Familiaris

Things change.  I don't know why I am surprised.  But one day you wake up and you can't find your old life anywhere.  You realize that it didn't happen overnight but over a series of weeks and months while you were preoccupied with something else.  You no longer make the same meals you once did, and then you remember them with a surprise.

"I used to love eating your chicken and rice with the cream sauce.  Remember that?"

Yes, but I haven't made that for years.  Why not?  It was so easy to make and so delicious.  When was the last time you made spaghetti, you wonder?  And you used to drink herbal chai at night before bed.

In the bedroom, you notice the stack of books that you have not seen for months.  They have become decoration, it seems, part of a set.  You pick up the stack and look.  "Oh," you think, "I really was excited when I bought this."  But responsibilities and concerns got in the way and months rolled by.

You remember buying a shirt you haven't seen for a while.  What happened to that?

Last night, I met a friend for drinks.  We sat with a bottle of wine as the sun caught fire, drinking on the veranda of an art house movie theater.  We shared tales.  But nothing happened.  We were not caught up in anything delicious.  No mysterious girl walked by let alone came to our table with a comment or request.  We were simply two guys sitting on a veranda drinking a bottle of wine.  You wouldn't have noticed if you walked by.

Afterwards, we went for sushi.  I haven't been for a while.  Of course, they wanted to know where Red was.  "I've changed," I told them.  "I'm here with a man tonight.  Look what has happened to me."  But even the restaurant was different.  Overnight, it seems, they had gutted the place, redecorated.  I was completely thrown off.  How long had I been gone?  I didn't recognize most of the staff.  Worse, they didn't recognize me.

I don't even know the way back any more.  I have entered some new land, it appears, and can't count on any of the old, familiar ways.  It is like waking up in a dream.  Maybe it is the time change.  I've not been sleeping much at all, maybe five hours a night.  I haven't been to the gym, haven't been to the studio, haven't watched any of the shows I've recorded, haven't even cooked a meal other than for my mother.  Perhaps it was the election, the growing strangeness, then the results.  I am more disoriented than ever.  Fearful even.  Cut loose.  Floating willy-nilly.  Untethered from gravity.

I must take my mother to her sister's funeral.  We were to leave today and spend the night, but I am too worn to make it.  I called her and asked if we could just do one marathon day, drive over the three hours and then drive back.  I'd rather, I said, have at least one day of rest.

The sun is up, the air cool and crisp, the sky a cloudless blue.  I am going to try to retrace my steps, ones I made for years in my own home town.  I won't recognize it, either, I presume, all paths changed by the many storms that have distracted me.  I'll have to make up my mind to start new ones.  I need something at least that seems familiar.  The season is upon us, but it feels as if I'm watching a speeded up version of a slow motion film.  Something just isn't right.