablet. 

That feeling, nothing is ever good enough.  Unless everyone gets into the wine, for a temporary reprieve. 

I was meant to be a teacher, literature, that sort of thing, analyzing poetry.  But I went into the restaurant work, so I could write.

To ease my nerves, I get the big pot out, with butter and olive oil over the burner, to sear a link of sausage, then the meatballs, then the onion and pepper, then a splash of wine, then all back into the pot and then make a tomato sauce.

Mom comes down, I pour her some wine, as she asks for it. 

Later, the pot simmering now, I go in to the living room to check on her.  So how are you, she asks me, from her chair.  "I'm a bit anxious, I say...  my career."  "A state career?"  No, mom, just a career in general... I don't want to go back to bartending.  

"You better not have done that to my son," she says, when I suggest I'm unhappy, over yesterday's newspaper.  Peak foliage the back page of the front section says.