The dishes have accumulated, so Sunday, my third day back, I take off the wrapped gauze bandage on my left index finger, find a rubber surgical glove and start the chore after pouring myself cold green tea, with water on the stove.  There is a great guilty feeling in living alone, and I am slightly shaking as I awake, first calling my mom, who seems to be okay.  I tell her it's okay to let the cat out.

My left heal hurts still, as I pad around the kitchen.  I've soaked my foot in epsom salts hopeful that whatever it causing it to ache will work its way to the surface.  I'm shaking as I crack the eggs down flat on a small plate then open the shells over the pan.

I've poured out the stale soapy water the dishes soaked in over night.  Black beans, a canned Chicken and Rice soup, a plate for reheated hamburger and one from the lamb sausages.  Cups, a few containers to recycle, kitchen tongs and a spatula.  I clean the dishes in stages.  I could almost shake my head at my little system here, the RubberMade Tub, the drying rack with the silverware slots having broken off.

I am uneasy.  Nervous.  It's been strange coming back here to the little apartment.  Sad.  I've dealt with it all by three trips up to my mom since Mid-March when the whole pandemic began.  First for her birthday, can't leave her alone for that.  Then Easter.  Then an appointment in early May that she mentioned.  I should be there for that too.  For her medications.  Maybe we can up the dosage of the Aricept.  I end up staying there for two months.  As it becomes one thing or another. Riots in DC.  The Covid-19 heating up, even showing up at the restaurant the week before I was supposed to go back to work.  Weather.  July 4th, just as Memorial Day, when we took a drive out to the Berkshires to visit with my aunt and her husband.  Taking it day by day by day.

And so, July 12, I am here and wondering what will happen to all of this, all my books, the tribal rug my brother's wife did not like, guitars, amps, enough furniture to fill the one bedroom out here in the Palisades.

When I had to go to work, I was drawn away, distracted from the serious problem of lacking a career befitting my education.  It was almost like I found every way to hide out, to bide time without solving any problems.  Then, I was out of work.  Unemployment came through, four hundred from the District of Columbia, and then a week or two later, six hundred additional dollars from the Federal Government.  But what happens after August First.

In the apartment, books are still in boxes.  Clean clothes are still left on the bed.  There's laundry down in the basement, the trash and recycling bins are out back.  Desks, chairs, a coffee table, a dining room table with matching Danish modern chairs.  Buddhas.  A kitchen full of cooking equipment.  And all in a clutter similar to my mother's apartment.  Where will all this go.

Feeling so isolated, my brain readjusting uncomfortably to the temporary lodging, I have wine and reheat a hamburger, from Stachowski's, in Georgetown.  I play my guitar, even with one finger still wrapped up.  I take a walk...


Vonnegut has a line, what the writing of his most famous book cost him in terms of time and anxiety, money too perhaps...   That there is one of the few stars in the writing night sky...