The Hit Man Report

Where the Christmas tree used to be.

In the dark, leave a note. Leave your ancient mother behind, asleep in her bed. Go buy milk so you can make a latté. Creep out of your sleeping house. Skulk through the dawn. This is what you must do to survive. She could die in your absence. She could die any time. So could you. Whatever. Make the coffee. Leave another note. Put her cup by the coffee pot. Open the brand new carton of half and half so she doesn't have to struggle. Sneak away again. Go to yoga. When you come home, she's in her room with her coffee. The arthritis is killing her knee. Her hip. Heat the hot pack. Re-heat the coffee. Make her breakfast. Make yours. Drag the dead Christmas tree out the patio door. Spend the day cleaning away the Christmas spirit which barely materialized anyway. Relish the vacuuming. Relish the mopping. The polishing. The dusting. Breath in the Windex. Heat the hot pack, this time for you. Read between loads of laundry. Relish the story in the New Yorker that you know would have been murdered in your MFA workshop had it been written by a student. Where is the forward motion of the story. This  is all just interior monologue. Where is the fucking scene? How about some dialogue? Realize the day is nearly over without much forward motion at all. Dialogue only if you shout.  Make dinner. Hold firmly to the new regime of salad for you. Grilled cheese for the ancient mother who needs calories. Ice cream for her dessert. Then when she's asleep, attack  the cheese and crackers. Hypocrite. Make a gin and tonic in your closet and carry it downstairs in a water glass. Just in case she wakes up. Watch a movie that makes you cry. Walk through the neighborhood, mumbling to your dead lover. Why are there so many stars? Why can't you be nicer?

I took the colored Christmas lights down from the top of the armoire and put up white ones. 

Give Thanks, Give Thanks, Give Thanks

our pretty table

Of course there was a an immense amount of mess, unseen here.

And merely hinted at here, but of course by the end of the night, the happy chaos had spread everywhere. Happiness itself had spread too. I enjoy my daughters and our friends very much. The turkey was especially good this year. Even my mom, who doesn't really like meat, said it was delicious. My first attempt at homemade cranberries went very well, as did the grilled asparagus, and my friend Ellen's homemade chutney was a wonderful and different addition.

 But the friends have gone home; the daughters and my mom are asleep. The dishwasher is running its second load, and the greasy roasting pan and cutting board are congealing in a far corner.

I'm having one of those nights when I could sit here forever and stare out at the dark water.

Waffles. And what the yoga teacher said.

I've gone on a bit here about how I've been cleaning my room. The other day, shredding away, I was struck with a sudden craving for a waffle. Let's be clear. A waffle chez moi is a gluten-free toaster waffle--but I fancy it up a bit by gently heating some frozen blueberries in some real maple syrup and drenching the un-fancy waffle with that concoction. Add some real butter, and it's good. Honest. I mean who would drag out a waffle iron and mix up a batch of waffles for one person? (If someone out there reading this would do that, perhaps we should talk.) Anyhow, I was busy organizing, cleaning, shredding, i.e. subjugating my desire, when what did I find?
This:

Stuffed in a pile of stuff was the un-Christmas card Dan gave me one year. A clear message that I should have that waffle. Which I did, as evidenced by the top photo. I did not get drunk. If someone responds to the parenthetical message above, that waffles and wine thing could seriously happen.

Earlier that morning, I'd gone to yoga. This particular teacher likes to read to us from the Sutras (which, I think, is a regular Ashtanga yoga thing), and what she read was something about the tongue tasting the nectar of infinity. That probably explains the craving for a waffle smothered in real maple syrup, right? And also there was something about how the invisible loves the visible.

I love that.
The invisible loves the visible.

Oh, and can someone explain how it is that I spent a week going through all my drawers and filing cabinets, pulling things out, shredding them-- and now the last couple of days as I've gone through the stacks of papers on my floor and on my credenza, what I've done with those things  is stuff them into files and put them in my filing cabinet?

Probably the only solution is to get drunk and eat waffles.

Luck, Omens, Portents, Plans, and Predictions

Sunset view: Lanai on the left. Molokai to the right.

At some point during one of Dan's hospitalizations, I found a piece of white beach glass shaped like a crescent moon. It meant he would get well, I told myself. I think it was later that day the doctor said he was going to recommend Dan for hospice. The piece of glass sat on my steps for days afterwards. It occurred to me more than once that I should hammer it into dust.

I'm in Maui right now, and tomorrow morning I'm going to look for beach glass. What will it mean if I find some? That I've found some beach glass, I guess. Or not. I don't feel very attached these days to my old system of auguring future events. But I do feel lucky.

Here's how lucky. Some weeks after Dan died, it was clear I needed a break from caring for my mom and made arrangements for her to stay with my brother and his girlfriend for a couple of months. Not long after a friend invited me to her 50th birthday party on Maui. Since my mom would be at my brother's I could say yes. A week or so later, a second friend invited me to her birthday party on Kauai. Those dates did not conflict with the Maui dates. In fact there were a few days in between during which I could visit a dear friend of Dan's on Hilo. (I think I've blogged about all this before--but I guess I just want to repeat it.) Lucky, right? People tell me I deserve it. But doesn't everyone deserve luck? And there are always people who deserve a nice serving of luck, and they don't even get a crumb.

So here I am. In Maui. It's been a litany of beauty so far. Lapis colored water, puffy clouds. A lavender farm and a goat farm in what they call "up country." Galleries and shops with the wares of local artists, a farmer's market with exotic produce. Not to mention the friends. Friends seems to me like luck too. I didn't work or strive in any way to meet any of them. Stuff happens. Sometimes it's really good.

view from the lavender farm

ice cream bean from the farmer's market

3 kinds of goat cheese for dinner

lavender farm Buddha