Woe is me. Today I joined the ranks of those with fillings. Having ignored my historically healthy teeth for some fifteen years, except, of course, for being very faithful about brushing my tooth, I went in for a dental exam last week. For several years around the time of my birth, Ronald D Wells, D.D.S. had a practice on Jefferson Street in Dallas then he followed his love of sailing to the West Coast in the late Seventies. He allowed I have good teeth but would require a deep (local anesthetic required) cleaning to keep my gums healthy hereafter, assuming my annual appearance for a cleaning. Today, however, on my second and final deep cleaning appointment he located a cavity which required filling and took care of it while he was in there. No more is my dental record spotless because my faithful brush (which should be used for only two months, by the way, before being replaced) cannot easily get past the part of another tooth that protrudes a bit to the side.
Hereafter I begin yearly cleaning appointments, regular flossing, and small circular (bristle tips stay put rather than traveling in large circular scrubbing movements) brushing with a much more recent teethbrush.
Probably more than you wanted to know about my mouth, but there you are. | posted by Unknown @ 1/31/2007 01:17:00 PM
Hereafter I begin yearly cleaning appointments, regular flossing, and small circular (bristle tips stay put rather than traveling in large circular scrubbing movements) brushing with a much more recent teethbrush.
Probably more than you wanted to know about my mouth, but there you are. | posted by Unknown @ 1/31/2007 01:17:00 PM
Pathetic, perfect, twisted? Hard to say.
| posted by Unknown @ 1/28/2007 01:44:00 AM
Haven't decided if I'll do this or pay these people anything yet. Just thinking with my mouse. Wanting something to wear so I can stop explaining, which also gives me back the tiniest part of one of the most important images in my experience. Or not. Probably futile compensation anyway. Maybe I'll improve it and try again. Dunno
Waking to absence
This bed, on which my eyes blink
That window, before which we filled the birthing tub
That door, closed now as it was then every morning
But now poorly concealing a room
empty forever
not of things but of life.
All these things have lost their purpose.
I begin every morning with death.
My son rose in need of me and
being loved in that way
the world was rich with feeling and depth.
Delicious.
Now
previously forgivable pettiness gives third degree burns
soft and precious spirit wealth is ancient basement must
the most deeply satisfying is at best reminiscent of comfort
and the morning is not dark enough
but flat and angular
sepia
rent and pathetically taped
one image of a time that was too happy
in the end
| posted by Unknown @ 1/25/2007 01:46:00 PM
Looking over my shoulder at my laptop screen:
"What a beautiful child!"
Possible response:
"He's dead."
Actual response:
"Thank you." [followed by hoping pathetically that this will be the end]
Actual follow-up:
"How old is he?"
If my life were a film (and isn't it, after all?) the audience flinches as one body, whether for the poor unsuspecting friendly stranger about to Get the News or for the Poor Grieving Father - hard to say. Probably for both.
But NO! Saved by the ringtone! It's Chris Wicke calling from Texas, having just Heard The News and ready to be his excellent and supportive self.
"Excuse me, I need to get this..."
Thanks, Chris.
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| posted by Unknown @ 1/24/2007 03:31:00 PM
One month to the day.
By yesterday night I felt stomped. No...
In retrospect I realize I may have subconsciously been fortifying myself against today.
I got up earlier than I have been, around the time Aidan used to get me up, and fixed Lisa breakfast. As Lisa was leaving I stood at the top of the stairs, just like when he was here and pulling n the gate and my pant legs to get closer to his Mama. Not long thereafter Iris came and walked up the stairs, just like when she would come to offer child care.
Normalcy?
Damn. | posted by Unknown @ 1/12/2007 02:04:00 PM
By yesterday night I felt stomped. No...
Worse.
I felt Riverdanced.
In retrospect I realize I may have subconsciously been fortifying myself against today.
I got up earlier than I have been, around the time Aidan used to get me up, and fixed Lisa breakfast. As Lisa was leaving I stood at the top of the stairs, just like when he was here and pulling n the gate and my pant legs to get closer to his Mama. Not long thereafter Iris came and walked up the stairs, just like when she would come to offer child care.
Normalcy?
Damn. | posted by Unknown @ 1/12/2007 02:04:00 PM
Making it past
After I drove Lisa to work this morning, and then returned home to the circle of our driveway, there it was. Our rented, modest square of dumped rocks surrounded by thick layers of asphalt and baked by brilliant sunshine. Aidan loved it, oblivious to our years of making fun of such a miserable excuse for a front yard.
Evey week Leon came so the three of us and then the two of them could spend the day together. Aidan would return to the top of the stairs over and over, clearly requesting a trip out into the sunshine, to pick up and throw rock after rock or carry them about and leave them everywhere. He left them for me to find still, in the back seat and doors of the car, in my dresser drawers where I had left them after forgetting I pocketed one discovered far afield. Leon's trips with Aidan were absolutely faithful, regular, and reached even further through buses to local parks - anywhere green life could be found and safely touched by a one-year-old. He would even take Aidan back outside again on a given day, if Aidan requested it.
Not so much with me. I guess I am still waiting to begin really showing him the world.
I have a hard time making it past the front yard.
Today I didn't make it. The brilliant sun flashed the brilliant son on the mind's-eye of my heart and dropped me to my knees by the rocks. I couldn't get up, really, so I simply sat, squinting into the past and the future at the same time, seeing him and lacking him profoundly. And tossing rocks. Not far. Just to the edge of his range - as far as he would ever throw anything. Until a neighbor came home to circle our drive and I fled indoors where there is no need to cry and explain at the same time.
I don't know what I can do.
Who will look up and out and see everything differently? Who will stare raptly at what others find ugly or at best profoundly common and see fascinating fragments of this instant from which to build the future? Who will clutch my arms and legs with amazing, unapologetic strength, and claim and change parts of me for climbing and for comfort? Who can simply wake up in the morning without fear of any kind, open both arms, and surge forward into the brilliant day?
I can barely see to wipe these damned tears off my laptop.
I can't even get past the front yard.
| posted by Unknown @ 1/11/2007 10:53:00 AM
