Yearly Archives: 2007

Your Dog Dies

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it gets run over by a van.
you find it at the side of the road
and bury it.
you feel bad about it.
you feel bad personally,
but you feel bad for your daughter
because it was her pet,
and she loved it so.
she used to croon to it
and let it sleep in her bed.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your daughter,
about the dog getting run over by a van
and how you looked after it,
took it out into the woods
and buried it deep, deep,
and that poem turns out so good
you’re almost glad the little dog
was run over, or else you’d never
have written that good poem.
then you sit down to write
a poem about writing a poem
about the death of that dog,
but while you’re writing you
hear a woman scream
your name, your first name,
both syllables,
and your heart stops.
after a minute, you continue writing.
she screams again.
you wonder how long this can go on.

Raymond Carver

Light and Lively

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She works for housekeeping, and looks vaguely Hispanic and way younger than however old she’s about to tell me she is, and while I want to sit in my father’s room and read his Wall Street Journal, she wants to talk. She says, “Hi, Michael,” though we’ve never met and I say hi back. As she cleans she floats through the room and judging by her smile I know there is no hiding.

“Peter told me your name. It is Michael isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Peter’s a lovable guy. The woman who trained me twenty-seven years ago, and who has since died talked about a friend of hers she called one neat dude. And Peter is one neat dude.”

‘Who doesn’t know when to shut up.”

“And neither do I.”

“And who are you?”

“My name’s Mimi.”

“M-i-m-i?”

“Yes. Most people don’t know how to spell it.”

“They don’t remember Mimi Rogers?”

“They spell it M-e-m-e, like it sounds. Or M-e-m-i. My mother-in-law spells is M-e-m-i-e and pronounces it that way.”

“You must love that.”

“Thirty-one years now. She’ll send me a Christmas card addressed to Memie and I’ll write back Mimi but it doesn’t matter.”

“My sister spells my name M-i-c-h-e-a-l and always has. Do you work full time?”

“I do now. I used to worked full time and then went to part time to take help take care of my grandkids, but my husband got sick.”

Donna, Mack’s nurse enters and Mimi moves to the other side of the room.

“What kind of sick?” I ask.

As if it were some kind of private conversation we were having, Mimi mouths the word cancer and makes a “C” with her left hand.

When Donna leaves Mimi asks me if I understood her sign language.

It remind me of the old, old days when doctors didn’t tell patients they were dying and cancer was referred to as The Big “C.” Now everyone tells everyone everything and it feels like illness is more about preparing to die than getting better.

Mimi tells me her husband is having radiation and chemo and that he’s fifty-four and that he’s going to die. Her expression doesn’t change a bit. Light and lively to the end.

Westward

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Michael,

It’s Saturday evening and we’ve made it to Topeka now, just one state away from Colorado. No sign of snow here! Balmy, almost shirt-sleeve, sunny weather here in eastern Kansas. But we expect that to change as we rise onto the high plains. I think we have about 450 mi to go, so we should arrive in Boulder before dark, unless the winds blow us back into Kansas.

Our friend Chuck in Boulder says the predictions are that there will be high winds tomorrow, but the next storm is not supposed to arrive for a few days. There has been 48 inches of snow in Boulderville since Dec 20, but I suspect that most of it has melted or blown away by now. We’ve got an array of warmies–coats, windbreakers, mittens, caps, long johns–all ready for use when we get onto the high plains tomorrow. It’s hard to believe that we will actually be in winter after experiencing August for the last few weeks.

We use our walkie-talkies constantly to agree between the car & truck when to stop, where to turn, and make random comments. The walkie-talkie should definitely not be under-rated. Lots of times along our trip, we’ve had no cell phone coverage, and the w-t is so easy to turn on, we can jabber on and off about the scenery in short clips as we go. Once when Katie called me and Patrick in the truck, we were even able to patch Beth in through the w-t. Katie is currently in Savannah, and will drive to Atlanta tomorrow. I hope her timing to head west to Boulder won’t lead her into the next storm coming down from the NW.

We got a great view of the St Louis arch as we crossed the Mississippi into Missouri today. The thousands of shiny panels reflected the sun, the clear blue sky and the river like a giant parabolic crystal. We were tempted to stop, but as Beth says, we have to “keep up monentum”.

I haven’t had the nerve to check into our truck today. Last time I did(yesterday), the whole caboodle seems to have shifted rearward a little. I’m afraid if I open the back door now, the boxes and furniture will be pressing hard against the door and I’ll never be able to close it again. Better to wait until we’re at 4871 Darwin Ct, where the stuff can fall out onto the snow covered ground and we can shovel it into the house.

We gained an hour today when crossing from Indiana into Illinois, so we’ve had an extra long day, and I’ve got to hit the hay for another long day tomorrow. Wish us luck on the weather!

–rakkity & co

Our Trip West

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(I’d already painted a “WHERE’S RAKKITY SIGN?” and was about to post it)

Michael,

We had no idea what had happened to your father–until today when we went on line here in Indiana. We wish him the best of luck in his recovery.

We’d like to drop down to Evansville, but we’re falling behind schedule in our 4-ton truck. We’re only a couple hundred miles north of Evansville right now, but the weather channel tells us that there are raging blizzards ahead. Hard to believe, with the balmy, partly sunny weather here in Indiana. At the eastern side of Kansas, the rain showers are supposed to start changing to snow showers, and on the western side it changes to a full-blown snow storm. (And all I’ve got is sneakers. Our boots are buried under a couple tons of junk in the truck.)

Thursday was a mighty exhausting day. We got the Penske truck, drove it home for 3 burly guys to start packing it. They packed all the heavy stuff until 3 pm, then left us to pack light stuff for 4 more hours. Luckily Patrick could help after 4 pm. We finally got under way, with P. driving. at 7 pm. Drove about 100 mi to Hagerstown, MD, found a motel, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

The next day we motored through Pennsylvania, going only 45 mph up the slopes of the Appalachians. No snow anywhere. All the ski areas are closed. Meanwhile Katie is driving through the south. She is in Charleston, SC right now, dodging tornadoes, sight-seeing, and calling us every day on her cell.

Beth and I have walkie-talkies, so when she drops out of sight driving my car, while P. and I handle the truck, I give her a, “Hey good buddy, got a 10-4 for us? Over and out, rodger dodger.” Patrick’s a great driver, except in parking lots. Last night at a diesel stop, he took out a concrete pylon, leaving it in shards on the ground. No damage to the truck, amazingly enough. We have complete insurance coverage, but we’ve learned to make wide, wide turns.

We’ll contact you again in Kansas. We hope to get to Salina by nightfall.

Again, best wishes and hope for complete recovery for your Dad.

–rakkity, the Mrs, and P.

ni9ne

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Matthew showed me this which he claimed to have stumbled on by accident. Then he said go here, click start and type anything. I typed “I am nuts,” and then we both laughed and agreed it might have been the worst choice. But “It’s a beautiful day” wasn’t much better. All kinds of interesting content on that site.

Sweet Light

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After the winter, grieving and dull,
I flourished here all spring. Sweet light

began to fill my chest. I pulled up
a chair. Sat for hours in front of the sea.

and the sound of a bell. I wanted
everything behind me. I even wanted

to become inhuman. And I did that.
I know I did. (She’ll back me up on this.)

I remember her the morning I closed the lid
on memory and turned the handle.

out here, sea. Only you and I know.
At night, clouds form in front of the moon.

By morning they’re gone. And that sweet light
I spoke of? That’s gone too.

Raymond Carver