Blog

It was a dreary day yesterday when I wrote this blog in the apartment. Perfect for writing. This Japanese maple in the front yard reminds me of going off in all directions. That is me right now. Yesterday I made banana bread and this quiche for dinner. When it says to put the asparagus in first, do it, the ham and cheese cubes will prevent it from floating to the top.

I did my drawings a day,

He, every night

sleeps in this pull on sweatshirt

and stays in bed.

These are boxer shorts

folded to fit in the drawer

of Lee’s underwear.

We are enjoying having our son here. I am getting more done. He is now in my office in the house doing some work time. It is cloudy and Lee and the caregiver just paid a visit to me in the apartment. This piece came out of that visit and our conversation.

Home Intruders

Other people are living here.

Their names are,

That Other Guy,

The Big One,

The Bad Guy.

I look out the window.

No Sun.

That’s how these strangers

get in the house

and take up residence.

They need clouds,

greyness,

not the dark of night,

but greyness.

Then they show up.

Staying until

I can convince

not just them to leave,

but the one remaining

that they are gone.

I also had time to work on an introduction to the book titled, “Trusting the Tether Line”. And two more poems for it besides the one above. I think twenty poems would be enough. Maybe two from before that fit the content.

Here is another one from yesterday,

His Work Gloves

Once he gets the gloves on his hands

the memory floods into his fingers.

Now it is time to get to work.

Find a yard tool,

no matter that it might be a shovel

when the rake is needed.

Anything will do as the wrists move

back and forth, up and down,

taking direction from the fingers

who were told by the gloves.

And from this morning working in the shop with Patrick.

Til later….

Lee and I gathered more sticks for the jug on the table. They are somewhat red and are my only nod to Christmas decorating. Bit meager, right?

I just do not want to trigger a sadness of it being Christmas and not having his family here. Our son may arrive but it depends on Covid testing and there is no way I want Lee waiting in the driveway, so I keep that part quiet.

Today I ordered Lee another pair of sweat pants and a nice flannel shirt. He will stay warm. I ordered for myself some new make-up designed to make old ladies look like better looking old ladies. I will let you know if it works.

It is nice being here in the apartment writing. Thoughts come easier and words flow off the point of pen.

I can hear Lee outside with his leaf blower. His caregiver keeps him occupied and he so loves being outside picking up leaves. He now has at least eight buckets of leaves stored in the garage. He is keeping them for something. Sometimes things are a secret and he worries I might throw them over the bank. I did that last week but now it is important not to. He has one half of the garage to store those leaves since we gave his truck away to the folk school. He sweeps them up, puts them in buckets and then stacks the buckets up. He has such a sense of order now that I can attest was not there before.

And we now have this at his end of the table.

The care giver thought he needed something to do inside so I got out this box of very old blocks and put them in a bowl that he turned several years ago. Now they can sit and build and spell if the weather keeps him inside.

Some new writings for the tether book….

Two Hours

Two hours into sleep he is up,

ready to start the day.

Back in bed, he falls asleep.

Two hours later he is up again.

She yells, “No!”

He yells back.

They lay awake wondering how

to deal with that stranger

on the other side of the bed,

and drift off.

In the morning he has forgotten.

And she feels guilty.

And because things change…

Making Choices

A former friend says,

“You have become so nice,

so understanding, so considerate

and thoughtful in your new role

as carer for one with dementia.”

As if it was a choice.

My response….

“It is my job!”

And because she must have thought

I lacked those qualities before……….

I draw each day…now hats.

Now I am drawing

all our hats hanging around

waiting to be worn.

An Australian hat

one of two I bought for Lee

brown leather cowhide.

And I started stitching on the fox.

That is probably enough for today…

Time to pack up here at the apartment and head home.

Til later….

PS Our son tested negative for Covid so will be here Saturday. Lee will be so happy!

I like this near empty bowl. It held so many days of colorful leaves just a short while ago. Now look at it. Some leaves, a hunk of wood, some lichen and an old rusty drill bit. It is like a little short story of interesting characters that were left to keep each other company. I thought about giving them the toss but am not ready. Not yet.

More thought is going into doing the small book of dementia poems. I know how it would be illustrated….a tether line in soft graphite that the reader follows through the pages…sometimes it is slack, other times stretched thin. And broken, and tied back up, and full of knots and frayed…but it finds its way through the pages and past each poem.

I will resist making the book accordion style even though it lends itself to one continuous piece of rope. There will be more poems than what would be wieldy in that form.

And poetry is so vertical! It would have to be similar to the last poetry book I made, “Distance Matters”. That one worked well with all those woodcuts made to fit the format. It will be a dilemma because the words want to be vertical and the tether wants horizontal. There is no way to have the tether vertical without looking like it is hanging….not a connotation I want…that’s for sure.

And poetry stanzas don’t look right side by side. That is a bit like taking the Empire State Building and making it into two adjacent high rise apartment buildings.

Plus you can only have one poem per page. Some will fill the page, others won’t. I think the tether line needs to run along the bottom of every page…maybe the longer poem pages is where it gets stretched thin or breaks to let the words in.

Here are two shorter ones I wrote two days ago and today.

Going to Town

He is the passenger.

I have buckled him in,

turned up the heat,

and backed out of the garage.

We are going to town.

There are lots of curves

to go around.

He grabs an imaginary wheel

to help me steer.

Before long we both are making

squealing, screeching noises,

and arrive laughing

and safe at our destination.

The Well

I tie on another length of rope

and lower the bucket deeper

into our well of memories.

We wait for the splash

as it sinks in the darkness.

I hold on tight and count to three

before pulling it back to the surface.

Together we peer into the stillness.

He watches and waits

for me to tell him

what it is

and when it was.

Anyway, I will draw some images of the tether line to use when I get it all figured out. The main thing is to keep writing for now.

And speaking of drawing, here are the last two gloves. This morning I started on hats…fifteen more pages to go and I can move onto my new book without the haiku and maybe a bit of color.

I will be back….