Tuesday, January 31, 2012

words.


i spent yesterday flat on my back, in and out of consciousness with a fever and chills and visions.

with so much time to just lie around and do nothing other than wait for UPS or for the tylenol to kick in, my mind went a million miles an hour, perhaps contributing to my already throbbing headache. i thought about the year thus far and whether or not i've been realizing my goals. i wondered if automating all of my expenses from an expense account would make me save money. i considered the possibilities of re-using CX-Ray spokes, and whether or not to continue the tubular tire dream. i wondered if i would ever warm up. or cool down. or stop sweating. or start.

today, i am (somewhat) human again. i went to work. i yelled at people. apparently i was not the only one feeling a bit off. other people had yelled at other people and we were all, apparently in the same boat of madmen and madwomen. fine by me. too bad i can't swim better.

my grandmother recently fell and broke her hip. my parents are stretching themselves beyond everything to take care of her, complementary to hospital care, and the best i could do was bring the girls by for a 15 minute visit (after the requisite 3.5h drive in shite weather) and write her a letter.

my uncle has a daughter who is my cousin but i've not known her since she was in diapers and i used to take her to the pool and swish her around and feed her lunch and take the dogs out. my cousin has some kind of undiagnosed condition that seems to be ruining her life, and in a physically painful, but physically incurable, way. this is criminal. i wrote my uncle a letter.

i read a short story excerpt by shirley jackson today, about mrs. strangeworthy, who writes terrible, incriminating, suggestive, instigation letters, anonymously, while living her outwardly socially perfect life in a small town. i don't want my letters to be like that. her letters were hurtful and harmful and misinformation and shame.

it seems, however, that my most powerful effect these days is that as realized in verbs and vowels and consonants and contractions. i'm sure i should act more, and write less, but my actions yield little, or are inhibited by myriad other obligations, while my words, well, they're mine and i'll do with them everything i can.

there's nothing to write, of course, on this last day of january of this new year. there are dishes to do and wheels to build and that's where we go from here.

1 comment:

  1. I hope you are feeling better, friend. january is always a tough, tough month, even with more sunshine than usual. maybe that groundhog will emerge from his hole in the ground tomorrow, with a pint of Guinness in hand, and tell us that we're all in for much happier times, instead of whether or not spring will come early.

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