Older People

I try to avoid labels, all labels. But, I particularly dislike the label we apply to any human blessed with longevity. The term “Senior Citizen” is a misnomer on a number of levels. After all, an older person may not be “Senior” at all. He might be a junior. And what is the significance of “Citizen” here? Aren’t we all citizens? We don’t call babies “Newborn Citizens”. We wouldn’t refer to a forty-year-old as a “Midlife Citizen”. The mere idea sounds awkward and ludicrous.

I have heard the argument that the term “Senior Citizen” was borne out of respect for a person’s advanced age, but I’m not buying it. I believe the term to be market driven, much like the terms “Soccer Mom”, “Gen-Xer”, and “Baby-boomer”. Unfortunately, as the media makes use of these catch-phrases, the terms become part of our collective consciousness, morphing images born as marketing tools into stereotypes with inherently negative connotations.

I don’t like the word “elderly”, either. As soon as it reaches my ear, it becomes another word entirely, registering in my brain as “feeble”. Left with few options, due to my own semantic prejudices, I refer to those “of a certain age” as “older”.

I enjoy older people. I always have. As a young child, one of my best friends was our next-door neighbor, Earl Witcher. I wish I had a dollar for every time my parents told the story of my running, with arms out-stretched, from our driveway to his, shouting “Ale! Ale!”.

As a young mother, I was blessed to live next door to Ruby Kitchens, a hard-scrabble, deeply southern woman of indeterminate age, though her tight, pewter-colored perm suggested at least sixty. Ruby loved babies, which was lucky as I proved to be a prolific bearer. She loved to hold them, sing to them, and make faces at them. And, I enjoyed a rare empty lap as I watched her love them. For eight years we shared a driveway, and our markedly divergent lives, becoming dear friends. When the walls began to close in on my burgeoning family, visits were less frequent, but no less enjoyable. The children she helped me to raise are adults now, and Ruby has been gone for many years, yet I still think of her several times a week.

~~~

Joy is a spritely eighty-five, though if you ask her, she isn’t a day over eighty-three. Lucie turned eighty this year, passing the day in the hospital bed she has occupied since she was seventy-eight.

Joy came to work in our office three years ago, and within weeks had become one of my favorite things about weekdays. Last February, Lucie was the first hospice patient assigned to my care. I fell in love on sight.

Joy runs circles around most of the much younger employees in our office, coaxing productivity out of office equipment most of us have never learned to use, and doing it with a smile. Lucie is paralyzed, from the neck down, as the result of a stroke. She lays, a helpless, horribly contracted heap, in the center of her twin-sized world. She is completely dependent on others to meet her needs, and she doesn’t mind telling you what they are. I rarely visit without a small container of vanilla ice-cream.

Joy hums. You don’t so much look for Joy, as listen for her. The one time Joy isn’t humming is when she is talking, and she loves to talk. Her conversations usually surround some form of culture; she might recommend a book she’s just finished reading, or review a night at the symphony or an afternoon spent at the museum. An avid “Dancing with the Stars” fan, she loves to rehash the latest episode while stirring hot chocolate mix into a cup of steaming hot water.

Lucie’s eyes are usually closed when I enter her room. I’m careful to bend close before I say her name quietly, while softly touching one tiny, bony shoulder. Despite her efforts to open them, her right eye never fully cooperates, prompting my perch on the left side of her bed.

“Miss Lucie? It’s Stacye…” I encourage her to wakefulness.

“Hey!” She exudes enthusiasm in a voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s Saturday, Miss Lucie, February twenty-first, almost spring-time! How are you doing today?” I slide one hip up onto the bed, feeling the egg-crate mattress beneath its thin cotton covering.

“Oh…I’m alright…” She answers every time.

I stand, and move to draw the drapes.

“You want these open, don’t you Miss Lucie? Look at that gorgeous sunshine!”

I return to the side of her bed.

“Are you eating?” At last check she weighed less than seventy pounds.

“These people don’t cook right.” She answers with a lop-sided sneer and averted eyes.

“It’s not what you’re used to, is it?”

“It sure ain’t!” Images from an earlier visit, remnants of camouflage-colored puree decorating thick, institutional stoneware, fill my head.

White noise, from the television she insists must play at all times, accompanies our words. Sometimes I carry the conversation. Raised by a father whose green thumb was more of a necessity than a hobby, Lucie loves to hear about my garden.

And, when she’s up to it, Lucie has stories to tell. Hours, spent at her bedside, have taught me much about life in pre-integration Atlanta, as she takes me along on the bus ride across town to “care for a white family”. Most interesting, though, are her ruminations on Lucie; Lucie the daughter, Lucie the independent woman, Lucie the single mother. The injured cadence of her voice urges me closer, as she shares her disappointment in the father of her only child who “…left, and never came back”.

Two framed photographs provide the only break in the institutional green of our surroundings. Lucie’s grandson smiles through an eight-by-ten rectangle of glass. And, just underneath, hangs a six-by-four photo of his infant son, also known as “the baby”.

“Did your grandson bring the baby to see you this week?”, I ask as I dab at the unbidden tear falling from an eye that won’t quite open.

“Nah…”, she answers. “He’s busy…”

“Well, I bet he’ll be here next week!” I rise to leave, readjusting the blankets displaced by my hip.

Bending, I kiss her shiny, cocoa-colored forehead.

“I’m going now, Miss Lucie. I’ll see you next week…”

“Alright…”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Trapezoid

He runs his fingers through my son’s hair.

“Did the printout help you? Can you recognize a trapezoid?”

And, that’s all I need to know…

“California Dreamin'”

Dean called today from California….

Among other things, we discussed the weather. The “Mamas and Papas” played in my head as I listened, expecting him to conjure balmy, beach-breezes. Instead, I saw his fifty degrees, and raised him, with my seventy.

Every call from Dean brings with it, a memory of a sunny, southern, summer day….

I held the car door open for Charlie, The World’s Best Dog, as I surveyed my surroundings. Dean busied himself in his truck-bed, in search of some kind of tool, to the accompaniment of the sort of greeting only Zan is capable of giving.

“Well…” It is one of her favorite words, and usually spoken loudly. “…there she is!”

She approached, in her uniform of Levi’s and ribbed tank, arms outstretched. Even then, something told me to savor every one of those vanilla-scented hugs…

Hallie was coming home, after an out-of-town visit, and we were preparing her welcome. Coaxing soap-scum off a ceramic bathtub, Zan sang:
“I feel lucky, I feel lucky, yeah
No Professor Doom gonna stand in my way
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today.”

I joined in, and we sang. We laughed, and we sang, and we scrubbed, and we loved, as Charlie, The World’s Best Dog, curled up in a corner, and Dean busied himself outside.

Zan and I emerged from the cool darkness of the house to the sight of Dean, and a ladder. I don’t remember the incident. I can’t recall what raised her ire. But, I won’t forget the epitaph, “Ladder Bastard”. From Zan’s lips, to my memory, the words burn nearly twenty years later.

I remembered them today, as we spoke. I wondered if Dean was bothered by them, or if like me, he remembered them with fondness for a sunny, southern, summer day.

“I’ve got some new music for your site!”, Dean started as though we’d spoken just yesterday.

“Cool!”, was my response. “What is it?”

He answered, the conversation continued, and later, I looked up his suggestions. They are what I would expect from Dean, uniquely diverse, and I’m glad for the connection…

“>

Everything…

I left home at age twenty with a nursing degree I never really wanted and no sense of direction. This helps explain why, by the age of twenty-one, I was married and pregnant. Nine years later, my daily routine began with dropping all three of my children at school on my way to work in a midwifery clinic. This is where I met Zan.

Some may call it “luck”, or “fate”; others might invoke “kismet”. But I know that the universe provides, and throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have been blessed by people Zan would refer to as “guides”.

Zan is Native American, and she looks the part. Tall, and lithe, she wore her black hair long and flowing until it got in her way, at which point she clipped it, haphazardly, atop her head. She came to work as a midwife one year after I was hired as office manager, and fortunately, my world has never been the same.

At the time we met, my life was a mess. My marriage to an alcoholic, drug-addicted, philanderer was nearing an end. Listening to Zan’s dulcet-toned words of support and encouragement, I came to believe that I could raise my children in a healthy environment on my own. Later, it was through her suggestion that I found an Adult Children of Alcoholics’ meeting, where I realized it wasn’t just me; there were others like me who had taken what life had served up, and done the best they could with the little they had been given.

When she wasn’t occupied with turning my life right-side-up, Zan taught me about Native American culture, herbology, and bred in me a love for wolves. She introduced me to Bonnie Raitt, fried bread, and the art of healing massage. Most important though, as she taught me to love myself, she demonstrated how that love could, and should, be spread. Zan grew me up.

She returned to her beloved horse farm in Virginia about fifteen years ago, and it has probably been five since I’ve seen her, but if she called right now, we would pick up exactly where we left off. Zan would start by saying “Hello, Beautiful…”

Some may call it “midlife crisis”, or “menopause”; others might just call me “crazy”. But I know that, lately, I’ve gotten off track. The self-esteem I worked so hard to bring to fruition got trampled somewhere, and I forgot to notice. Lost, too, was my sense of direction. But I remembered today that the universe provides, and while I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, I am always provided with what I need.

I realized the presence of another “guide” who, through words of support and encouragement, demanded I be true to myself, while tenaciously prodding me to find my path. For the first time in a very long time, I not only know what I want, I believe I can have it. Simply put, I want everything….

“I want to learn what life is for
I don’t want much, I just want more
Ask what I want and I will sing
I want everything (everything)

I’d cure the cold and the traffic jam
If there were floods, I’d give a dam
I’d never sleep, I’d only sing
Let me do everything (everything)

I’d like to plan a city, play the cello
Play at Monte Carlo, play Othello
Move into the White House, paint it yellow
Speak Portuguese and Dutch
And if it’s not too much
I’d like to have the perfect twin
One who’d go out as I came in
I’ve got to grab the big brass ring
So I’ll have everything (everything)

I’m like a child who’s set free
At the fun fair
Every ride invites me
And it’s unfair
Saying that I only
Get my one share
Doesn’t seem just
I could live as I must
If they’d
Give me the time to turn a tide
Give me the truth if once I lied
Give me the man who’s gonna bring
More of everything
Then I’ll have everything
Everything”

Game Face

I loved those Saturday afternoons. Dad was asleep by half-time, but magically, some kind of internal clock woke him in time to watch the final play. His snores leant a softness to the crowd noise and announcers’ banter.

Later, I married an avid University of Alabama football fan. He hung flags, wore his special game-day shirt, and God help you if you were misguided enough to ask him a question while the ball was in play. While watching with him, I met and fell in love with the Florida Gators.

I graduated from a school whose founder chose as its mascot the White Owl. I believe this to be the reason they were denied the right to field a football team. So, with my back to the wall, I punted, and adopted a team. For the last ten years, the only occasion upon which I’ve missed a televised Florida game, found me sitting in the stands, watching my son play.

When Shane was about four, a complete stranger approached us at a local “Chili’s” as we waited to hear the tell-tale sizzling, announcing the approach of our fajitas.

“Is this boy playing football?”

Managing to speak despite a mouth gone slack, I answered, “He’s only four!”

“Oh! Well, he’s a big boy; got offensive lineman written all over him! See ya’ in two years!”

I don’t know if he was there, but we were. Three nights a week, I hurried home from work to dress my first-grader for football practice. It had never occurred to me, during all those years of coaxing nylons up my own leg, that the experience would benefit my son. Spandex is so unforgiving….

Shane trotted gamely onto the field, as I scanned the row of peopled, nylon-covered, folding chairs, unaware that the spot I chose would, for the next several months, be designated as “my spot”. Fortunately, I chose well. Aluminum fencing, separating us from the boys, served as an adequate footrest, and my neighbor was an interesting man who, at 50, had just reenrolled in school. I found him to be somewhat aloof at first, until he explained he had no hearing in his right ear. From that point on, I leaned in to talk to him, and realized he hadn’t really been ignoring me, after all.

Six year-olds in football helmets look like Atom Ant. They just do. And there is nothing more entertaining than watching twenty-five Atom Ants run (mostly into each other), and kick, and catch. Shane learned a lot that year, and the experience inspired his father. Roger has coached Shane’s teams, in one capacity or another, every year since.

The first year with Roger at the helm was abysmal, or as we have come to call it, “a learning experience”. The team won only one game. Fortunately, it was the last one, and the fervor experienced in that triumph encouraged the parents to give him another chance.

Year two brought in new talent, and we won every game, including the county championship. Riding this wave, we beefed it up for the boys in year three. A parent/policeman arranged for her co-workers/motorcycle-club-members to escort us to the county championship. A show of bravado like this is so much more effective when you actually win the game. Instead, we suffered our first loss in two years, and the boys learned a very valuable lesson. We cleaned it up a bit, but the moral went generally like this; “Don’t let your mouth write a check your ass can’t cash.”

Shane has played football for five years now. Besides the obvious physical aspects of the game, he has benefited in many other ways. Youth sports offer a social “in”, as it introduces boys to others in their peer group they might not otherwise have met. Most importantly, though, youth sports build confidence. And, it’s not just about winning games. The confidence boosters live in the small things; a successful block at practice, the ability to run three laps around the field in one-hundred degree weather without stopping to vomit and/or cry, and being part of a group relying upon one another to complete a task. Add to this, the vision of Mom in the stands sporting the team colors, holding a sign with your name and jersey number on it, and the possibilities for positive self-esteem are endless.

Five years ago, at the age of thirteen, my nephew expressed an interest in football. He had excelled in baseball and soccer, and his parents had hoped he would continue. Football came out of left field. My sister, Laura, was especially skeptical, mostly due to the violent nature of the sport.

For the last four years, Andrew has held the starting safety position on his high-school football team, and his parents have never missed one game. Three years ago, as I sat in my pajamas, enjoying a rare Friday night at home alone, Laura called to say Andrew was playing at a local high-school just minutes from my house. I reluctantly drew on some jeans, pulled a fleece over my pajama-top, and arrived just as the third quarter began. It was my sister’s turn to don the colors, wave the pom-poms, and cheer. Her husband, too, felt his creativity enhanced by his son’s show of athletic prowess. The hats he designed for us to wear at the Championship game were comically supportive, and the cooler he lugged into the stands, packed with assorted hot beverages and warm spicy muffins. Andrew’s team ended the year as State Champions, and I have missed few games since.

Despite our living about forty minutes apart, I don’t see my sister very often. Her son’s football games provided us with an opportunity to share a passion, to laugh, and to connect. I came to relish our time.

I learned the basics of the game from watching it on television, and the nuances by watching my son and nephew play. I learned what splits are, the difference between free- and strong-safety, and how to guess a penalty call by noticing where the pretty, yellow bean-bag is thrown. It is a bean-bag, you know; a bean-bag wrapped in yellow cloth. The only flags in football are those flapping at the edges of the field.

I love American football, and my various experiences with it have left me well-versed. My son and I watch games together, and when he gushes after a particularly gutsy play, I get it. The guys at the office, misguided Georgia Bulldogs all, include me in their pre-game and post-game discussions, and through this experience I have perfected the art of “talking smack”. Ok, I pretty much had that one down already. I just aim it in a different direction now.

As they have for the last four years, my son’s team made it to the semi-finals. This year we lost, but there’s always next year. Shane made a name for himself as the best center in his age group, and his kicking coach has offered to take him to Kicking Camp at Appalachian State this summer.

The Gators won a national championship this year, and I have a tee shirt to prove it. I wear it to work on the occasional “Casual Friday” just to see those Bulldogs bare their impotent teeth.

And my Steelers won the Super Bowl! You’re thinking, “She’s from Atlanta and she’s supporting the Steelers?” Two words: Troy Polamalu.

I may know the game, but I’m still just a girl…

"Teach Your Children"

I wasn’t sure the car would stop. The street held remnants of an earlier rain, and the ball rolling into it, was a surprise. Even more startling was the young child who followed, despite a large group of variously aged family members congregated in his driveway. As I braked, I turned to look at his family, hoping someone would see the boy, and come to his aid. Several of them turned, looking in his direction.

Blessedly, the car did stop. As I sat, allowing the child to retrieve his ball and move well clear of the car, I turned again to look at his caretakers. Some continued to watch him, while the more oblivious of the group continued talking, and laughing, and jostling; no one moved, no one called out. The boy snagged his ball, and grazed me with dark, dancing eyes, before darting back into his driveway.

My son’s presence in the garage meant he had something to tell me that wouldn’t wait.

“Mom!” His inflection confirmed my suspicion.

He burbled as we carried my things inside.

“Science class was so cool today! Mr. Patterson, you remember him, right? Well, Mr. Patterson said he’d been waiting for a rainy day to tell us this story, right?”

He freed his hands by setting a bag on the kitchen table, and began using them to bat at the puppy, whose excitement on seeing his friend come inside was just as exuberant as it had been the first time, about thirty minutes before.

“It was about a witch. Well, not really a witch. Well, she WAS a witch, but now she’s a ghost, right? I mean, it’s kinda like “Blair Witch”, but not really.”

He continued to share his story, as I moved about the kitchen. Some of his words were lost in the sounds of cans scraping along shelves and refrigerator bins opening, but I understood the crux of his story. The long and short of it, was that Mr. Patterson had set aside the business of beakers and microscopes to take advantage of a rainy day, by regaling a roomful of eleven-year-olds with his stories of adolescent close-encounters with beings from “the other side”. Unfortunately, in arriving at this decision, Mr. Patterson had forgotten his role as authoritarian. He had underestimated his own importance by sharing a frightening story with children who are directed, daily, to listen to him, and to remember every word he utters.

The next morning, I awoke to a pile of blankets on the floor beside my bed. And, somewhere in that pile, lay my frightened, sleeping son.

Shane held his cell-phone behind his back.

“Mom? Can I go to the movies with Koran?, he stage-whispered.

I asked all the usual questions; what, when, where, and gave my consent. As he ran, grinning, back to his bedroom to change, my cell-phone rang. It was Jill, mother of Alex.

“Is Shane going to the movies with Koran?”

“Yes. Is Alex?”

“Did you know that they are dropping the kids off? There will be no parents…I don’t know.”

Anger crowded my embarrassment.

“No, I didn’t know that. Let me call you back.”

I called Koran’s father, who back-pedaled furiously when questioned. I thanked him for the invitation and called Jill to tell her Shane wouldn’t be going. Her sigh spoke her relief, and I thanked her. We watch out for each other…

Laughter breached the closed door to the playroom as Shane and two boys who live next door played video games.

“Lunchtime!”, I called, imagining myself in belted shirt-dress, high heels, and pearls. June Cleaver’s got nothing on me.

Six hands vied for space under the bathroom spigot before the boys barreled into the kitchen to ham and cheese on wheat, Sunchips, and milk.

“Is there mayonnaise on this?” Ray studied his sandwich without touching it.

“Mayo and mustard.”, I answered, still in character, before resuming wiping the counters.

“Mom?” This was my son.

“Yes?”

“Do we have any vanilla stuff? You know, for the milk? They don’t drink plain milk. They like vanilla.”

I turned to find my storybook lunch decimated. Shane, his back to me, munched contentedly on the contents of his plate. To his left, two slices of discarded bread messily decorated the outskirts of a plate, while his friend held the formerly sandwiched slice of ham to his mouth. To his right, Ray had finally found the nerve to touch his food, removing all traces of mayo, leaving a slice of bread topped by mustard and ham. Both glasses of milk remained untouched.

“No, I’m sorry. And, I’m sorry you don’t like your lunch.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Shane rushed to my defense. “It’s just that they don’t eat brown bread. They like white. And Ray doesn’t like mayonnaise, and their Mom always puts vanilla in the milk. But, that’s okay.”

That evening, the boys’ mother returned the favor, inviting Shane to dinner.

“What did you have?”, I asked on his return.

“Chicken nuggets.”, he answered. “They always have chicken nuggets. That’s what they like.”

Somehow, I can’t imagine the boys’ father braving the hazards of a drive across town in Atlanta traffic, thinking, “Mmmm, chicken nuggets!”

My sister will be late to her own funeral. This was my thought as I rested my head against the gaily colored mural adorning the wall of the local “Rio Bravo”. The trill of a cell-phone caught my attention, and seeking the sound, my eyes came to rest on a girl of about six. She flipped the phone open with one perfectly manicured hand, while the other rested on the denim-clad knee of a man I supposed to be her father. She brought the phone to her ear and turned, revealing a powdered face, featuring painted lips, carefully placed glitter, and several coats of black mascara. I’m sure my mouth fell open.

One tiny foot rocked back and forth on the tip of a stacked heel as she talked. The pink polish on her nails matched, perfectly, the hue of a sweater that clung to her board-flat chest before falling over expensively tattered jeans. Her future flashed across my eyes, leaving me with a feeling of profound sadness for her squandered childhood

Shane’s cell-phone had rung at least twenty times over the course of an hour.

“Who is that?”, I asked, irritated by the sound of my mother’s voice coming from my mouth.

“Valerie…” Shane’s voice, too, sounded stressed. He took advantage of a break in the noise to go outside, picking up a basketball on his way towards the goal.

When the offending noise began again, I picked up the telephone, intending to tell Valerie to cut back on her calls before I was forced to have a talk with her mother.

The Caller-ID bore her mother’s name and cell-phone number, but the voice on the other end of the line was Valerie’s. I made no such threat.

His efforts at whispering drew my attention.

“I know, but we’re changing plans in June. It doesn’t make sense to buy a new phone now.”

The span of his silence suggested his wife’s increasingly shrill voice.

“He can use my old phone.” These words were louder, more forceful, in keeping with a man with a plan.

Another silence ensued, and when conversation continued, it went on for some time, though he spoke few words.

Later, he visited the office across from mine.

“My son lost his phone.”

“Can’t he just use your old one until we change plans in June?” , his sensible friend asked. “Buying a new phone now would just be a waste of money, because it won’t work with the new plan.”

“She wants to get him another Razor. She’s worried what his friends will think.”

His friend’s derisive chuckle spoke volumes.

“I told her we’d just use mine.”

Later that afternoon, his loquacious wife, with children in tow, came by to pick him up on their way to purchase the Razor.

“What are you doing this weekend?” I asked, as the clock ticked towards four, and our two-day pass.

“I’m taking my son to a birthday party at the Roxy.”, came the bored-sounding answer.

“The Roxy?”, I asked, incredulous. “THE Roxy? The concert hall downtown? A twelve year-old child is having a birthday party at the Roxy?”

“Yeah…it’s to make up for all the bot-mitzvahs.”

I had no answer for that.

What will become of our children? It seems every passing day presents me with another horrifying example of adults who have seemingly forgotten their role. A young child is allowed to follow a ball into a rain-soaked road in front of an oncoming car, and they watch. A science teacher, whose words are expected to form the minds of our children, spends an entire class period convincing them that witches and ghosts are not just the stuff of Halloween charades. A group of eleven year-old boys and girls are invited to a Sunday afternoon movie by parents who can’t be bothered to chaperone. A Harvard educated mother feeds her children a diet so consumed by frozen, fried chicken and vanilla flavored milk, that sandwiches on whole-grain, accompanied by organically produced milk, appear exotically disgusting. I shared a restaurant waiting room with a six-year-old whose make-up was applied more professionally than mine. A mother, apparently, never questions her daughter about hundreds of calls made from her cell phone to a boy she sees, every day, in their sixth-grade classroom. A boy’s father caves to his ranting mother, by spending money on a cell phone that will be useless in less than six months; in an effort to retain pre-pubescent social status. And, an entire concert hall, complete with seating for several thousand, is rented in honor of a twelve-year-old girl who had the misfortune of being born to Christian parents.

How long before the odds play out? Who do our children have to look up to? When did outings and fancy electronics replace structured caring and responsibility? When did children begin making decisions that affect an entire family? As they cry through smeared mascara, who will explain objectivism to our girls? What is left? What will they have to look forward to; to work towards? How will they define “special”?

Synchronicity

My visit with Miss Lucie went well. She knew me! You never know, and you take what you can get. But, she knew me, and the time passed as though we had visited the weekend before. The woman is a blessing. My lips, upon her forehead, came away softer.

Dinner with a friend, after an awkward embrace accompanied by pat excuses, morphed into my first dinner alone within the confines of a restaurant. It felt as I had imagined it would. I read, I ate, I left. End of story.

Yesterday was a gift from God, a teasing reminder of days to come. Cool breezes warmed easily on the kiss of a winter sun, allowing me to complete my tasks in my shirtsleeves. I pinched pansies, planted amaryllis, and mowed my lawn. Later, moisture tinged breezes urged me to fold my arms as I observed meat grilling under a waning sun.

Monday dawned on an unexpected rain, and hope. I checked in on a friend whose absence worried me. His response reminded me of both, the ease and importance of expression. An arm outstretched reminds another of his worth, and he, in kind reaches out. Such is synchronicity…

Oh, My Darlin’…

“You wait!” A familiar sneer leant my mother’s words an equally familiar tone of acridity. “You wait! You’ll wish you had this time back! Time moves faster the older you get. Why, at my age, a year goes by in a blink of an eye.”

As a kid, who had probably just bemoaned a yawning three week wait until Christmas, her admonition had no more effect than her frequent wishes for my future.

“I hope you have children, and I hope they cause you just as much trouble as you’ve caused me.”

As it turned out, she was right, on both counts.

I have heard the month of January described as meaningless after the hustle and bustle of a holiday season that now seems to span several months. There is, of course, an introspective aspect to January, coming as it does, after weeks of economic, gastronomic, and even alcoholic depravity.

New Year’s Day dawns on millions of hung-over, antacid-swilling Americans, who greet the day holding a television remote control. Football-filled hours pass in a semi-upright position, interrupted only by the odors of foods said to be infused with magic powers on this day, and this day only. More often than not, it is while we are pushing collard greens around the perimeter of our plate, that someone floats the topic of New Year’s resolutions. As we anticipate finally being able to access a beer without encountering a well-maintained eyebrow raised by the “time police”, we attempt to discern a recognizable image in the smattering of cornbread crumbs stuck in gravy remnants before answering.

And, no matter the answer, we finally manage to pull from the refuse that is our dinner plate, one thing is sure; by January thirty-first we will have forgotten it. This is the stuff of January.

Recently, though, I’ve discovered other reasons to mark January.

January is the month of the Clementine. In case you are not familiar with this delectable nugget of sugary citrus, a Clementine is cousin to the tangerine. A friend tried, for years, to sell me on their merits, but to my discerning eye they appeared nothing more than a miniature tangerine at twice the price. I couldn’t imagine anything about them being worth double the money…until my son tasted them.

Usually imported from Spain and neighboring regions, these tiny, orange morsels are sold almost exclusively in crates. This feature originally, prohibited me from buying them. This year, after tasting one provided by my friend, I decided to chance unloading a crate of citrus on a family usually partial to meatier fruits such as apples, pears, and melons. Within days, my son was urging me to return to the store for another crate, and when I tasted one, I understood why.

That was three crates ago, and on Saturday, I carefully placed one of the last three available into my grocery cart. Clementine season is winding down. We’re treating this crate as though it will be our last, because it just might be.

This weekend, I discovered another reason to mark the passing of January. My Christmas cacti, inaccurately named as they begin blooming just after Thanksgiving, are waning. I have, over the years, collected a virtual grove of cacti by taking advantage of post-holiday plant sales. At present I nurture eight, in varying shades. This year, for the first time, all of them bloomed.

My grandmother raised Christmas cacti, and I loved one of them, especially. It was at least two feet in diameter, and bloomed in a lovely, deep, shade of pink. Visits to her house were warm, due in part to her attention to the thermostat, but also because of our shared interests. She knew I loved plants, and she loved to share. Every time I visited, she pinched off shoots of any plant I admired, urging me to root them. And, I did.

Today, my largest Christmas cactus, started as an offshoot of the one I so admired, measures over two feet in diameter. She is old. There are unattractive striations upon her leaves, and yet she blooms, gloriously, year after year. When others tease, putting out buds that never come to full fruition before the foliage shrivels; she blooms, and blooms, and blooms. I fertilize her, in warmer months. I water her, judiciously at first, until the buds begin to squeeze from her succulent fronds, whereupon I strengthen her by plying her with liquid. And she responds to my ministrations, year after year, after year.

Withered blooms fell into my watering can yesterday. The show is nearly over. As I looked around the sunroom, I enjoyed, possibly for the last time, each and every bloom; bright pink, salmon red, and white, with just a trace of pink lining each petal.

And I marked January, wondering where the time had gone.

Tess

Psychiatry was, far and away, my favorite clinical rotation. It lasted for three months, and my patients were housed in the county hospital. This was when I learned that the “Psych Floor” is always on, or near, the top floor, though I have never been sure if this geography is dictated by distance from the front doors, and possible escape, or more a part of an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality.

I was jealous of other students garnering more glamorous assignments; a shelter for troubled children, a drug rehabilitation center, or a home away from home, inhabited by alcoholic men whose families had swallowed the last straw. But, that was before I realized that the Psychiatric Floor of a hospital is very much like an urban emergency room; you never know what you’re going to get, but you can be sure it will be exciting, and if you can shove your fear aside long enough, there is much to learn.

Following an orientation overseen by a frumpy, 30-something man named Mark, who favored once-expensive, over-sized sweaters, and Levi’s, over desert boots, I met with several patients whose grasp on reality was apparently restored by an overnight stay.

And, then I met Tess. Tess was a hard-timer, painfully familiar to staff and patients alike, thanks to her frequent admissions, and long stays. I learned, during morning rounds, that she suffered from schizophrenia, and, despite my training, I entered the hallway, leading to her room, with visions of Sally Field, as “Sybil”, dancing in my head.

The door wheezed as I muscled it open.

“Good morning!” This was the beginning of a verbal assault, suggested by my professor, intended to ground us both with the reality of time. I would go on.

“It’s Monday, February 17th. The sun is out, but the wind is cold!” The words were spoken loudly, with a forced gaiety I now recognize in other nurses, and earned no response.

My eyes rested, for just a moment, on the centerpiece of all hospital rooms. The bed was vacant. She sat next to the window, affording me a view of her long, brown hair, and slender shoulders, covered by a red shirt, putting me in mind of a union suit. I could have stared for as long as I liked. She was oblivious.

As I approached, I strained for a glimpse at what she was watching until, reaching her, I realized I could never see what captivated her. Her eyes were lightless.

I entered her room in this manner for three days to the same response. On day four, the wheeze of the door was barely noticeable above the sound of her mumblings. She stood, just inside the closet door, wearing a mask of complete anxiety. Her eyes, no longer lifeless, danced frenetically inside her head, lighting upon mine just long enough to reignite her terror, before jumping back into the closet.

That she felt she had lost something was apparent. I attempted to talk with her; to discover what she sought. My overtures agitated physically, sparking flailing arms, and a twisting, spittle-producing mouth that quieted mine.

I watched, helplessly, for several minutes, before mutely joining her search. Within minutes, the mumbling ceased and determined focus reshaped her features. She shadowed me, mimicking my movements. Her eyes softened, retaining their light. The corners of her mouth relaxed, and for a moment, I imagined what she might have been like; what “normal” could have been for her.

Our search failed. I left her that day feeling impotent, rattled, and very, very sad. The minute’s vision I’d held of the promise her mother must have seen, long ago, affected me. The fleeting irony of human life was spelled out, succinctly, in language I could understand, before the image, like her eyes, went dark.

Respite

I write.

You wait.

The television plays.

The telephone rings.

The bathroom door opens, and closes, at your bidding.

And, when I’m finished, I yank the room, and my imagination, into darkness, with a single movement.

“I’m done!”

I listen, as I speak, for tell-tale signs of guilt I refuse to feel.

“Good!”

Your voice is buoyant, and your eyes, over glasses perched on the tip of your nose, welcoming, as you offer your arms.