Back to Saint Paul This Thursday coming. And w...

Back to Saint Paul



This Thursday coming. And what will I find? Will the cat be the same color, will she have two tails, will all my friends be in the psych ward or in jail? Looking forward and afraid too, it's been nine weeks of tremendous strangeness. Bound to have an effect.



Setting a date and busy all of a sudden. Trying to beat the lightening right now, beat the rain, with lace whipping at my face and silver undersides of new leaves gesturing in metalanguage that every sentence I write is true.



Thursday I'll be going. Nine weeks is a long time. The first month with Larry feels like another country, another language, another body. Long time to be away from Mary, from my cutting board and Mr. Clean and my mop and knives. Be fun to have certain things again, put up some fresh pictures, plant fragrant green things.



Rather than writing, I have a lot to do. Still shredding and crushing and sorting. Trying to empty drawers, prevent for my mother nasty surprises. Trying to save those things that ought to be saved, that come a gently sad day might be looked at and a man or a marriage a young love remembered with just enough gladness not to be killing.



Of course, at the moment there's the commode, the Isosource, the walker, the shower chair. I had suggested the day after he died calling a charity and having them pick up all these things, and chestnut loafers besides. But, there were other plans and other minds and so a day before I leave I'm making sure these things are gone, one way or the other. A truly practical family would save a shower chair, a walker, knowing that a time will come for another of us but...we are not a practical family and some practicality is just too cold, even for me. Though if I had a shed, and a place where they'd never be seen....I did offer to sell them as they're all perfectly good, but when you've watched your husband or your father going completely to hell, falling to pieces, there's just things you can't stand to look at again, or think about.



I believe in ritual. I believe in transformation. If I had an open field, I'd burn all of this, plastic and fumes notwithstanding. Still would make more sense to me to have a charity come get these things and put them to use. Something like that, I'm walking them over to the nursing home and that will be that.



Fuck, I have a lot to think about, going back to Saint Paul. Strange feeling of being nineteen again, having been at home for so long, with the season breathing on me and days without timecards. An opportunity then, I hope to see what change brings.