1/28/2022

I come down to check on things around 2 in the morning, and mom is fast asleep on the couch.  I encouraged her to go upstairs to her bedroom earlier, as she dozed off, then just stared forward, cooing the cat curled up beside her.  "I'm not ready to go upstairs," she told me, raising her voice slightly.  Okay.

I sleep upstairs in her study, and at around 6 in the morning I could hear her going on.  Hello, is anybody here, is anybody here, hello?  Ted, Ted...  She calls me a couple of times.  Where are all the people?

I go downstairs, she's got her little juice glass there with wine in it.  She's angry.  I need food! she yells at me.   I was a school teacher.  I get up early!

And then other times, with this same pattern, in the middle of the night, or the morning, I just need a voice to talk to...  Okay, mom.   She's softens a bit.  She looks at me from her chair, there's a glimmer in her eyes.   The wine.

I open the refrigerator.  There's half a quick stop chicken salad on rye sandwich in a small open clear plastic container, the other half gone.  I fed her the other half somewhere in the late night not worth remembering.  She's been getting up early, then sleeping from the afternoon into the night.  When she comes downstairs she needs something.  Food.  Company.  I'm lonely, she says.  Hello?!

I go back to bed after the encounter.  I get up to face the news about the water bill back in my old DC apartment.  The landlord believes that when Bob my neighbor, the writer with the old Triumph from a couple of buildings over, came by to check on my mail back in early September, he left the water running. And the door unlocked.

And landlord's office is just figuring this out.  They want sixteen hundred dollars to pay for it.

The next morning I hear mom is up at five.  I hear her, yelling almost.  Where are all the people!  I need people.  Hello?!  So I get up from the green air mattress to go down and check on her.

Mom, do you need anything?

I'm a human being, I need food!

She always tells me she doesn't need me.  We're over.  We are done.  I've been taking care of myself, I've been doing it for years.  "Mom, you can't even feed yourself, beyond crackers and almond butter..."  "You're trying to destroy me!" she counters.  She counters everything.  I'm to blame for everything.  "You made me do this..."

She's already called me twice.  When I leave her to go back to an uneasy rest, not feeling up for facing such a day, the sting of the whole water bill thing, everything else, she's failing up someone from her little list, her sister, or maybe Sharon.

I got back up to bed, drink some water from my camping & hiking Nalgeen bottle with some sea salt and a touch of baking soda and try to get back to bed and hopefully mom will quiet down.

I had set it up with Nell to take the old Larson Bros parlor guitar from Mrs. Eaker's, one hundred years old, and like an idiot I didn't put it in a case, and it dried out, and then Craig Baumgarner, a luthier who plays in one of those Gypsy Jazz groups, took it on as a project.  Her boyfriend is a guitar player, has a whole room full of them, and it's humidified.  Well humidified.

But, now they want what I would consider a lot of money from me, literally down the drain, and so I tell her in email, I'll have my brother go over and gather a few things.  I'll be in touch.

There's something about guitars.  Jimi slept with them.  Sometimes in alley ways in New York City when he was going out on his own.  That's all he had when they flew him over to London, a Stratocaster and the clothes he was wearing.  Jimi didn't care, as long as he had a guitar.

So I go back to a winter snooze, truly not wanting to face getting up, gather the will to live again, and keep on with it.  And I've been listening to too many lectures and things, words, from "spiritual types," and so with my head in the clouds, it's hard to think of a step forward that isn't part of the spiritual journey, such as I hope to write about.

I have no particular desire to be a holy man, a man living on the road, without a home, without possessions by the ones he wear, or basically carry, functional ones, as they must be, for all season.  Nor is it a society that wants people to be without a home, but in my situation, with my mom waking at all hours, too fast asleep at other times, and so lonely, as she says, and "what is there for fun today..." you can kind of give up hope for ever having a normal "householder" kind of a life, even as that should be a thing you can do here in this life, without depriving yourself of the normal every day ups and downs and pleasures and pains.

I think of what Kurt Vonnegut said, that all the the pain and anxiety he went through to produce Slaughterhouse Five was enormous, the things it cost him, in form of fear and sleepiness and worry and depression.  Good man, he made it to the natural end, and kept his smoker's chuckle bright and polished.

And that's the path writers must face.

Not all of us are cut out to be St. Francis, rebuilding the broken down church after he hears a voice, putting body, mind and soul to it, No Sirree.

Right before the first true snowfall, sort of half blizzard strength from a Nor'Easter coming up the coast and staying put with winds from the north for our parts, I took the old bird feeder off the shepherd's crook,  cleaned it up a bit, removed the solidified seed at the bottom from the year, and put it back to hang, full of fresh black sunflower seeds.  

And I was gratified when I woke and saw the birds clustered around in the storm, a white-out.  Winds, the snow coming sideways.  In every direction.

And then, and then, then the squirrels came.  Black ones, grey ones.  A team of them running down through the trees, leaping from gray branches.  They climb up the crook, and up the cage of the seed, a cylinder swinging as they pick at if from the sides, driving away the birds, the cardinals, the chickadees with their little black hoods, the catbirds, the occasional red-bellied little woodpecker with his ermine sides, the cowbirds and grackles.

The day after their invasion I looked out, and there was the lid of the bird feeder out to the side.  I thought to myself, I could have sworn I put the lid back on, when I took in the slender old narrow bird feeder none of the animals wanted anything to do with, its seed long consolidated into a frozen block.  It's something you struggle with, as I do, to line up the top just so, then twist it shut, then push the metal tabs down tighter.

And then it happened again.  The lid laying on the cold ground, detached, in the snow.  And one squirrel down in it while holding on from the top.  And I remember something about cayenne pepper.  A deterrent.  

So.  I can't find the vaseline, but I make do with Vick's Vaporub, as a sort of base, a vehicle for the pepper to stick to.  I fill the feeder again, slather the top with Vick's, give it a good round peppering of the cayenne powder and let it hang, walking back in, proud also of the good Kaufmann Sorell boots to make it through the snow.

 But by the time I'm clearing the cold powder snow from the top, the windshield, the sides, the back window, the headlights, of the old Toyota, I begin to feel like a war criminal, and the comparison to Napalm is too obvious to be ignored for long.  It's about twenty out, or colder, and I envision some poor starving squirrel limping around with his frozen paws covered with the frozen gel and cayenne pepper, poor devil.  And what is feeding the birds all about, anyway...  What kind of a grim thug have I become, the squirrels being a rodent pack of thugs in my mind.

I feel some relief the day later, when I find the lid is off again, to my amazement, though it took them a few days.  I mean to go out and pick up the top when I get in from the grocery store, but I have a six o'clock yoga class, a review of our anatomy lessons, a challenge rising...

I wake up the day of gloom, of having found a home for an old guitar, humidified, loved and all, but... it's like the landlord could then take it.  So the thinking goes.  And why am I still even keeping the apartment, but for storage for the few things I do have, and renting places getting harder to come by anyway... so if I'm honest with myself...  how can I not feel like a complete failure...

My aunt says, call your brother.  Yes, maybe he can check in.  Maybe he can keep an old piece of wood humidified for me, for posterity.

That's what you get, thinking about old monks in the Sinai Egypt desert, Thomas Merton, the yoga stuff, Buddha, Thich Nhat Hahn.

Anyway, it's a shitty day.  Poor old Kerouac saw the same in his own life, brought to tears, poor old St. Jack of the Dogs, as he was in The Dharma Bums visiting his sister's family down in Rocky Mount, NC. 

Any fighter has to take body blows.  And they always hurt, and they always surprise you, somehow.  Eventually, the body absorbs them.

The next day Mom's up early again.  I go down and heat a slice of pizza in the toaster oven for her, cauliflower crust, with prosciutto, ham, a little salami, banana peppers, fresh mozzarella.  I put a fair amount of love into it.  Okay, mom.  I put it down for her.  More wine, she says.  Okay...  I depart away as fast as I can, after putting some dry food out for the cat, go back to bed.  

And when I come down around eleven, there she is.  "I'm going to see if Ted's going to take me out to lunch."  Great.  I make tea.  Put the Bialletti on for some coffee, as back up.  Okay, fine.  The sun's out.  She gets angry at me.  You guys get to go out and do whatever you want while I'm stuck here all day.  Mom, what... I go the grocery store...  I haven't been out for a month!

I can't really argue with her.  I'll have to handle the ice on the front steps.  Salt.  I'll start the car up, warm it up.  We go down to get the newspaper, then take a look at the lake.  The Press Box.  I have a half hearted hamburger with goat cheese, wishing I just got the regular hamburger.  She has her lemon pepper chicken, a glass of wine.  Her meanness level starts to rise.  It's okay for a bit, before my mind wanders over my problems.  What's next for you, she asks.  $1600 the landlord wants from me.  Literally down the drain.

She wants to go the bookstore afterward.  She lingers at the table taking time with her wine.  I check my phone.  Write a grocery list.  She starts in with me.  "You hate me.  It's clear you hate me."  

We park close to the bookstore, at the main four corners of on the west side of town.   I get her up safely on to the sidewalk, looking out for patches of ice, we get to the store, pull your mask up mom, and then in, after a guy helps with the door.  I look around for the book Sharon suggested for mom.  Ex Libris, I think it's by the Japanese person who reviews books for the New York Times.  They don't seem to have it in the best seller shelf nor the new non fiction, nor the section where you might find a book like Kurt Vonnegut on writing.  Mom goes over to a spot, amusing herself with paperbacks at a table.  I go up to the young women at the counter to order the book recommendation, and out comes the proprietor to give us a hale chat.  Heckyl and Jeckyl are here, I tell him.  We haven't been out of the house in a month.  He shows me a book he gently recommends.  I've got too much yoga homework due soon enough.  There's baby news on Emil's front, he plays the bass in a local band.  He's on paternity leave.

So mom's sitting there, in nor rush.  Do we need to go now?  No, that's okay.  I'm glad she's enjoying herself.  I'm going to take a walk around the block, I tell her.  One of the smoke stacks over at the electric plant, as we discuss with the nice man with a paper cup of coffee in his hand who helped with with the door, has an impressive plume of steam billowing out of it.  Twice a year, they fire it up.  I go out and take a walk in the cold to take a picture of the great towering smoke stacks with my phone, for posterity.

I get back to the bookshop.  She picks out a book, finally as my steady patience and up in the air feeling starts to wane and kick in.  At the counter, I pay for it.  Mom, we need to go, I have an errand.  Mailing the keys to my apartment to my brother.  Maybe he can have Jack take care of Mrs. Eaker's old guitar, as the thought of it drying out continue to haunt me.  I should just give it to someone, or maybe back to the guy who fixed it.  Mom comes up to the counter.  She wants one of the purple cloth book bags with the logo The River's End Bookstore on it.   Mom we're coming back here anyway...  But she insists.   She wants to do it herself.  She produces a savings bond.   She fishes through a pocket.  I go back and help her pull a twenty out from her little wad of papers.

I get her out to the sidewalk.  She yells at me, I forget why.  I get her to the car.  It's nearing in on four o'clock.  I try to help her with getting her up and safely on to the ground, one hand for her cane.  The other, she insists on holding the new bag.  I end up ruining the inaugural run of bringing her purple little book bag into the house.  Okay, I get it.  Maybe I'm the same way.  I remember Sasha giving me a ride back from the vet's with my kitty cat's ashes in it.  And maybe I would have wanted to walk back that same route we walked, kitty cat with rectal cancer in the old lobster trap like wooden cat carrier that goes way back.  Bah, too much to think about.

I get the keys off with a hastily written note, over at the Post Office, a friendly place with excellent service.  I mention looking for a job with them before, doing my profile, the test, the driving record.  There's a sign out front where you drive up to the two mail boxes.  Hiring.

I hit The Big M for a little grocery shopping therapy, some cold cuts, a can of beer, ground turkey, chicken stock.  I tell the dark haired, almost black, straight and silky to go with her pale skin and her calm friendship--every now and then she blushes when I say hi, so I imagine, and I do wish she would say yes, but she seems to have a boyfriend, that's okay, she's in college here, studying physics--about my travails with the local squirrels, as I put a large shaker of cayenne pepper on the belt.  I tell her how I felt like a war criminal treating the lid with Vicks so the cayenne powder would stick, but how they got the goddamn lid off anyway.  And she's heard the coyotes too, over there in Scriba, as I heard them by the light of the full moon not long ago and the cat was out too then.  I told her about how I felt like maybe I'd go out the next day and find a rib cage, but I guess he's smart.

I have to take a pee after the lemon water and the soda water with lunch, so I pull in to The Stewart Shop, with my laptop in my bag.  A chicken caesar wrap, a slice of pizza to put in front of mom when she's being crazy...  I write a little bit, not very well, and then I start to feel the cold along with all the other things, please, please come through, Medicare or Medicaid whatever it is, I could use a win over here I'm my section...

Maybe the old apartment is holding me back...afraid to move forward.

The next day after the lunch and then the bookstore, I'm wiped out, exhausted.  I was up in the night having a chat with a girl from college, now a child therapist, and she advanced the interpretive theory that my mother has pretty much all her life, from the way I describe it, a case of Borderline Personality Disorder, someone who can take nothing like criticism without throwing it back on you with anger, who doesn't seem to have the normal level of lasting empathy in her tank if it doesn't suit her purposes and "having fun today..."  So I've been playing against a loaded deck, the pain of the irrational for as long as I can remember.  I mean, not completely, but often enough, I'm afraid.

I hear her downstairs, but I can't bring myself to get up and face her.  Finally about three o'clock she's gone upstairs, to her bedroom, and it's safe for me to sneak out of the room across the hall and downstairs, where I find two solid hours of work to do in the kitchen, a sink full of dishes, the humidifiers out of water almost, tea to make, lemon water with turmeric and ginger, the cat to take care of, the refrigerator a cluttered mess like everything else.  And me, hapless.

I can make a turkey meatloaf, there's a small NY strip to sear, I make soup with added stock, a few extra vegetables from the meals on wheels little trays, shredded rotisserie chicken and if she wants, a slice of pizza.

By the time I begin a brief sadhana, the kriya, the mantra chant, the pranayama, at least to detox my system after some form of evil combination, I hear her clunking footsteps upstairs.  Enough to make me nervous.

She is nasty when I get up, shouting.  There aren't any crackers!  She has a full glass of wine in her hand as she sits on the couch.  Aren't you going to come and talk to me?  I'm in the kitchen making tea, surveying what I have to feed her.   After that, doing the round of dishes, I work on paying the bills.  The woman from Medicaid, the facilitator from Syracuse has called to tell me she needs bank statements from both accounts for November.  I fish around, in one of the desks, and I can find one but not the other, despite my efforts.  I call the banks, and they are obliging.

I fill out the form for a medical bill, into the envelope and a stamp.  I hear mom upstairs.  I'm down in the basement, looking for my gas bill.  When I come upstairs, mom has taken the envelope ready to mail and has just ripped it open.  I express my frustration, and she demands that I give her back the piece of paper.   I'll have you arrested.  It's a miserable day.  Will I get any homework done?