introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i'd really like if you would stop talking: i want to hear voices like music before bed - fourteenth of april--they come out of the blue- "dont don't don't come around please don't"~counting crows i went to bed very late on thursday night. i woke up early, considering. i groggily made my way downstairs and let verbil out into the morning. i watched her as i like to watch her. i watched her through the rectangle windows on either side of the door as she sniffed the long grass, laying down in it and stretching. i opened the door again to let her back in, the three small bells ringing loudly. i have often regret buying those bells for my mother. i never expected that they would be mounted on the front door. in high school, the sound of those bells would hail my coming home well after my curfew (unless i remembered to wind their knocker up tightly). now, they make me smile more often than not. they remind me of home. i don't know if my mother had been awake reading or if she was still sleeping at that time, but when the bells sang, i heard her open her door and saw her standing at the top of the stairs. mrs. campbell had gotten up at around seven, she said. she left around nine that morning and my mother had returned to bed after she'd gone. my mother was still very tired. there were four of us, then: my sister and her rather irritating bubble of a girlfriend, my mother, and myself. we each made our respective brunches and sat around the table. i listened to the music of their voices as they all talked at once: asking questions, relating stories, answering, laughing. occasionally, i, unable to contain myself, let a bit of my inner monologue slip out, causing a gasp or a laugh before i went back to my picking at the eggs that i had had more fun making than i was having actually eating. i chewed the toasted panera bread slowly and pondered the day before us. i was content in the sweet mix of miles davis and breakfast with women whose faces i rarely see anymore. did i make it clear that i was soooooo content? i saw her ears move. my dog was lying equally comfortable on the ceramic tile floor. she was drifting off. she heard them before we saw them. her ears perked in a graceful motion that i love and her head lifted, listening carefully. the doorbell rang the melody that i have always found to be rather eccentric and long-winded. there were several of them. they poured in quickly. i sat and chewed slowly on the toast. i said my hellos and listened to the flatness of their voices, the din of overly used lines of greeting, expression of get wells, and over-rehearsed small talk. they never say anything new. sometimes, i just want them to be quiet. the music of moments ago melted into machinery. i turned off the sweet jazz. it seemed suddenly out of place. they came in a group of six or seven. they filled the kitchen single file. they talked empty noises at her. they are always cordial with me, and i am always willing to greet them, but that is always the extent of our conversations, me and these people. they talked empty questions and i heard my mother tell the story for the third time since she had come home. "bleeding. yes. lots of it. operation. blood card. switched." they nodded as they heard her sort of epic tale, as if processing the data. it was beginning to sound less like the crisis that i know it was and more like "Curious George Goes to the Hospital and Forgets His Anti-Blood Transfusion Card". It was beginning to almost sound clockwork mechanical, the intonation in her voice and i realized then that my mother was probably tired of telling the story already. the four of us remained at the kitchen table, trying to eat while these casual strangers dressed in their suits and dresses looked on at us, making me feel slightly under-dressed. they joked a bit. they refused the cookies that my mother had just taken out of the oven (she never makes cookies from that dough you buy in tubes, but for some reason, she did this weekend). they gave her an african violet in a small brown plastic pot. it was a nice gesture in the most impersonal container. i know i read too much into things, sometimes (a lot of times) but for some reason, the plastic didn't seem fitting. it irritated me that they would come over to talk like this when i knew that all she wanted to do was relax and maybe go out and do some light work in her garden. they were bothering me with their insensitive over-sensitivity. am i being wrong here? perhaps i am being entirely too protective and entirely too bitchy about the people that come to see my mother? i know they mean well...at least i think they mean well. i just don't understand where the manners are. listen: they give an announcement at the meetings if someone is in the hospital. then, for the next four days or so, people go to visit that person. i guess it could be uplifting. i know that if i were not well and had had an operation, i would want my brian m and my mark nearby. but this is different. the people that stood in my living room are people that don't even talk to my mother very often that she doesn't really like personally very much, and i, therefore, do not trust them very much. i think that there is a lot more to the visits than to see how the person is doing. Sometimes, i get the feeling that its instead about the gossip among otherwise bored-boring people. if i'm being harsh, its not without reason. i sat by for the rest of the afternoon, knowing that my mother wanted to be outdoors in her garden relaxing (for what is more relaxing than putting your hands deep in cool spring dirt?) and getting better. i sat by as the sun moved across the sky. i watched as she struggled to eat her egg salad sandwich while they watched her; i watched as she would sneak a bite between small talk conversations and swallow quickly as not to seem rude for not replying when spoken to. i watched as she got tired and finally gave up on the sandwich that was drying out anyway. i watched them go as quickly as they came, filing out the door in a line of dress pants and skirts and blouses and polished shoes. she was very tired when they finally disappeared, taking their metallic unmelodic voices with them. she decided to just go and take a nap. i listened as the phone rang and rang every time she would finally get to sleep. every time, it was one of them....the news was flying like wildfire across a dry summer prairie. so if i seem harsh with them, i am only harsh out of exhaustion of patience: my mother is tired, you wretches. let her get better. let her get her strength back before you set her up on your soapbox and make her tell the heroic story of a woman who didn't take a blood transfusion a few dozen more times. let her rejuvinate before you push her repeat button for your self serving inspiriational reasons. leave my mother alone for a few days, won't you? but yes. my mother is getting well again. it took two days and she seems to be back to normal. she is worried, still, i think. i can never be sure with my mother. i think she is still waiting for the results of the tests that they did when she was in the hospital. she still doesn't know what caused her to leak blood like a waterbed pierced. they told her that on the yellow end of the spectrum, it might have been stress. they told her that the dark end of the possibilities involve such scary words as cancer. i don't want to think about that tonight. i suppose i have a lot more to tell about: an irritating flight attendant friend of my sister's, a trip to Kennedy Mills, and soon, a story of a package that arrived after i'd left my house in indiana. i'm dying to know its contents. i am sleepy after a wonderful day but i wanted to get this stuff about my mother out of me. its time for this girl to curl up and sleep soundly. be well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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