Insomnia

I found a basket filled with odds and ends as Robyn and I cleaned out Mom's closet last weekend. I took it to the car and didn't get around to clearing it out until yesterday. There were all sorts of pictures: an old one of my Grandma Jones standing by my cousins' bunk bed looking quizzical, pictures of my 22 year old Mom holding me as an infant, a picture of Caitlin at about six, leaning her head against my Dad - already gaunt from ALS, pictures of some of the troubled children my mother taught when I was a kid, a picture of Mom at the zoo joyously spreading her arms in front of an eagle exhibit, "prom" pictures of Mom and her friend Ruth at the first old folks home, all dressed up and looking cynical about it. In the basket were years worth of buttons from 15 years of Woman Art/Woman Fair, the exhibition for which Mom worked tirelessly, a set of terrycloth bunny ears, a pin made of a fan-folded dollar bill and plastic flowers, an antique tortoise shell box with unmatched costume jewelry from my Grandmother Thompson, and a good deal of cat hair.

Mom sat and made disjointed small talk with us as we worked our way through the closet, entirely in the moment, one moment at a time. Her last cat, Freckles, went on a one way trip to the vet the week before. One's minutes must be connected to each other for one to notice such things. To Mom the cats are under the bed or in the closet. They'll be out soon.

My mother was a very bright, accomplished woman, immensely generous and understanding and yet proud and aloof, "keeper of secrets," my Aunt says. She raised me with great generosity of spirit and understanding, much forgiveness and a good deal of humor. Now the edifice she occupied is largely untenanted. What remains are manners, the sort of wit that can be captured in thirty seconds, memories strung together at random. She sleeps. She looks out the window, seeing I know not what.

I saw clients this morning and into the early afternoon and the time flew by. It's satisfying work and people are interesting. I came home and found myself exhausted. I took a nap, had supper, and took another nap. Now that everyone else has gone to bed I find myself alone with my thoughts and this keyboard. It's hard to avoid mortality on nights like this. I wonder what will become of us and our busy lives, how we will end up, what will be left of us.

Mom planned for her retirement and had plenty to live on. I fear we have not planned enough or taken enough care to assure security in twenty years. But what good does all this planning do? What good is a hedge against a random future? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, when all there really is is today. After our fecklessness, we may win the lotto, and my Mother, for all her care saw her well fashioned planning carried away, box by box, down to the last cat, the last basket.

As I sailed over the handlebars of my bicycle this Summer, I didn't consider that I could die. I said "Oh, no!" and didn't have time to put my hands forward to save my face. I thought I had broken my nose (I had not).

A few weeks ago, we paddled the Upper Iowa sipping beers and feeling very lucky on such a lovely day. Each minute connected with another downstream, revealing more November beauty, another gift. I felt very lucky for many reasons. Now I'm thinking of my mother, her long arms spread wide, imitating an eagle and smiling impossibly wide, her long fingers stretching. She is upstream somewhere and I miss her.

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