I have started moving my office upstairs. First my desk, my computer, my fun stuff (a rock shaped like a potato, my rabbit finger puppet and a card Beth sent me with a picture of a woman having her nose tweaked by a parrot).
I don’t want to move my office. I had it just the way I liked it with the futon for afternoon napping and reading books and drinking tea, my computer and writing and bill paying station and photos and my diplomas(they don’t mean much anymore).
More than moving though, I don’t like what it signifies. It signifies change, another change. Rob can’t climb stairs (or can he). I don’t know. If I think about him getting up, as he often does, at 3 in the morning and walking downstairs in the dark, it gives me the chills. He cannot do it. The only way he could do it would be if he turned on the lights, woke me up and let me help him downstairs.
What a pain that would be. Maybe I’m not so much struggling with moving shit around. Maybe I’m struggling with what it signifies. Age, disability and mortality. Three of the brighter spots in my world. You’re getting old, kinda crunky and you’re going to die.
I have been thinking of the last time I saw Uncle Jim. He was in the front room of his house, all bundled up. People were fussing over him with love of course, speaking quietly in corners. He had a most peculiar (at least I thought so) expression on his face. I thought he looked angry and I thought what a horrible end for such a vital man. Of course he’s angry. Now that might have been all projection on my part, but it doesn’t really matter.
My takeaway was they move you downstairs when you’re dying. They whisper. They bring you food on a tray. The room is dark. You see—I go dark. Now Rob is not dying but his health is shitty. He and I need to make decisions. Initially it’s put our bed downstairs and move my office up.
I need to stop myself from going directly to death from a fall. But it’s there. It’s there.
Hello. Yes, this is Dog 