Solitude and Distraction

 I woke up at six in the still-dark.  As I walked to the kitchen to start the coffee, I saw that there was a car parked on the curb outside my house.  Weird.  I stared for awhile, but I could see nothing.  I made coffee and read the papers.  Quarter to seven, I got up to go to the computer in the study.  It was light now, and I could see that the car was empty.  The passenger's side window was down.  It rained in the night.  WTF?  It seemed even weirder.  Maybe the car broke down in the night?  I don't know.  To be continued.  

I've gone nowhere, talked to no one.  I have been staying away from people.  I thought about going to the cafe to get a tea, but I decided against it.  I don't want to catch anything before my surgery on Monday, nothing that would make them want to not put me under.  I think I've become people-phobic anyway.  It's not them.  It's me.  I don't want to be around them.  The quiet solitude is my comfort.  I have a routine now that works.  I read, I write, I take long walks, and then Epsom Salt soaks.  I shower.  I eat lunch and then I cull my photo files.  That feels productive.  I may nap.  I may not.  In the late afternoon, I go to visit my mother.  Back home, I make dinner and eat while I catch up on the daily news.  Then I read.  If I get antsy, I'll cull more photos.  Then, around nine, I will watch something on t.v.  Before bed, I have begun to do some breathing/meditation exercises.  There is a pattern, but there is variety, too.  

My young friend who moved to Miami keeps in touch.  She is an odd bird in some ways.  Loves old things.  Has started a vintage apparel business with her sister.  Likes old jazz music, so I send her some classics.  I sent her something more contemporary stuff the other day and she sent some music back.  "Blue Angel," by Hermine.  O.K.  I give her a history lesson, send her a link (link).  I don't know if it will be used.  Maybe.  I send another link to "Babylon Berlin" in the original German with English subtitles.  The dubbed version is awful.  I've sent the link to many, but you have to buy each of the four seasons.  I don't know anyone who has done that yet.  But it is worthwhile.  It is the weirdest series I've ever seen.  Leave it to the Germans.  I have a lot of German ancestry.  It may explain a lot.  

I believe in genetics.  

The hallucinations have stopped and my vision is finally beginning to clear.  My appetite is back, too.  Maybe some other desires as well.  It has been a rough--how long has it been?  It is all a haze.  Has it been a month?  No, certainly not.  But when was I in the hospital?  Last week?  I don't know.  I can't remember anything clearly.  I think it is this and the state of my battered body that fuels my desire for isolation.  The world is a scary place.  

I get my hair done today at 5:30.  It is a terrible inconvenience.  I don't want to go, but my gal is going in for a hip replacement and is sneaking me in before she does.  It may be awhile before she can do me again, so I must go.  I don't think, though, that I am capable of carrying on a conversation.  

Sunday is Mother's Day.  I can't muster the energy for that.  I'll need to get my mother flowers, but I'm not sure what else I can manage.  My concerns are all about Monday.  Mom's across the street neighbors want us to come to dinner, but I can't.  I'll be a complete lunatic by then.  

Oh so many moms.  Isn't that something?  

I look forward to being somewhat normal again.  Cyst free.  I am hoping to travel.  The concern is my mother, of course.  People tell me that I need to take care of myself, too.  They are swell to say so, but it is not so simple.  Maybe, though, I can get away for a few days at a time.  Miami.  The Keys.  I want to go see my friends in Yosemite.  Maybe a quick trip to my friend in the Midwest.  I really want a museum trip to NYC.  I long to go to Mexico City once again.  I'd love to do the Google Flights thing, just pick the cheapest flights on any day and go someplace I have never been.  There are plenty.  St. Louis.  Kansas City.  Omaha.  Anywhere for a few days just to see.  It would be like living again.  

There are two kinds of places I have always liked--locals only dive bars and small, beautiful, intimate places devoid of the masses.  People will rush out tomorrow to stand in lines to get into crowded, shitty restaurants to be part of the mass madness.  By and large, it is a lack of imagination, lives that have been routinized.  There is a sense of belonging, I guess, that is comforting.  It is a distraction from the void.  

Why do babies cry?  That was a question posed in "The Passenger."  It isn't because they are happy.  They cry when they are born.  Then they cry a lot.  Parents, in an effort to succor them, attempt to distract them.  They jingle things before their eyes.  They coo and whisper.  They pick them up and rock them.  Maybe we are conditioned to seek distraction, to avoid thinking about what is to come.  

Yea, maybe I need to get out and see some things, join the herd, dance with the masses.  

But hey--we have the music.  There is nothing like music.  All the arts envy its ability to make you feel.  Just a series of notes, major, minor, augmented, 9th. . . .  Artists try to do it with colors, authors with sequences of words, but nothing sets the soul afire like a rhythm, a melody, some harmonies. . . a simple tune.  

I have never been a Joh Prine fan.  I find much of his stuff silly.  But yesterday I heard this.  The lyrics are dumb enough, especially the "Constantinople" part, but the sound is pretty evocative.  There is that loose snare, that pedal steel, the Hammond B3 organ, and what I think is probably a National guitar.  Slow three chord blues.  Thuwump.  

Oh. . . and adult coloring books.  Can you imagine?