The most mundane things can lead a writer somewhere necessary.

I move my Thermarest air mattress down to the basement in front of the washer and the dryer.  It's a cold night.

The night before:  Lake effect snow comes early in the night, and I go out walking in it.  Wet.  Tiny globes, soft hail.  I call mom's friend Sharon to update.   I learn that Saturday will be the birthday of Henri Nouwen, S.J.  I learned that Sharon had done a retreat at a monastery south of Rochester, one he'd been to.  His last book, he writes about being there, in fact, from the Genessee Trappist Monastery, Sabbatical Journey. 

Why didn't I think of this earlier, I say, finally getting away from the noise of the blaring television in mom's room, her night wanderings talking to herself, help, help, bastards, where is everybody?  Wallows of self-pity.  And to be trying to hide across the narrow carpeted townhouse hallway, in the clutter of her former office.  I've tried to untangle, sift, toss, but no, useless.

It's the worst thing imaginable as far as people put together to have to deal with each other.   A 56 year old son without a job and "no job prospects" who is looking for a formula, something of Kerouac resting from the great on going road with the crazy roman candle people,  writing in some odd corner, reading his religious books and other books.  

So mom bugs me on Monday, let's go for a ride.  The sun's out, my Portuguese wine headache is gone, after the aspirin and extra rest, mom retrieved the meals on wheels drop off.  What could we do for fun.  Okay.  So, Sterling Nature Center, good bang for the buck as far as driving west out of Oswego on 104, then turning off to the right past Ontario Orchards farm market stand, which is a big affair now, 104 A, the old state road.  We drive into Sterling proper, where there's a waterfall and several grand old houses, then after that northward to Jensvold Road and the Nature Center and up to the parking lot.  Perfectly still.  The sunlight is warm even.  The trees still.  Mom's enjoying it.

Looking back at the old farmhouse with the tall dried grasses brown and tanned in the foreground I'm reminded of Christina's World, Wyeth taking the then 55 year old woman who, suffering from a degenerative muscular condition could only drag herself along the floor to do her chores, placing her outside, down the hill, looking back at the old weathered sea captain's house.  We are all trapped in our conditions, in our bodies, and no one else can really imagine how we ourselves feel and react to things, know what's good for us when they reside in entirely different lives.

The next day:  I've served mom dinner, turkey meatloaf, spinach, mashed potato, and even though I had a break earlier in the day, going out on my own for groceries under the Winter Storm Warning and the sloppy roads under the constant snowfall, canceling the two o'clock eye exam for mom out on 104, even then I can't take another minute more of her around seven now as we finish dinner, and I just want to disappear, she can get herself ice cream if she wants.  Worked called earlier, the boss, as I was driving back.  When the dining restrictions are lifted, would I be able to be back for a couple of days a week.  Doesn't need me right now, but when the city allows the bistrot to have live music again...  "the customers want to see you," as he says.  So put that too into my equation.  

The drive and the afternoon out at the Nature Center was a day of peace for us.   I gave in.  Okay, you want to go for a ride, the sun's out, fine.  And sometimes it's just easier to go along with things when you're stuck with them anyway, know what I mean?  And anyway, capturing mom looking back over the tawny Wyeth grasses at the old white farmhouse that now holds taxidermies of birds and a fox and a coyote, a mink, owls, fish, and other collected samples of nature's great works, closed now during the pandemic, and just like she were some kind of Christina, taken out of the confinement of her mind and body to be freed out here in nature, a natural element, no longer simply a feeble minded case of slow dementia, and all the unpleasantness of personality that comes along with it, through a series of poses I've come up with a composite of the pose the painter gave the original Christina blending the realities he witnessed and studied and the imagination.

And I think too of after having conducted that rather simple math, about a person, me, my mom, becomes free from the weights of all our circumstances and conditions, our health that is sickness and the sickness that is health, both good, tied together, about how outside of ourselves and more often than not let free in nature, we are liberated, in such a way as to free ourselves from that inevitable emptiness, the abyss within, at our core, that we can only fill with the things that are appropriate to our souls.  To bridge that great gap, hard to find a steady way, but yet, we find sketches, activities, taking a walk, the little acts of the day, and even though those times and little habits are not perfect, too self-conscious on our own, so that we seem to be plodding along in some routine that is healthy for us, good for the internal organs or posture or musculature, we place trust in the idea that such things will lead us out of our abyss, closer to the things of God.

My aunt calls just as I'm plating dinner.  I hand the phone over to mom, but mom is too grumpy to want to talk, and I don't have much to add, I've had it.  Now you're mad at me, mom says, after I hang up, not wanting to have a chat now either.  She's been talking to herself all afternoon, and whenever I suggest she call someone if she wants to talk, or starts in with the same repeated stories...  mom, you just told me that five minutes ago.  In her own mind she is a fascinating person.  I see many of my own faults in her.

I let the cat out, after waking up for a bit at 1AM.  Later he comes back, making little noises like an accordion warming up, asking for a can to be opened.  I do the dishes.  Mom is sleeping.  I have some peace for a little while.