Cleaning in the time of Cancer and Covid

Today I excavate my bedside table

This is where I sleep,
and eat,
and chat
and watch movies
and sew
and write…
this is where I live

it is a mountain.

In the process, I find a missing earring
3 lotions
2 hot mustard packets
An exacto knife,
Two toenail clippers
A seam ripper
and an embarrassment of candy wrappers

I can tell I’ve taken no joy in my home

Not for some time

I bake hard loaves and dry soup

Survival is what it is, this load, this mass, this monster

It’s doing the barely…
doing the barely, just to be able to move in the space I occupy

It is eating dry shredded wheat
Next to boxes of fruit loops

my 3 year old grandson is dying of cancer
and the whole world has ended

•nothing is easy
•nothing is right
•nothing will ever be the same.

i brought them a meal yesterday, wanting desperately to bring them relief

but,

•My soul is a mess
•The world is a mess
•My home is a mess

I’m not surprised, nor am I shaming myself,
at least not right now.
But maybe,
maybe when I get to the pantry
and find 7 cans of beans from 2017
then appropriate shame will come and scarf my face

.

in this long while

nothing but 3 things mattered

like the angels that languished on the head of small needles,
my vision glaucomed,
developed blind spots,
except for
•my small family
•my new vocation
•and my dogs

I repress no shame that friends didn’t make the list.
Nope that’s alive and well and growing at sourdough rates…
mmmm, shame; it starts, it grows, it bubbles and bakes

but
in my own defense
I found myself under a ME mountain,
with no bright extroversion to span the days, the weeks, the months to friends

Not that my real friends expect me to play act.
That’s all me.
I am my own expository writer, director, costumer.
I just prefer to write comedy over tragedy

except

comedy demands energy

and that

is what began to be missing nearly 2 years ago

and grew the mountains

the emotional mountains show themselves here today
in the pile of wrappers and bobby pins, pens, prayers and pennies

the mountain range has expanded throughout my home now too:
•by the frenetic front door
•in the dead studio
•the muffled closet

big mountains of…

mourning and fear and sorrow

looking back,

when exhaustion became heavier than my coat,
it became impossible to hang the coat up.
when the hyena pack of dishes in the sink bellowed,
my ears turned numb.
when worry became bigger than the sun,
the dust grew behind the curtains.

People tell me to paint.

No

i don’t paint now

for the same reason I don’t socialize now

how could I do that to those I love?
I commune with my brush and canvas

I love them, caress them, woo them

I can woo nothing now

.

I know I am fortunate

•loving my work

•loving the people

•loving the mission making

there is a perfect sanity in it
perfect duty and diversion, purpose and satisfaction

but even that now…
I cannot be what they need

Like hard bread and dry soup, I’m an unappetizing mountain

Eh, of course we keep going

.

I’ve forgotten just why.