Monday Morning

...feelings like I've never lost you/and feelings like I'll never have you/again in my heart....

She's taking more and more time to get ready for things, spending more and more time "examining the insides of her eyelids" and "holding down the sofa". She's happy, but blurry and out of focus.

We go out to the Honey Bee Diner for brunch after she teaches her yoga class. She's like a toddler, hungry every three hours or so, but not usually able to eat very much at one go.

Over pancakes, we discuss this and that. I try to play Hangman with her on the back of the placemat, but she doesn't remember how to play. I explain. She guesses O. I fill in an O.

What letter do you guess next?

"No, it's your turn to guess a letter. I guessed the last one."

She says it's hard to see the page. I ask why she didn't wear her new bifocals. She says she needs some new readers, as she can't find hers. I know why. Very Athletic Sister has removed most of them. I tell her we can go to the dollar store, but not for that.

"If you can't be bothered to take me to the dollar store for some new reading glasses, I'll ask a neighbor. Or I'll walk!"  As if that's a threat.

Of course I'd be happy to take you to the dollar store for anything you wish. But the dollar store readers don't help you. I say this because I've seen you with three pair of them stacked on your nose, and you asking me for the magnifying glass, which is right there on the table. 

We have this conversation two or three more times as she finishes eggs and bacon.

I distract her from eyewear, focus on her handbag. So we go instead to the Goodwill to shop for a small summer purse. I convinced her to let go of her threadbare denim one in December, I think, and now I tell her tweed isn't for spring and summer. We discuss how persistent February is this year, as today hardly seems springlike. I remind her of her mother, who used to keep many handbags in a doorhanger plastic sleeve, one bag for every three or four pair of shoes. I tell her we're not going to go overboard, but one bag for fall/winter and another for spring/summer is probably a reasonable thing. She agrees. We find also a pair of beige Crocs. I like that they have the heel strap. The sidewalks in her neighborhood conspire with her big dogs to make her stumble and fall. Her shoes do not need to become co-conspirators in her tumbles, the ones she swears she doesn't have.

We return to her home and she seems ready for a nap. I ask if it's okay if I take the dogs out for a walk while she gets started holding down the sofa. She agrees, but doesn't actually settle. When we three return, she's still dithering in the house. I give her kisses, fairly certain that once I leave, she'll lie down awhile. It is almost 2 pm. I arrived at 10 am. I try to imagine someone else doing things for and with my mother, having the morning with her that I have just had. I have several feelings wrap themselves into the folds of my brain, and am too weary to sort them just now. One that I can identify, however, is a sense of being left out. Another is relief. The anxiousness is understandable. There are at least three more, though, snarled in a bunch, that will require patience and maybe a pin to untease.

Morris Albert; Feelings