I'm going all googly-eyed over transmissions from a daughter on a road-trip across the southwest. Friends on a road-trip across the northwest. A cousin's family on a sea-way trip to Bermuda. And I'm thinking: I've gotta take a road-trip or DIE!
There was a time when the summer slow-down was a good thing...no lunches to pack every morning, no bed times to enforce each night, a break from the daily treadmill of days bracketed by school and work schedules. But now that all those kids are--more or less--free agents, I'm having a way different emotional response to the poky dog-days of July.
Oh, for sure, I am bummed at karma. I did the time and didn't get the expected pay-off. Now I am a big babysitter. Well, I'm no bigger than normal, but the baby's on the large side.
I want to work on my book. No doubt, it's a bit of a silly exercise, but it keeps me sane and stable, probably much in the same way that drilling a hole provides satisfaction to a carpenter bee. And that, I say, is what I want to do! (Not the hole-drilling...the bees have that one covered, thanks.)
Trouble is, it's very hard to get to that immersion space in my head--that spot where I can live, for moments at least, in the invented world of my invented characters...and that's because I can't disengage. Most of the time I'm being vaguely gazed at. Fuzzy signals are emanating from what remains of the brain occupying the chair just 12 feet that-a-way. Sometimes he's looking at me quizzically, smiling blankly. Sometimes he's wandering vaguely about, his belt through 2/3 of its loops and only half-buckled. Or examining a mismatched pair of shoes, as if unfocused scrutiny will cause them to make sense. Sometimes drowsy, sometimes bewildered, sometimes unquestionably satisfied with a life of sitting in an Arts&Crafts armchair placidly surveying nothing.
So what does one do with that? Trouble also is, I guess, that having my receiver tuned to that station since 1983 has made it danged hard to ignore even the fritzy bits of static still transmitted. While there's a quality about them I recognize, I can't patch them into anything more meaningful than "zzzrbtxxx....still here...zzzziiiixxx...here....ccccchhhhhhxx...still..." So I'm like a desperate SETI geek in my garage outpost, distracted by the crackles and whistles from my radio, but utterly unable, by conscience or nature, to turn it off.
A road trip will clear the mind. A road trip will present its own ephemeral purposes and meanings, and I will report from the field. Something I can sink my observational teeth into. Here, I just hear xzzchzzzsqueeeeeee...
2 comments:
Hiya Emmline. Have you considered temporary in-home respite care?
http://www.aacounty.org/Aging/needingCare/respiteCare.cfm
Programs like this one are designed to give caregivers a break so they can recharge, and maybe a road trip is just the ticket. I'm sure the medical facilities near you can recommend some other providers, too.
Luckily I got a whole boatload of that kind of info last year when we "tried on" a support group that split caregivers and AD people into separate talk sessions. The group didn't turn out to be our thing for various reasons, but I've got lists of resources standing by. And it is my hope and intention that when--for example--Jeff isn't doing hygiene well I'll have someone come in daily to help with that. And stuff.
Actually, I will get a whole week off in August, when Jeff goes to stay with his sister. Which is wonderful of her. My mom has offered to sit for a night or so too. (Actually, so did Rachel, come to that, but then she took off for California!)
But Jeff is still quite cooperative and transportable, so mainly I need to stop bellyaching, pack him into the car, and just drive somewhere with a change of scenery.
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