
The moon and the flowers,
forty-nine years,
walking around, wasting time.
—Issa
Coffee upon waking. The sound of the radio alarm from the guest room buzz buzz buzzing so I have to trundle downstairs to turn that off. Cat food in a bowl, the sliding glass open so Ping can, at his whimsy, stroll in and out. The water running at the upstairs bathroom sink because that's how my cat prefers to drink while I write nonsense in my morning pages, read e-mail, read some news to get my blood boiling—is that why I do it so soon after waking?—try to download the Quicktime clip called "Is Bush an Idiot" then give up and turn on the classical music show in time to get that the Piano Puzzler was Bach but like the contestant, I didn't know the name of the song.
Homework was to write a blues song, something to do with the wayward ways of love, so I started in on that. After a bit of tinkering and help from a rhyming dictionary I came up with something passable, rooted in journal entries from wow, fourteen years back. The vagaries of memory meet moony, lovesick prose. I finished packing the former Powerbook box to send to Pennsylvania—more clothes, toiletries, and books for my upcoming family visit trip. The first of two loads of laundry begun. With no food in the house, I was reduced to bean dip and chips to energize myself enough to get out the door to run the morning's errands. The most pressing the Fed Ex drop-off. The most exciting, stopping at the humane society to see Az the Cat. Construction on 53rd street, machines and mostly men digging long ditches along the road to put in new water lines. Then, at Safeway, all their credit card machines are down. I drop off the latest prescription—this for an ointment for my rosacea because, in order to take it on the airplane, I now need the prescription with my name on. Don't you love this War on Terra?
Back road, dirt road to Fed Ex, past fields with rectangles of stacked hay, sheep, the guy on the corner of Airport Road with a dozen or more bicycles fastened to his chain link fence—a political statement? art? At Fed Ex, the woman agrees all this fuss about hair gel and cosmetics is a foolish waste of time. At the shelter, Az has been moved to the sick room because he's caught a cold. Melanie lets me catch a glimpse of him and he appears to be a sweet boy. I fill out the paperwork, read about why the previous owner surrendered him (allergies but they have three other cats, what is that?) and take another tour of the ridiculous and hyperactive kittens hanging from bungees in their cages in the cattery. Downtown and Safeway again where debit cards work and I buy the rest of the pitiful ingredients for the B.L.T. that is to be my belated lunch. Finally, I make my way home. Where I've been ever since, puttering, reading movie reviews and adding films to our Netflix queue, finding out the dates/times for Spike Lee's HBO movie When the Levees Broke, reading haiku and the newest New Yorker, taking a nap, listening to Randi rant on Air America, sending e-mails, watching the hummingbirds come to the fuchsia hanging baskets, filling the bird feeder, the bird bath, releasing the dead mouse from the under-sick trap into the compost, hauling recyclable glass in the pickup up the hill where I also get the mail, cooking two ears of sweet corn for my appetizer/dinner, interacting with Ping and his various meowings which seem to involve wanting doors open, water running, or treats. Who now rests in a furry curl on the nearby ottoman and it's all of seven PM.
Letting a day happen, is that what it is I've done? After some back-and-forth debate about whether I really wanted to see The Devil Wears Prada enough to head back down the hill and interact with strangers at the Regal Cinema until I realized I preferred a nap and the answer was thus no. The clean laundry folded, the bed changed, the new cotton sheets tucked. Watering the kitchen orchid, the front door foyer cyclamen. Peeling the corn over the compost so I can immediately throw the husks in. Pressing the normal button to start the dishwasher. Filling a brown cone with coffee so that another day can begin with the simple turning of a button from off to on.
And through all this I thought about death. Why? Because of worries I've squandered yet another too-precious, never-again day? Thought, as I have many times, of what is there to fear, everything must face this, every one, even the great ones, Einstein came to mind, who knows why? And what does it matter if it's like sleep or something else, because it's done and over and what was my life but this record, these words, my pitiful or not so pitiful attempt to tell the story of what I saw, what I lived, my window on the world from my self?
Another haiku from Issa:
Fiftieth birthday:
From now on,
it's all clear profit,
every sky.