Sweet Dreams

Even with a sleeping pill and going to bed after midnight, I'm still wide awake by 4am and at times, even earlier.  The demon keeping me from sleep is named Worry.

There's not much point in allowing my mind - given to some very dark thoughts when this happens and it happens nightly these days - to run amok any longer. Try as I might, I can't turn off the restless thoughts and worries and regrets. Every mistake I've ever made, every bad moment I've ever had, and every possible disaster that might happen tomorrow or the next day gets new life. The longer and harder I fight them off, the nearer and stronger they get. Even the animals sense it and they burrow closer against me, all six of them it seems, but there's no comfort in it. Frustrated and annoyed, I finally throw off the covers and leave my warm nest.

It's pitch black and the house is leftover warm. I pull on yesterday's jeans, a flannel shirt and a  pair of socks, light a cigarette and decide to try and write. Claude Rains and Bette Davis are quarreling in the background and the only light is the television's flickering screen and the computer monitor. I keep expecting the animals to start demanding to be fed but they're content to stay in the bed behind me and sleep. Except for one of the cats, who cries and paws until I let him crawl into my lap, they barely stir. I wish I had their peace of mind or their innocence.

When writing fails, I scroll through social media for the latest presidential and political disasters, pull up kitten and rescue videos, and check messages. I write an email or two and balance my checkbook then go back to the writing. The house begins to warm up and the time passes.  By 6, I can hear birds and it's just beginning to get light. I rouse the animals for breakfast, make the bed, and step into a hot shower. By 7, the dishes are washed, the litter is changed, and I'm dressed and anxious to start a new day.

The demon is patient. He may retreat and hide when threatened,may change form to catch me unawares, may even allow me small victories but he never but never gives up the fight. He's really powerful,  housebroken, takes up very little room and doesn't eat much. He's made from fears, upbringing, defense mechanisms and memories and worst of all, he like to let me think I've beaten him.  He comes at night, creeping and crawling under the radar, gaining strength with every life insurance, health care or assisted living commercial. He whispers all the what ifs that I try so hard not to think about. He's back when I wake at 3 am, struggle til 4 am then give up. I can't remember what a decent night's sleep feels like and I need to go to work for the distraction of being occupied.

We live in exhausting and morally corrosive times with a soul-less president yearning to be king.  Worry is on his side.

"To live is to be haunted."  Philip K. Dick

Six Weeks in Summer

Between our house on The Point and where the road turned into an overgrown and seldom used cow path, there were four other houses. Not a single one of them had a telephone nor a vehicle so it was no surprise that when any sort of minor emergency happened, island folks came knocking on our back door. Even so, when my grandmother discovered Old Hat on the doorstep on a clear and bright Sunday morning, she was more than a little surprised. The wizened old woman - well into her 70's and still barely as tall as I was at nearly 13 - was my idea of a perfect crone. She was all in black except for her mud-brown work boots, her top hat was perched crookedly atop an untamed mass of gray to white wild hair, and her trusty scattergun was resting on one scrawny shoulder.

“Goodness me,” I heard Nana say, “Hattie! What brings you............”

“It's Sparrow,” Hattie said flatly, never one for preliminaries, “Sorry ass old fool's took sick and cain't git up. Best send for that new blood suckin' quack doctor.” And quicker'n Jack Robinson, she turned on her heel and limped off.

“Call Elsie and have Doc Roberts to come,” Nana ordered me briskly, “Then fetch me the first aid kit and a bottle of brandy whilst I git dressed. Go on, child! Hop to it and close your mouth, you'll catch flies!”

I hopped to it, trotting to the old telephone and ringing up the island switchboard. Miz Elsie answered immediately, reckoned that Doc Roberts was still in Central Grove tending to Bill Albright's recently broke ankle, but that she'd find him and send him our way. I relayed the news to my grandmother and she nodded approvingly before we set out down the road to Sparrow's, first aid kit in one hand and brandy discreetly tucked into a picnic basket and covered with a checked napkin.

Hattie was already there, sitting primly in one of the porch rocking chairs, shotgun laid across her lap, mouth set in a hard line and glaring at nothing in particular.

“Ain't got all day, missus,” she said sharply, “You or the doc be needin' anythin', you kin fetch me.” For emphasis, she spat out a wad of tobacco. Nana flinched and my stomach did a fluttery thing. “Be jist like that ol' man to up and die while I'm sloppin' his hogs”, she added, “Ain't got no time, no how for this neighbor horseshit.”

Doc Roberts arrived about that time and I almost didn't notice Nana's smile as she watched Hattie trudge off toward the pig sty.

“Come on in, Doc,” Nana said mildly, “Ol' hag's all smoke and no fire, same as Sparrow. They been feudin' long as there's been dirt and neither one could get along without the other.”

Doc Roberts laughed and climbed the rickety stairs. “So I hear, Miz Watson,” he said, “So I always here.”

Sparrow, it turned out, had managed to contract a case of pneumonia and despite his cursing and protesting, was confined to his bed for a full 6 weeks.

“Look here, you damn fool,” Doc told him gruffly, “You can do what I tell you and get well or you can cash in your chips and get yourself put six feet under. Makes no difference to me one way or the other but I'm not about to waste my time or my antibiotics on you if you're not going to meet me halfway. So roll up your sleeve or tell me to go to hell, I don't care. Do I make myself clear?”

Scowling and muttering under his breath while my grandmother did her best to hide a smile, Sparrow rolled up his sleeve.

It took every day of the following six weeks and every scrap of patience we had, but Sparrow got well. Hattie tended him daily - cooking, cleaning and making sure he took his pills. Under her watchful (or more likely suspicious) eye, Ruthie and I were delegated to care for the pigs and chickens and keep the solitary old cow milked while Nana came by every few days to check our progress. In time, Doc Roberts pronounced the old man as good as new but then had the temerity to suggest that Old Hat might deserve a thank you. Sparrow spat and promptly threw a shoe at him. Life on The Point was back to normal.

A Lot Like Life

My one remaining black cat - all 16 or 17 pounds of him, bright eyed and long haired, remarkably graceful and light on his feet - jumps onto the loveseat with surprising little effort and curls up next to me, form fitting his body to the L shaped space between my knees and chest. Despite his size and bulk, he's very polite and when he speaks it's with a tiny voice, more mouse than cat-like, delicate and almost tentative. He tucks his paws beneath him, his perfectly heart shaped face just a couple of inches from my own. I tell him what a very good boy he is and he seems to smile. He's an elegant animal, full of mystery, shyness and easy charm. I wouldn't want him to know it but he had me at the first soft meow. It's likely he will be my last black cat and that makes him all the more precious to me.

I grew up in a dog household. Our only cat, an embattled and tough old tom, named Rusty, spent most of his time out of doors and judging from his constant wounds, I'm sure he was a womanizer and an aggressor. During the worst of the New England winters, he would come inside and sleep in front of the fire but he was never lovable or particularly friendly. Still, once I left home, it was a kitten and not a puppy I longed for and since then there have been so many of both that I've lost count. I would give my life for my dogs but there's a certain symmetry about beginning and ending life with a cat, particularly a black cat.

A squirrel darting through the crepe myrtles outside catches his attention and with a squeak of protest, my passive, sleepy and stretched out cat turns into an instant predator. He rushes the windows, all teeth and claws, chattering like an anxious monkey and startling the dogs into a surprised and over loud panic. Noise and all, the squirrel is unimpressed. He sits calmly, watching all this sound and fury and swishing his tail vigorously though whether from bordom or defiance I can't be sure.

After a time, the squirrel moves on, the dogs quiet down, and the cat loses interest. It's a lot like life.

Sometimes We Lose

After a certain point, I think maybe we all learn to live with a little grief all the time. It becomes part of who we are. As a dear friend recently wrote to me, loss is never mitigated. At its core, it's still loss and life goes on, no matter how much we hurt, no matter who leaves us. Not all empty spaces are meant to be filled. If we could be turned inside out, I sometimes wonder, would some of us not resemble swiss cheese?

I suppose you could make an argument that without loss, we'd never appreciate life for its sweetness and shortness. It wouldn't help but you could make it.

If we get to a place where the empty spaces outnumber the filled in ones, is it time to call it a day? Do we have the right to give up?

Of all the dark places we get to go in this life, suicide may be the darkest and the hardest to comprehend.

There's a popular saying that says be kind, everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.

Sometimes we lose.

Road Work

I remember my daddy giving me one of my first driving lessons on an open road when the sky turned unexpectedly black and unleashed a furious thunderstorm. The wiper blades couldn't keep up and in just seconds, the two lane highway was perilously close to flooding.

“Pull over,” he told me tensely, “Pull over and we'll wait it out.”

Already apprehensive, I did exactly as he told me, and pulled onto the shoulder. Some cars followed suit, others plowed forward and sent tidal waves of water washing over the old station wagon as they passed. He showed me how to turn on the emergency flashers and the defroster and we sat in white-knuckled silence until the storm passed and the water receded. I was shaking like a leaf and in no shape to resume driving but my daddy was firm.

“You're not always going to have sunshine,” he said gently, “There are going to be times when you'll need to know how to drive in the rain.”

It was still misting slightly as I turned back onto the road but the traffic had lightened and little by slow, my heart stopped hammering and I managed to regain my concentration. Calmly and quietly, he talked me through lane changes and turns and safe stopping distances, rules of a 4 way stop and courtesy, obeying speed limits and paying attention. Parallel parking very nearly proved to be my undoing in that old Mercury wagon - it was, as best I could imagine, like navigating a Sherman tank in a closet - but after a number of close calls and one or two minor scrapes, I made a passable job of it. The days of lessons in empty parking lots were over.

Now and again, my mother would take over the lessons in her snazzy pink and white Ford convertible with the whitewall tires and the Goldwater bumper stickers. She was studiously nonchalant about the process, handing me the keys and settling back with a Parliament in one hand and a Ladies Home Journal in the other. It was possible, although unlikely, that she had enormous faith in me but I was inclined to believe that after a few late afternoon manhattans, she was simply chilled out. Either way, she almost never gave advice and rarely corrected me and though I doubt she intended to teach me confidence, I learned it in spite of myself. Like the old station wagon, my daddy was cautious, careful, conservative, and though he tried mightily not to show it, often a little panicky when I drove. My mother, top down and out for a good time, went with the flow. It was an interesting contrast of cars and personalities.

I got my license on the first try and not long after, my first car, a baby blue Mustang that I fell head over heels in love with the moment I saw. They were sunshine days but parallel parking is still a bitch.