Archive for the ‘memento’ Category
a new building is being put up near our apartment.
on every pillar of every floor of the construction site,
safety belts with steel buckles are fixed to the concrete.
at quiet times – on the walk home or over the weekend
any wind shifts and flutters the dangling belts,
and the stone structure chimes.
at the end of the tractatus, wittgenstein says something to the effect of “and that of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.”
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the erinyes. the eumenides. the furies. i would like to think sometimes that the one who rides me is Tisiphone the avenger, but i rather suspect that she’s Megaera, the demon of envy and anger.
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a few days ago my mother – who lives in northern california, and with whom i have too little contact – wrote me a brief note, letting me know that she’s about to retire from the position she’s held for years at a community school, and saying “It’s been too long! Where are you? WHAT are you? HOW are you?” i’ve written her two letters in response, the first being a bit impersonal, and the second somewhat more heartfelt. here they are:
two years ago today, i stood outside a NYC nightclub, the compressed-air tank of a confetti cannon at my feet, looking up at the full face of a bright, cold moon.
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Ruth, my mother’s mother and my last surviving grandparent, had a stroke a couple of months ago. It was as much a shock to her as anyone else… she always seemed to be indestructible, and well into her 80s has been hale, hearty, and somehow generally permanent.
the stroke took her down hard, and left her trapped in her own worst nightmare, constrained by a body that simply refused to function. there was no slow decline. it was like the fall of an axe.
since that day, she has been kept, first in the hospital, and now in a nursing home that i think also functions as a hospice. she is now about to die.
a day ago, i wrote my mother a short note, because i needed some demographic information, and to that note i appended a query as to ruth’s condition. it was, apparently, a stroke of synergy… alice had been just about to write me, to tell me that ruth has decided to stop taking food and water, and has made sure that the nurses know she’s not afraid to die.
i haven’t had much contact with ruth these past few years. i’ve been far too wrapped up in myself, and too willing to avoid the sadness that my distance from her brings me. but alice made it clear that i needed to write her, now, and offer her some kind of farewell.
here is the letter i am sending today, via overnight delivery:
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