As I said back in January, “If that’s not a place, it should be.”
Emerging from the bedroom at 9:30 p.m. to communicate — I turn my chair from the computer to face her — she asks, “You know that knot in my neck I’ve had since 5 o’clock?”
“Yes…”
“Well, those stretching exercises helped.”
“Good!”
“Getting old is really the pits…”
“Okay, let’s just not!”
It has taken me over 30 years to grasp how important these “little things” are. And to think I used to silently judge her on the intellectual level of such exchanges, whether they were worth the expenditure of breath that pulled me from my preoccupations. (They always know, too.) It’s a wonder my stiff, dried skin isn’t hanging from a barbed wire fence somewhere, frankly.
“My poor feet,” she said earlier this evening, sprawled out in a comfortable chair. “I need to soak them in oil…”
It was true. Either her too-healthy diet or the New Mexico climate contributes to cracking and dryness that constantly distract her. My own extremities are smooth and shiny. I eat tons of fat and all the sugar I want, but it must really be the genes.
“Awww…” I say, standing over her. She lifts a slender leg and pushes a foot into my stomach, which seems to help somewhat. “I’ll take care of you. Can I get you anything?”
“No, I already have my tea, thank you.”
(The sound of leaves shaking in the wind, of waves breaking on the shore…)
Related posts:
