Shirley

Stopping in the other day at our local refugee resettlement office , I saw familiar faces in the lobby—a pair of young men I’d just met in class, very new. In the workroom I ran off more lesson materials, as I’ve often done. Like there’s still a tomorrow. Then out through the lobby I went, again passing the men, one of whom now had a baby in his arms, adorable, and made my way through the still icy parking lot to my car. Now that the flights to the U.S. have stopped, the office’s orientation sessions and English classes, held at a downtown church, will shut down. Quota cutting, you understand, is nothing new. Programs have ground to a standstill before. Uncertainty is a constant. Still, for anyone mired, stranded, menaced, it’s torture. In recent weeks, what a bubbling pot of newcomers—Congo born, Sudan, South Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Uganda. (The other day, represented in class were 12 languages.) What grace and dignity in those faces. Soon the children will ...

I just think the grabbers and wreckers don’t quite realize their sad end. Far as they can tell, they’re invincible. But every last one of us will one day molder in the grave. We’ll endure debilitating old age, if we get that far—helpless as babies, dependent upon the mercies of the caregivers, or jailers—and then we’ll curl up like washed-up worms and die. What can the bullies be thinking, throwing around their weight, wreaking this havoc? What’s the point?

Futility When the bones go softy spongy    and the mind mushy mushes    and the eyes rheum and float    and the ears cease drumming drumming    and all one’s spunk and gumption rolleth down to the sea.      who’s to keep things perfect like a picture? Why be pinching off and pruning    and rerooting and repooting    and sprinkling sprinkling sprinkling    if the silly sills shall then sit stark and stripped? If what matters doesn’t matter,    why so picky picky picky?    so priggedy, pickledy, prickledy?    so hickety snickety biggety?    

Small questions (or bigger), #4   Is this better? Does the pot help? I thought I might throw out my Christmas cactus. Too humdrum, or something. Then if it ever bloomed, the problem would be the exact opposite. The plant would drip all all over with those fake little garish pink trumpets. Then I found this pot. Maybe the glitz will put the trumpets in their place, tone down the pomp . Set them back, some. They’ll not dazzle so. They’ll seem a tiny bit plain Jane, even ordinary, reduced to struggling like we normals do to keep our heads about us i n this weirdly glammed, flamboyant culture. This baldfacedness — the power grabbers strutting their stuff, shamelessly. Though, people’ve always thought the world’s going to pot.            

Small questions (or bigger), #3   Is the play —my revision—any good? People are coming for a reading Friday night, to listen and maybe critique, or maybe for the ice cream. I’ll have pencils ready, and notepads, in case they deem it dreadful and have the decency to tell me, or else are humored enough to say so. A person has to know how ridiculous she’s being, trying to stage a thing. Some nerve it takes, putting one’s work out for the world. Note to Bill and Lois—standing in for Chuck & Franny—and musicians Kathleen and David: I’m scraping the ground in wonderment. P.S. to you four: We practiced enough, right? But if we flop it’s okay, right?    

Small questions (or bigger), #2   The roasted-dog movie our grandkids made, back when—how demented was that? ( Here’s what brought it to mind.) Don’t miss, right at the end, Third-to-Oldest’s little lambie.   

Small questions (or bigger), #1   Lots of times, my coffee, driplets trickle down the side I’m sipping from. I can’t seem to wrap my mouth around right. Is there something wrong with my lips? What did Queen Elizabeth do? Did she leave little lipsy traces of tea on the cups?

The man is a whole magic show in himself. Maybe I’ll say more about that later. For now, here’s this. Post World War II, in Germany, Werner Herzog and his brother Till were constantly famished. Their mother fed them dandelion leaves. For a stand-in for sugar, she made a syrup from pine shoots. A week’s supply of bread was one “longish” loaf she bought with ration coupons, which she scratched lines into with a knife to indicates each day’s allotment. “My deepest memory of my mother,” writes Herzog, “burned into my brain, is a moment when my brother and I were clutching at her skirts, whimpering with hunger. With a sudden jolt, she freed herself, spun round, and she had a face full of an anger and despair that I have never seen before or since. She said, perfectly calmly: ‘Listen, boys, if I could cut it out of my ribs, I would cut it out of my ribs, but I can’t. All right?’ At that moment we learned not to wail.” Herzog concludes, “The so-called culture of complaint disgusts me.” So...

It’s time I tell Susan what I think. I had no idea her book was out until she told me, and now that I’ve been dipping into it I have a few words, myself. It’s like I have a little bit of her here—her gentleness, her pained and joyous eye for this world, her mystery, the pungency in her voice. Reading, I’m pulled up short, jolted. Sometimes I’m baffled to no end. She starts a lengthy piece, “Boston,” like this: I hope you see / all you busy bussy fucky cars / all you honkey-tonk grey-stiped people / all you worn-out washed-out nature / all you trashy crimey alleys / I hope you all see / that here I am / and I will do the same / for you. Could there be a more lucid view, one taken by a non inhabitant, avoider of cities? Her love for the rural—the native, the primeval—imbues Susan’s every sight. What to make, I wonder, of “Transformation”? I have seen purses made of swans’ feet and salmon skin / parkas made of seal intestines / Two-hundred pound fish with both eyes on top of their head...

My turn at fainting, I’d gotten an mRNA shot. I was a bit on the blink. I stood up too fast and turned woozy. Heading for the sofa, dizzier, I reached for the bookshelf and tried hard as I could to hold on, but the swirling in my brain, the swimminess—oooh— I woke to the sound of puzzle pieces sliding in their boxes. Near me on the floor were toppled books. The stinkbug mug lay on its side, spilled. The bookshelf was leaning drunkenly. I crawled to the door—Paulson was out in the shop. I need you! I yelled. He yelled back, “I’m gluing!” I crawled back to the living room, number two on the priority list, and meekly w aited. The shelf is now bolted to the wall. It would take an earthquake, the wall’s collapse, for the shelf and the stud to part ways. Or somebody bombing us. Also I know now to slide to the floor right away should the vertigo again hit. Not cling to the nearest thing for dear life, stupidly, and bring the world crashing down.    

And what is this fainting business? He didn’t feel right, he told me afterwards. I’m talking about several weeks ago. Around the corner from him, in the kitchen, I missed it. He went to stand up, he said, but he sat back down. Then his head must’ve laid itself down on the desk. When he came to he felt a little sick. The other time, how long ago, early morning, I saw it happen. He’d just taken his raisins? peanuts? from the pantry. Crossing back toward the sink, he grabbed for the counter, or maybe the drawer knob. I watched him buckle and pitch lightly—sort of roll—onto the floor, on his back. He lay there dead, except not dead, because he was still breathing. I got down beside him and tried to wake him. It was awful. It wasn’t like he was having a snooze. Then his eyelids flapped and the swarthiness and heat came back into his face. The at-the-desk episode, at least he resurrected himself. After he told our daughter about it she emailed a link to a crazy goats video. Jennifer:...

“Maybe you should take it easy when you’re sick,” I said, my voice going high and scoldy. He had a fever. We’d canceled the dinner guests. He went out anyway and pulled up a couple of little bee-bee trees and hacked at some greenbrier nests. Greenbrier, no matter the season—October, this was—is the worst kind of mess, snaggletoothed and jungly. “It’s awful stuff,” he said, back inside. The greenbrier, he meant. He put the thermometer in his mouth. Sniffing, he waited for the beeps. “Oh. 101.9. No wonder I’m dragging.” Planted on the sofa, too wasted, he had to let his noodle soup wait. Tell me, isn’t it better for a person coming down with something to crumple at the first chance like I do? Not tax himself? I don’t understand. He’s fuzzed in the head and bleary and he just goes out and ratchets up the torture.    

Post End-of-December Invasion Everybody back home again, again the mopping-up time. These invasions, always the same mountains. The same lot-of-towels, the same sheets, the same-heads-crumpled pillowslips. The same small, worn-dirty, left-behind items too, typically foot-shaped and maybe not even missed, as there’s always more where they came from. Not that the washer sat empty the long week long. Gracious no. I doubt you’d want my machine. The agitator thing is missing. When it broke, Paulson wanted to replace it. But I said no. I liked the roomier tub, no center paddles jutting up. Using a plain old plunger, I could give the loads my personal attention, whatever drubbing they deserved. It’s been years now. There’s a certain satisfaction, is all. Nobody seems to understand. The glorious suds and slosh-sloshing water, the shirtsleeves and pant legs lapping and entwining—what’s not to love? This time Grandgirl requested a turn. Sure, honey.