It's not crazy, it's just non-sequential
"And hey, I love you." He said before we hung up. That's good. I love you too. He hadn't said that in a while and I was wondering.
Earlier: I look around the dining room and look again at all the lives that fill up the room. People who can't feed themselves, who can't talk or who just can't make any sense. Who loved them? Who did they worry about when they were twenty-six?
I look down at Ruth, who I'm sitting catty-corner to at a little table in the corner of the room. Ruth is one of my favorites, because she doesn't make any sense but she'll answer your questions anyway. She looks at me with trust. She can't use her left arm and always sits sort of hunched up in her wheelchair, with her tiny legs pulled up tight. Right now she's spreading vanilla ice cream on her pants with a knife as if it were peanut butter on bread. She always wears floppy red hats and prefers to make art out of her food than eat it. Once I told her she was like a little bird, and she smiled in a rare moment of cohesiveness and said that if she was a little bird she would fly away from here. Where would you fly? I asked her. I would fly home, she said.
Old age is so much less intimidating to me now. Because a story might sound sad from the outside, but rarely does it strike you that way when it's your own world. Because by the time you've reached that age, you know how to take it one moment at a time. Maybe you're not in the same moment as everyone else, but you're coping.
How old are you, Mary? We asked. Mary shook her head. I don't, she said. You're ninety-eight, Mary, said Janet. Ninety-eight, said Mary, I'm ninety-eight. Ninety-eight. I told him, he should have combed his hair, she said.
I think they actually remember everything, but not in any order. As if time has been eliminated and every little thing that ever happened is now being sprinkled from a salt shaker and anything might come out at any time.
the end.
Earlier: I look around the dining room and look again at all the lives that fill up the room. People who can't feed themselves, who can't talk or who just can't make any sense. Who loved them? Who did they worry about when they were twenty-six?
I look down at Ruth, who I'm sitting catty-corner to at a little table in the corner of the room. Ruth is one of my favorites, because she doesn't make any sense but she'll answer your questions anyway. She looks at me with trust. She can't use her left arm and always sits sort of hunched up in her wheelchair, with her tiny legs pulled up tight. Right now she's spreading vanilla ice cream on her pants with a knife as if it were peanut butter on bread. She always wears floppy red hats and prefers to make art out of her food than eat it. Once I told her she was like a little bird, and she smiled in a rare moment of cohesiveness and said that if she was a little bird she would fly away from here. Where would you fly? I asked her. I would fly home, she said.
Old age is so much less intimidating to me now. Because a story might sound sad from the outside, but rarely does it strike you that way when it's your own world. Because by the time you've reached that age, you know how to take it one moment at a time. Maybe you're not in the same moment as everyone else, but you're coping.
How old are you, Mary? We asked. Mary shook her head. I don't, she said. You're ninety-eight, Mary, said Janet. Ninety-eight, said Mary, I'm ninety-eight. Ninety-eight. I told him, he should have combed his hair, she said.
I think they actually remember everything, but not in any order. As if time has been eliminated and every little thing that ever happened is now being sprinkled from a salt shaker and anything might come out at any time.
the end.
posted by sarah at 9:52 PM
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