epearl262
07-30-2013, 10:55 PM
Beginning of a story about an older woman preparing to go to her great-niece's graduation- the first person in her family to graduate a four-year school.
I do not see the use in people who get old and start sleeping in. My alarm wakes me up everyday at 8 a.m. There is still plenty that needs to get done, and I wouldn't have the time to finish it all if I didn't get up early. There are few times when I need to sleep a little extra. Usually it is because I've had a fitful night or the kids have been at it again.
Across the street from my condo building is a parking lot that serves as a back entrance for a cluster of one-story brick buildings: a post office, bank and Italian restaurant. These are the same bank and post office branches I go to, because they are so close. At night, kids sometimes park there after the businesses have closed and go run around town late. I hear so many car doors slamming at one, two in the morning. I guess it's young kids getting home from movies or who knows what. This happens a few times a week, sometimes as late as three a.m. I can't get to sleep with all those doors closing and their loud laughs and shouts to each other. I have a hard time hearing, but I can always hear these young people.
Some of them came last night. It was Thursday and that is always a day they like to stay out late. My schedule is the same very night regardless of the day of the week. I watch the 10 o'clock news, take a shower, and have a midnight milk-and-cookie snack before I go to sleep. It's been that way since I was a little girl, but it used to be the radio instead of the television. I used to hate to bathe and once wet my hair instead of getting in the tub. Mother smelled me and could tell I hadn't used soap. “My sweet little girl,” she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. I hated to be a disappointment. I have only missed a handful of nighttime showers since, and have come to quite enjoy them.
I went to bed around midnight. My bed is tall, a queen that James and I bought as our marriage bed. Cedar legs and a beautiful pink flowered canopy, with a lovely carved headboard. We ordered it from Sears in 1987 and it came a few weeks later. We picked it up at the store in Chicago and brought it up to my condo. A heavy thing, but it makes for comfortable sleeping now.
I take my time falling asleep every night. I don't pray the same every time, but I pray for the same people. For Elizabeth, that she stays happy and healthy and for Becky and Tom, that their marriage stays strong and both find happiness in their jobs and each other, for the girls that each of them get good jobs and stay safe where they are all over the country. These are the most important ones. Last night I prayed for Becky and Tom and Tom's sister, who had surgery for a tumor. For Tom to cope with his diabetes and find comfort in the Lord. I also thank him, for letting them find each other and helping the girls do well at work and school.
Sleep still doesn't come after prayers, though I feel tired. I remember a night with James, one of our first as man and wife, when we stayed up in this very bed until two in the morning talking about our lives before and our lives after each other. He had gotten up and made a turkey sandwich at one. I found it strange in that moment that he had food in my refrigerator, that he slept in my bed, and that he now called these things his. It was a good and repulsive feeling at once. I had never shared a home with any man but my father, until I was in my forties and he passed. I had certainly never shared or wanted to share my bed with another man. When James got up to use the bathroom in the early morning, it squeaked and jiggled and he sometimes burped or sighed and I would wake up. It was everything I had always wanted and everything I had made strange with my years of not having it.
Now the bed stays still and quiet unless I get up, which I rarely do because locating the footstool is hard in the dark. I don't ever use the bathroom in the night. I always make sure to go before I get in bed. The only thing I get up for is the noises the young people make. When I hear them start to slam their car doors I get out of my queen bed right away. They might do something illegal and I am ready to call the police in case they do. They have not yet, that I can see.
Last night I sat in the dark at my dining room table, which sits parallel to the balcony; I can see them best through the glass doors leading out to it. This is also the closest I can get to my phone, in the kitchen to my right, while still seeing outside. I watch them for an hour, from two to three. They laugh and the boys pretend to fight, but I can see it's pretend because they aren't actually hitting each other and they're still laughing. My vision is good, I can see all this from inside my condo on the fourth floor.
There are three boys and two girls. One of the girls sits with a boy on the hood of one of the cars and he keeps leaning over, to kiss her I suppose. Another boy sits on the other car by himself, and the other girl and boy are standing in between the two cars. Someone says something that makes the others laugh. The boy and girl on the car get off the hood and inside. I don't know how they can want to ruin a car like that. Their parents probably paid good money for those cars and they have no business sitting on them. When I was young I certainly never sat on any car hoods with boys. I caught Elizabeth doing it once, with a boy from her biology class when we were in high school. I was a senior then and I told Elizabeth that if she didn't get off the front of his car I would tell Mother and Father what she was up to. The boy was scared - he was only a sophomore - and he jumped off and said sorry. He didn't even hold his hand out for Liz to jump down. She did it by herself and walked to the El stop with me. The boy drove away. She didn't speak with me the whole walk home. I never told Mother. That boy, Gordon Meeks, went into the war just a year after that. He fought in Japan and came out ok, but on the ship home he caught a fever and died. His sister married one of the guys from my class when she was only sixteen and he was twenty. Both dead now, but with three living kids; they were married more than fifty years.
The boy and girl began to creep in their car towards the two who were standing, pretending to hit them. They squealed and jumped in the car with the third boy, and the two cars sped away. I walked to my bed carefully in the dark, I hadn't turn the lights on in case they happened to see me through the window watching them. I always use the chairs and end tables for balance now, I haven't been so good on my feet these past few months. From the chair where I sat in the dining room, the furthest one at the end of the oval table where I could see best, I got up and hold onto the chair back. Down the row of two more seats at the table I go, then take a few steps to where my living room starts and I have a plush chair. From its back to the end table next to it, and then about eight steps to the far end table by the couch. One couch arm to another, a second end table, and I'm as close to my bed as I can get with my homemade crutches. I took careful steps through the short entrance hall. I knew I had lined up my shoes, one pair with heels and one without, against the wall but I treaded carefully in case they have moved somehow.
A small step into the bedroom over the door jam and I feel I should be fine. I started to shuffle to avoid tripping on the end of the rug. I hit it with the tip of my slipper and step right over. At the end of the bed, I could now easily find my way to the footstool by shimmying along the side of the bed. One leg up on the stool, then the other, then climb into bed. Covers over me, head on the pillow and I started to again try to sleep. It didn't come easy, my mind wandered. I thought of James and when he first held Beth as a baby at Elizabeth's house. Years ago. I thought he looked sad. I was sad.
I heard my heels clack on the street while I walked to work from the El stop. My favorite memory of the past before James. I am still, almost thirty years after his death, upset about what Ken said to Liz about me. And I still remember the meal I ate while on the train to California on Memorial Day weekend, 1964, going to visit Aunt Myrtle. Pork chops, mashed potatoes and a roll. All very good.
Even though I got to bed late, I wake up at eight this morning. Today I have a lot to do. I go to the bathroom first and then to the kitchen to get some breakfast. Slowly, but I don't need any crutches because the daylight is already sneaking through the blinds on my balcony door. My usual breakfast is one egg and two pieces of toast, with black coffee. This morning I will have the same, today I scramble the egg. I also like them fried over easy, but I had that yesterday. I put on the coffee pot and head back to the living room to turn on the morning news. I always listen to the news programs on WGN, which are silly sometimes but very informative. I use the living room phone to call Elizabeth and make sure she still wants to leave at ten. She says yes, and yes, she remembered her pillow and yes, she has her footstool, and yes, she brought extra clothes and her insulin and yes, she remembered tissue paper. I like to make sure we have everything. She is so careless sometimes I can't be too careful.
By 8:15 breakfast is ready and I am sitting down to the table. The eggs and toast taste bland. My sense of taste has begun to fade these past few years. Unless the flavor is particularly strong, it's hard for me to interpret. I can still taste coffee, and it goes down very well. I eat at the small, round kitchen table in the mornings. I can't see the news from in here, but I have turned the volume up enough so I can hear it. More shootings in the city. Things in the Middle East are just terrible. I don't understand how those people there can believe in a religion that just isn't right. The Lord Jesus saved us and will bring us to heaven. I finish breakfast just as the weather comes on. This doesn't time perfectly every morning. I enjoy when it does. I peak around the corner of my kitchen wall into the living to see the radar. The weather for today looks good. Sun and a little warm. They pan over to Missouri and things there look good to, a few degrees warmer than here. That should make for a nice trip. I might call Becky and let her know, and ask her again about the plans. I should tell her I'll be sure to fill up my car before she has to drive it and pay her back for gas and hotel reservations afterword. I'll do that before I leave for Elizabeth's house.
I do not see the use in people who get old and start sleeping in. My alarm wakes me up everyday at 8 a.m. There is still plenty that needs to get done, and I wouldn't have the time to finish it all if I didn't get up early. There are few times when I need to sleep a little extra. Usually it is because I've had a fitful night or the kids have been at it again.
Across the street from my condo building is a parking lot that serves as a back entrance for a cluster of one-story brick buildings: a post office, bank and Italian restaurant. These are the same bank and post office branches I go to, because they are so close. At night, kids sometimes park there after the businesses have closed and go run around town late. I hear so many car doors slamming at one, two in the morning. I guess it's young kids getting home from movies or who knows what. This happens a few times a week, sometimes as late as three a.m. I can't get to sleep with all those doors closing and their loud laughs and shouts to each other. I have a hard time hearing, but I can always hear these young people.
Some of them came last night. It was Thursday and that is always a day they like to stay out late. My schedule is the same very night regardless of the day of the week. I watch the 10 o'clock news, take a shower, and have a midnight milk-and-cookie snack before I go to sleep. It's been that way since I was a little girl, but it used to be the radio instead of the television. I used to hate to bathe and once wet my hair instead of getting in the tub. Mother smelled me and could tell I hadn't used soap. “My sweet little girl,” she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. I hated to be a disappointment. I have only missed a handful of nighttime showers since, and have come to quite enjoy them.
I went to bed around midnight. My bed is tall, a queen that James and I bought as our marriage bed. Cedar legs and a beautiful pink flowered canopy, with a lovely carved headboard. We ordered it from Sears in 1987 and it came a few weeks later. We picked it up at the store in Chicago and brought it up to my condo. A heavy thing, but it makes for comfortable sleeping now.
I take my time falling asleep every night. I don't pray the same every time, but I pray for the same people. For Elizabeth, that she stays happy and healthy and for Becky and Tom, that their marriage stays strong and both find happiness in their jobs and each other, for the girls that each of them get good jobs and stay safe where they are all over the country. These are the most important ones. Last night I prayed for Becky and Tom and Tom's sister, who had surgery for a tumor. For Tom to cope with his diabetes and find comfort in the Lord. I also thank him, for letting them find each other and helping the girls do well at work and school.
Sleep still doesn't come after prayers, though I feel tired. I remember a night with James, one of our first as man and wife, when we stayed up in this very bed until two in the morning talking about our lives before and our lives after each other. He had gotten up and made a turkey sandwich at one. I found it strange in that moment that he had food in my refrigerator, that he slept in my bed, and that he now called these things his. It was a good and repulsive feeling at once. I had never shared a home with any man but my father, until I was in my forties and he passed. I had certainly never shared or wanted to share my bed with another man. When James got up to use the bathroom in the early morning, it squeaked and jiggled and he sometimes burped or sighed and I would wake up. It was everything I had always wanted and everything I had made strange with my years of not having it.
Now the bed stays still and quiet unless I get up, which I rarely do because locating the footstool is hard in the dark. I don't ever use the bathroom in the night. I always make sure to go before I get in bed. The only thing I get up for is the noises the young people make. When I hear them start to slam their car doors I get out of my queen bed right away. They might do something illegal and I am ready to call the police in case they do. They have not yet, that I can see.
Last night I sat in the dark at my dining room table, which sits parallel to the balcony; I can see them best through the glass doors leading out to it. This is also the closest I can get to my phone, in the kitchen to my right, while still seeing outside. I watch them for an hour, from two to three. They laugh and the boys pretend to fight, but I can see it's pretend because they aren't actually hitting each other and they're still laughing. My vision is good, I can see all this from inside my condo on the fourth floor.
There are three boys and two girls. One of the girls sits with a boy on the hood of one of the cars and he keeps leaning over, to kiss her I suppose. Another boy sits on the other car by himself, and the other girl and boy are standing in between the two cars. Someone says something that makes the others laugh. The boy and girl on the car get off the hood and inside. I don't know how they can want to ruin a car like that. Their parents probably paid good money for those cars and they have no business sitting on them. When I was young I certainly never sat on any car hoods with boys. I caught Elizabeth doing it once, with a boy from her biology class when we were in high school. I was a senior then and I told Elizabeth that if she didn't get off the front of his car I would tell Mother and Father what she was up to. The boy was scared - he was only a sophomore - and he jumped off and said sorry. He didn't even hold his hand out for Liz to jump down. She did it by herself and walked to the El stop with me. The boy drove away. She didn't speak with me the whole walk home. I never told Mother. That boy, Gordon Meeks, went into the war just a year after that. He fought in Japan and came out ok, but on the ship home he caught a fever and died. His sister married one of the guys from my class when she was only sixteen and he was twenty. Both dead now, but with three living kids; they were married more than fifty years.
The boy and girl began to creep in their car towards the two who were standing, pretending to hit them. They squealed and jumped in the car with the third boy, and the two cars sped away. I walked to my bed carefully in the dark, I hadn't turn the lights on in case they happened to see me through the window watching them. I always use the chairs and end tables for balance now, I haven't been so good on my feet these past few months. From the chair where I sat in the dining room, the furthest one at the end of the oval table where I could see best, I got up and hold onto the chair back. Down the row of two more seats at the table I go, then take a few steps to where my living room starts and I have a plush chair. From its back to the end table next to it, and then about eight steps to the far end table by the couch. One couch arm to another, a second end table, and I'm as close to my bed as I can get with my homemade crutches. I took careful steps through the short entrance hall. I knew I had lined up my shoes, one pair with heels and one without, against the wall but I treaded carefully in case they have moved somehow.
A small step into the bedroom over the door jam and I feel I should be fine. I started to shuffle to avoid tripping on the end of the rug. I hit it with the tip of my slipper and step right over. At the end of the bed, I could now easily find my way to the footstool by shimmying along the side of the bed. One leg up on the stool, then the other, then climb into bed. Covers over me, head on the pillow and I started to again try to sleep. It didn't come easy, my mind wandered. I thought of James and when he first held Beth as a baby at Elizabeth's house. Years ago. I thought he looked sad. I was sad.
I heard my heels clack on the street while I walked to work from the El stop. My favorite memory of the past before James. I am still, almost thirty years after his death, upset about what Ken said to Liz about me. And I still remember the meal I ate while on the train to California on Memorial Day weekend, 1964, going to visit Aunt Myrtle. Pork chops, mashed potatoes and a roll. All very good.
Even though I got to bed late, I wake up at eight this morning. Today I have a lot to do. I go to the bathroom first and then to the kitchen to get some breakfast. Slowly, but I don't need any crutches because the daylight is already sneaking through the blinds on my balcony door. My usual breakfast is one egg and two pieces of toast, with black coffee. This morning I will have the same, today I scramble the egg. I also like them fried over easy, but I had that yesterday. I put on the coffee pot and head back to the living room to turn on the morning news. I always listen to the news programs on WGN, which are silly sometimes but very informative. I use the living room phone to call Elizabeth and make sure she still wants to leave at ten. She says yes, and yes, she remembered her pillow and yes, she has her footstool, and yes, she brought extra clothes and her insulin and yes, she remembered tissue paper. I like to make sure we have everything. She is so careless sometimes I can't be too careful.
By 8:15 breakfast is ready and I am sitting down to the table. The eggs and toast taste bland. My sense of taste has begun to fade these past few years. Unless the flavor is particularly strong, it's hard for me to interpret. I can still taste coffee, and it goes down very well. I eat at the small, round kitchen table in the mornings. I can't see the news from in here, but I have turned the volume up enough so I can hear it. More shootings in the city. Things in the Middle East are just terrible. I don't understand how those people there can believe in a religion that just isn't right. The Lord Jesus saved us and will bring us to heaven. I finish breakfast just as the weather comes on. This doesn't time perfectly every morning. I enjoy when it does. I peak around the corner of my kitchen wall into the living to see the radar. The weather for today looks good. Sun and a little warm. They pan over to Missouri and things there look good to, a few degrees warmer than here. That should make for a nice trip. I might call Becky and let her know, and ask her again about the plans. I should tell her I'll be sure to fill up my car before she has to drive it and pay her back for gas and hotel reservations afterword. I'll do that before I leave for Elizabeth's house.