Tremors and Time

I sat still all day in a chair.  It seemed to help. I could walk a straight line as long as I didn't turn my head quickly.  No sudden movements.  O.K.  

"Hey ma, I feel a little better.  I'll go get your meds and some things for dinner.  I'll be back."

I was fine driving to the drugstore.  Waited behind another car at the pickup window for a long time.  My turn.  No, said the voice in the speaker, there were no prescriptions for her. 

"She said the store called for her to pickup a prescription."

After a long while, the voice came back to tell me her Percocet couldn't go out until the 27th.  Nothing to be done. 

Down the road a few blocks to the grocers.  I got out of the car, grabbed a cart, and felt fine.  Inside, I ran into one of the twins I've known for decades but haven't seen much since Covid.  Something happened to the two of them and they don't go out or have anyone in any longer.  They live a hermetic life now.  But here, in the store, we talk.  I'm doing fine, then I laugh and shake my head.  Mistake.  The ground shifts beneath my feet.  

I finish shopping and go home to make dinner.  I start the jasmine rice and broccoli and cut up the chicken and put it in a bowl with bbq sauce.  I wash my hands and go out to sit with my mother in the open garage.  It is a pleasant late afternoon.  

"Look at this weather," I say.  I'm thinking of the weather everywhere north of us.  Late afternoon sun, 70 degrees.  

The pretty woman with the two big dogs is walking across the street.  She waves and crosses over to see us.  One would never guess her age, but it is beginning to show as it will.  We talk about many things.  She works for a bank, and has worked from home for years.  Now they want her back in the office a few days a week.  She doesn't like it.  

"Sure, who wants to get dressed?" I laugh.  "I worry about that.  I don't think any of my dress up clothes still fit."

She says she had the same problem.  

"This butt isn't going to fit into these anymore," she laughs sardonically about trying on her old clothes.  Indeed, that is where she is "aging."  Not much, but noticeably.  My gut, her butt.  

The dogs want love, give kisses.  After a long while, she takes her leave.  

"I'm glad she stopped," my mother says.  "She's a nice lady."

I go inside.  The rice and broccoli are ready.  I put on the chicken.  Six, seven minutes.  The small pieces cook quickly.  

Six o'clock. We watch the BBC news as we eat.  The world, it seems, has not improved since yesterday.

We finish dinner.  I put on the Evening News from one of the networks.  News delivered in a fever pitch.  It is much different than on BBC.  They are, it is obvious, pitching to a different audience.  Everything is repeated at least three times.  First they show and tell you what they are going to show and tell you in the opener.  Then they show and tell you briefly before each story as introduction.  Then a frenetic reporter in the field shows and tells you as quickly as possible knowing they have under a minute to get it all in.  Breathless.  That it is made for a dumb commercial audience is obvious.  As are the commercials.  

I clean the kitchen and leave the t.v. for my mother.  In another room, I go to my computer.  I did not go to my house this day, so I text the tenant to see if the painters had finished up.  They hadn't.  Wow, I say.  That's a lot of work.  

My mother goes to bed early.  I watch t.v. for a bit, the new Frankenstein movie.  I'd watched the first half the night before, but now it bores me.  I start to get ready for bed before ten.  I sleep through the night.  

A new day.  Seems just a continuum.  "Lives of quiet desperation," I think.  Where does that come from?  I can't remember.  I think of all the people I am losing contact with as I sequester with my mother.  People just dissolve into the ether.  The months slip by without a trace.  Sometimes I reach out.  Sometimes someone else does.  The inside of my mother's house is a time capsule where it barely seems to move.  There are necessary routines, the meds, the meals, the news. . . .  

As I write, I feel little tremors.  The walls and floor shift slightly.  It is not over yet.  Another day of stillness, I guess.  One day it will all be stillness.  There will be no routine, no meals, no news.  Nothing will move, nothing at all.