Waving, Not Drowning

We all managed to stay afloat during this weird New Year's visit that involved keeping the child recuping from the chicken-pox away from her great-grandmother--and the other children as well just in case they were incubating it. It involved a lot of waving and smiling through patio windows, evening get-aways with glasses of wine in hotel rooms, children sequestered briefly in my garage, and on my boat dock (thanks to C) and explaining and re-explaining about chicken-pox and shingles to my mother. Having had shingles once before, her eyes grew huge every time we talked about it. Absolutely not--she didn't want to go through that again. It was inconvenient and wonderful, this visit. Four generations got together--sort of--for some of the time with some of us actually in the same room. C traveled from Minnesota by plane and bus and train to get here. My son drove his mini-van stuffed full of family from Arizona. M worked us into to her impossibly busy schedule, coming and going. We laughed and talked. Planned and reminisced. And if I were quizzed, I could not tell you how much time all of us actually spent together. My son and his family were the last to leave, and when five people pull out of your driveway your house is instantly very empty.

But I did what I had resolved to do: I began. I ordered the fall detector button for my mom. Of course a fall preventer button would be better. I imagine it would work something like THIS. I called the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging and had a 47-minute conversation about everything with a wonderful woman who took her time answering all of my questions. Tomorrow my mom and I will go to see two adult day care places whose emphasis is more social than medical. I have familiarized myself with the spend-down rules for Medi-Cal. I have a list of resources for home care and caregiver support. I called a friend of a friend who has been taking care of her father, who has Alzheimers, for 7 years without much of a break. I have no idea how one does that. The four of us plan to get together. 

My mother did not seem enthusiastic when I first broached the idea of day care and in-home care, but she's on board now. I actually think she's looking forward to it. Honestly, I would look forward to getting out of the house away from me because I am introverted and boring. I like to read, write, and putter around with various home improvement/organizing/cleaning projects. Today's projects included moving all of my sewing stuff from the garage to the upstairs and all of the single bed linens from the upstairs (where there are no single beds) to the garage (which is where the grandchildren camp out on air-beds during a normal non-chicken-pox visit.) I also cleaned and organized the cabinet under my kitchen sink. That's how interesting I am.

I also finished cleaning out my closet (see previous post) which involved going through a bin of stuff that included a notebook titled "NYC Summer 1984." That was the summer I left my husband behind in L.A. (by mutual agreement) and moved to New York and took classes at HB Studios because it was something I had wanted to do for quite a while. In addition to a wonderful acting class with Bill Hickey, I took a play analysis class with a man named David Fittleson, and the notebook, which I at first  thought was empty and had retitled "Mom" still had notes in it on a bunch of plays including Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" which is a play that seems to keep popping up with an uncanny amount of relevance for me. This is how my notes on that play begin:

Inaction??!! Bah.

Going...going..

I'm having a little get-together tonight, and I've posted this sign on my kitchen wall. My packing efforts have devolved into a ridiculous jumble. There's a box in my car right now with antique bowls, cowboy boots, cleaning stuff, lingerie, sewing supplies, and books. Whatever system I had is gone. I'm sitting here with a beer, digesting my lunch of scrambled eggs and ketchup. I have been eating my way through my pantry and refrigerator since March. This is what it's come to. I have a hug bag of garam masala, some good asagio, and three more eggs. Please somebody stop me.

Tomorrow I'll drive to the new place and empty my car, drive back, and then Sunday I'll drive up again with my friend S. who has volunteered to pack the champagne goblets and whatever else is left in my kitchen. I'm gloating a bit. How many of you have had a Ph.D. pack your kitchen? Joining us will be other members of my personal circle of intelligentsia hauling potted plants from my patio.

And tonight a writer I admire very much is bringing one of her cakes--because she is also a professional pastry chef. Writing that sentence makes me feel like I've wasted my life.

Monday the movers come. I'm using the same company that I used five years ago when my life as a big L.A. lawyer's wife came to an end.  I wonder if the moving company will send the same guys. In any event, I'm picturing this move to be more like a happy-soul-soaring circus with flying acrobats than a Chekovian nightmare.

Here's what I wrote back then about that.

            Moving should not be a complicated affair.  My boxes are packed, stacked and sealed.  Most of the furniture is too big to fit in my new place, and the few things I’m taking, I’ve already tagged with blue painters’ tape.  I’m ready.  But when the movers come on the first Sunday in November, they’re Russian and their accents undo me.  It’s Chekov’s Cherry Orchard here in my living room only its too much money that’s taken my house away.  I think of the character of Lubov weeping as she leaves her estate crying for her youth and her happiness and her trees.  I have pruned, picked and eaten from every fruit tree in my backyard: guava, loquat, lemon, orange, grapefruit, tangelo, plumb, pomegranate, fig. They might as well be chopped to the ground like Chekov’s cherry trees because I know Mr. Ex will neither tend them nor harvest their fruit.  As my great-grandmother’s Victorian rocker and the oak armoire I bought for Mr. Ex's suits right after law school are loaded into the truck, I begin to sob.

 “I need help,” I say when my friend Tom answers the phone.  I’m standing in my front yard barely able to choke out the words; it’s Sunday morning and his voice sounds as if he still has cards in his hand and a cloud of cigarette smoke over his head.  “I’m sorry,” I say picturing him in pajamas. 

            “Sandy and I are just getting up,” he says.  “Give us a little time and then we’ll be over.”  As soon as I hang up, my friend Patricia calls.  She’s getting divorced, too; she might have to move soon herself.

 “I’m coming over,” she says.  I go back in the house, relieved.  But I feel sick and my mid-section is cramping.  My kidneys hurt and when I go to the bathroom, there’s blood in the toilet.  Not a lot of blood, but I’m sure I’m dying.  I go out to the patio and sit by the pond and rock in the glider.  I’m dying. This fucking move and this divorce will kill me.  I call my friends Karen and Sharon who’ve just moved to Portland, and sob on the phone while Karen calls me, “sweetie.”

            “Just talk to me,” I sob, “until they get here.”  I tell her that Tom and Sandy and Patricia are coming.  That I’m sick and might be dying, that C and M will be motherless.  Orphans, really.  The God I don’t believe in is punishing us, I tell her.  Mr. Ex will die of a stroke, and I’ll die right here on my patio, crying.

            “Hold on,” Karen says, “Your friends are coming.”  The movers are loading stacks of boxes onto dollies.  I can see my dining room and living room through the French doors that open to the patio. I can see straight through the emptiness to the bay window past the giant magnolia trees and into the street.  Karen and I talk until Tom and Sandy pull up at the curb. 

Sandy is the sort of person who would never show up for a friend in need without food, and it takes two hands to carry the big pink box she’s holding.  “I brought donuts,” she says in her Kentucky drawl.  Tom hugs me. His beard smells clean like soap, and suddenly I’m hungry. I devour chocolate frosted cream filled pastries, one after the other.  Patricia comes with cheese and crackers, and when the doors of the moving van are slammed shut, our three cars caravan to my new place.