Loose Ends

Thank god I made a list. Saw TR, asked him to field any queries about where I was. Got a book on tape, got out the atlas and reviewed a route I've taken a great many times; but mostly wandered around in a daze. The drive will settle me. Stopped at B's and asked him to pick up my mail. Came home and packed a couple of changes of clothes. Froze a couple of food items, cleaned out the fridge. Sis said Mom was in denial that Dad was dying. I told her we could have that conversation when I got down there. If I leave tomorrow morning I can be down there by Friday evening. Length of stay is open-ended. I'd like to get over to Tallahassee and see Kim, but I expect I would be wretched company. It's a hard rain. When the going gets difficult, what I want is a cave and firewood. B said he'd help me with firewood; to do what I needed to do, which is to placate the filial bullshit that accrues, nephews and such. I need to and go and sleep.

Couldn't send that, because the phone was out; just got back and the phone is still out. Finishing the drive back home today (I spent the night in Norton, Virginia), no book on tape, no radio, it was all I could do to pay attention to the traffic. I drove late in the dusk yesterday, to get past the spread of cities, deep into Kentucky, stopping at every turn-off to roll a smoke and gather myself back together. It's odd and difficult for me to meet and talk with so many people in so short a period of time: all the health care workers and hospice nurses, family members (are your nephew's kids also nephews? if that's the case we need another word), the dozens of strange clerks, the friends of family that wanted to meet me (this is the guy? the hermit writer?), and all the extras; plus considering hospice as an industry, and viewing the ways in which the physical landscape had changed since my last trip down. One of the hospice nurses was male, had served a hitch in the navy as a corpsman, and wanted to set his family up, outside of town, in a more self-sufficient mode. We had nice conversation. When people are dying a natural death, they sleep a lot. Many hospice nurses solve the various puzzles that appear in daily newspapers, anything to pass the time. I couldn't stay any longer. I was very comfortable, realized I hadn't stayed with my sister, lived in her house, ever, except that once, in Michigan, when I found a lot of mushrooms. We went through all of the photographs our parents had collected over the years. I'd forgotten most of that stuff. Fair to say I'm not sentimental, which doesn't mean I don't care. The less said the better. Come butter come. I liked making Mona smile. She was a tough one, raised in Idaho. We exchanged rabbit recipes, which is a kind of flirting. Last night, when I realized I wasn't paying enough attention, I got a motel room, so I could take a bath and shave. A sibilance of order. Ate some cheese crackers and a protein bar. Everything prepares you for the end. Dad is in tough shape, but he refuses the morphine whenever he's fully aware in the moment; Mom has become as ornery as an old mule, like her mother before her, though, heaven forbid, anyone should mention that. Sis bakes cakes for the patients and the staff, and still manages to cook for the extended family. She's the solid center in the chaos of passing. I tell stories, recounting the past, and make everyone laugh; it's a ploy, but everyone understands that. Roy Blount, Jr. at a Faulknerian wake. I'm up to speed on this, a role I've prepared for my entire life. There was a breakfast room, at the motel this morning, some construction workers and several sets of travelers; I got one of everything, went back to my room, and watched the weather channel. The load is carried through the members. I get back, and I've been gone for only a week, the light is different, the leaves, let me count the ways; and I can only barely assimilate what anything means. "If thou weepest not now, wherefor wilt thou weep?" Dante. Culture shock for me; people, traffic, and the chaotic onslaught of information. I can't process everything. There's a new stretch of Interstate, through the 'mountains' of eastern Virginia (thirty three hundred feet}, that is incredibly beautiful. I stopped at the overlook both going and coming back, sat at a picnic table and rolled a smoke, looked out over thousands of acres of trees, undulating into the distance. Fall, like sleep, is the little death. Color runs like a ripple over ancient rolling hills. On the return stop, a state cop joins me; I roll him a cigaret (he wondered what I was smoking) and we talked about elk hunting. His ambition had always been to be a Park Ranger, out west somewhere, but he had jumped at the chance to be a state police officer, the uniform, the gun, the fast car; and now he patrolled this stretch of road, a gem of engineering, not that far from his upbringing. He recommended that I stop in Big Stone Gap, at Betty's Place, and have a dish of blackberry cobbler, which I did, of course. Betty was long dead but I talked with her daughter, Patricia (Pat) for nearly an hour about cobblers in general. We agreed on a lightly sugared biscuit top crust. She swears her peach cobbler would reduce me to tears. Being emotionally labile, I'm sure that's true.