Foster Care

The radio is driving me crazy, so I turn it off, flip the breaker on the fridge, sit in dead silence and listen to the blood coursing through my veins. Not a bad strategy. In an aural hallucination I often hear songs I recognize, Greg Allman or Mississippi John Hurt. I sit very still and listen to the wind in the trees. By ten or twelve I was already who I was, I could have been raised by wolves in a cave, not to diminish that I was raised in a functional, loving family, but I left that life as soon as I could, struck out to discover the world, because my interests were never the same as the people I was raised among. I talked with my sister at length tonight, about our parents in hospice, and she was dealing with that. She does it all, my brother is off surfing, and I'm 500 miles away, so she takes them to doctor appointments and buys them toothpaste. I couldn't do it. My capacity for compassion is limited, I'm too distracted to be a "care giver", but the good news is that Mom is comfortable in hospice, she likes the way people treat her, but she, and my father more so, hate the food. To be expected, you take a legendary southern cook and make them eat someone else's cooking, and nothing is going to be quite right. I can cook for Mom but it's a struggle and I never make her anything she ever fixed for me, except biscuits and cornbread, which I do exactly as she taught me, though they're not quite up to the standard. Which always seems to be over the next ridge. She'd like the pot-roast sandwich at the pub, otherwise, she's pretty picky. Nothing is ever quite good enough. They're both very frail. I think about them for awhile, can't not. Finally snap that train of thought, wrote for several hours. Had to do the laundry, the house smelled of dirty socks (I could prevent this, I know, but it reminds me to do the laundry) and stopped at Kroger for a few things, my turkey pot pie, for Thanksgiving, and a bottle of whiskey. Bought several protein shakes and smoothies that were remaindered, and the makings for a soup, I have everything for cornbread. Eating is cheaper for me, in winter, because I eat mostly roots and beans, and I don't mind eating the same thing several times, if it's good. Nice to know there's a pot of soup in the fridge; leftover corn sticks, heated in the toaster over, with butter, are one of the greatest things ever. A dessert corn stick, smeared with apple butter, is sinful. When I can get pure sorghum molasses, the last biscuit or corn stick was always drizzled with that, an earthy sweetness unlike honey.