Well, well, here we are.
I don't know about you, but me, here in the house with Lemon, dear one, I'm flailing a bit.
My glasses are so dirty. This is what I'm dealing with. It certainly is not-structure, and do I even really want that? Structure? I wake in the morning, early almost always. Make my way into my study/studio/office/...I still don't know what to call it. It's my retreat, my mancave, my monstera's room, my vinyl records and paintings and devil's ivy lair, the place where I paint, where Lemon has her crate, where I am always early and I am never late.
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Sometimes I don't even turn this thing on (this "thing" is the computer, my Dell 2-in-1 purchased some time in 2020. Its choice was a futile effort to get back the Mac Pro that I had on my office desk at Virtual School, another wormhole of a situation. Sometimes I just use the bathroom off the enclave and then head down to make coffee. I try to let Lee Ann sleep, and most of the time Lemon is there right beside her, having bounced heavily up to the bed as I was waking.
Lee Ann will arise after hitting her snooze button no fewer than a half dozen times most mornings. She's tired, working daily, the days off few and far between, and we have had increasingly, it seems, less time together as time progresses (is it really progress?). So we pass pleasantries, I hand her her coffee, we hug or kiss goodbye, and she's gone.
It's quiet.
Do I want to ask Google to "stream WMOT on the living room speakers as I empty the dishwasher, or finish filling it, or...
I could choose anything.
For a while there, I had her (we use a female Aussie voice) play "the news." But without some work, and even with it, there are commercials and much of the news is financial in nature. Much of the rest is political, and you know what that means: New absurdities.
Maybe I'll have a Tom Waits day. Or a Sad Girls compilation day. Maybe I'll listen to records and paint. Maybe I'll play mandolin to the radio, or to a record album. I'll admit that I'm one of the few remaining record album enthusiasts remaining on the planet. I like hearing the songs in the order an artist, or a producer, or a think tank presents them in that hard and solid set of grooves on plastic. I enjoy spraying each side and caressing the grooves with a soft cloth until I have removed much of the dust, but not all, of course. One never gets it all.
These days I try to get into my email and clean it out each day. This is new. Only a week ago did I delete over 89,000 saved emails from my Gmail account. I wonder if that has anything to do with my increasing awareness of my decreasing memory, my waning focus.
Let's spit it out. Here's my concern this morning. As I wander from room to room, sometimes with a purpose, all day every day, I too frequently for my comfort have the sensation of wondering "why did I come over here in the kitchen?", or "what am I looking for in this drawer?" That's unsettling enough without it happening regularly during the time Lee Ann and I are together. I get up, maybe use the bathroom, and get back to my usual chair thinking, "I've forgotten to do something." It could be getting ice for my healing leg out of the freezer, or putting away that sliced onion on the counter, or, or, or...but I am beginning to get pissed off about it, and I increasingly feel that she is too, and unreasonably (that last descriptor is very very important) I feel that she's taking note. So where, oh where, oh where oh where oh where oh where oh wherrrrrrrrrre...do we go from here?
Do I just try harder? Is that something I can regain focus doing? You know, it feels like that's my only option. Do I get a job? Do I schedule my day to make it more predictable and wrap some structure around my wide open range of options? Me, painting from 10 to 1 on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays; walking the dog at 9 a.m. every day, then again at 4 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays keeping appointments with doctors or exercise programs; every day from 8 to 9 parring up the kitchen, dishes, counters, etc.; practicing mandolin scales one hour every day; etc., etc., etc...
Do I get out more? Kurt Vonnegut said often, in his many speeches to groups of graduating students, to find a community. Do I get back into my weekly painting classes, or schedule days in the MNPS Health Center gym? Or find a needlepoint club?
I don't know. But whether anyone else is taking note or not, I am. And I don't like it. And yes, it's been a hard long run with my full knee replacement. I'm tired and it still hurts too much. Actually, and you must know this, at all is too much. I'm pining for the woods and waters and the fresh out of doors. Maybe I'll hit the riverside today. Or tomorrow.
Today I am going to focus on finishing each thing when I start it. Now I'm going to clean my glasses.
I'm hearing that Jackson Browne song here, "get it up, and do it again." That'll be me.
