Wednesday, February 21, 2018

My birthday is in a week. I'm on perpetual hold with the department of health, trying to track down my midwifery license. A T & T threatened to cancel my phone because they hadn't been paid for 3 months. All because I'm no longer the business owner and all the accounts have changed. In addition, I got an astronomical property tax bill last week. I don't know how we are supposed to retire and support ourselves. I will continue to work in the clinic but I am ambivalent now about attending births anymore. It's hard to resist when I've delivered all the kids in a family but damn, it's tiring. I could just work a clinic day a week and take call if there is someone on vacation.

Bla bla bla.

My neighbor's bamboo is invading my back yard. I spoke to them about it but they like the privacy screen and they aren't really interested in removing it. They offered to hire the guy who painted their house last year to see if he could dig it out. Um, no. Bamboo is a beast to remove and then you have to dig down 2 feet and put in a barrier. And getting it out is tricky. I'm afraid i'm gonna have to hire a bamboo expert who will be costly and, well, see above. One contractor suggested I hire a lawyer but nope, life it too short for that kind of conflict.

I sat in the hot tub at my pool and talked with the usual old folks which I am becoming. Senior housing, the cost of senior housing, free gyms, don't get sick. It was depressing. One lady has had breast cancer, another has diabetes. One guy comes with 2 frozen water bottles. He sits in the tub with one bottle on the back of his neck and he drinks the other one. When both bottles are empty, he gets out and goes home.

Wow.

I'm just complaining here.

2 hummingbirds visit my feeder regularly. One (I think the male) has a ruby throat. They are both iridescent green. They make a 'chip chip' sound when they are hanging on a branch.


https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/own_words/KavehAkbar/




3 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Oh Beth. How ARE you? This isn't enough although I will take whatever you give. Please never think that you have nothing to say if that's the reason you go for long periods of time without writing.
You are in my heart.
I don't know how old people are supposed to do it. I really don't. Sometimes I think that merely living now is the hardest thing I've ever done. I don't think it's supposed to be that way although maybe it is and no one ever said.
I love you.

am said...

Good to hear from you. All our voices are needed when we are moved to speak, to let those we trust know how we are doing. Your voice, the 'chip chip', Reyhaneh Jabbari, Kaveh Akbar. Silence can be a powerful voice, too, now that I think of it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2016/07/07/elie_wiesel_s_profound_and_paradoxical_language_of_silence.html

"Why was he silent on the Holocaust? 'I was afraid of language,' Wiesel remarked. He needed to be sure he was using the right words. He described this groping, aching search for language in his preface to the 2006 translation of Night."

There is snow on the ground here. The cattail pond I can see from my porch is frozen. The pre-dawn sky is relatively clear. Seeing the stars when I first wake up is always a gift.

Thank you for your presence.

Sabine said...

Thank you, thank you for this poem.

All the things and circumstances that cause us anxiety and yet, we lead such luxuries lives.

I find that the older I get the more I need to relearn communal living, sharing, giving, the whole shebang I had almost forgotten in the long years of being a professional person concentrating in bringing home the dough.
Here, old people are supposed to be invisible. We need to change that and I have no doubt, we will.

Take care, be good to yourself.