Lovely Until You Realized

 

Come spend Father’s Day at our place, my mom suggested.  “That’s right.  It’s Father’s Day”, I thought, and I sold my wife on that concept.  And both she and my mom seemed to realize before I ever did that, in fact, Father’s Day doesn’t fall on this weekend.  Still, a dinner or late lunch over in Poughkeepsie would be good.  And we managed to head out not long after we said we’d be there, bringing a big watermelon along which we didn’t end up eating. 

There were chips and salsa on the table and the chips were that innovative kind, shaped like a bowl that you could scoop up ladles full of salsa with.  I guess I was hungry.  I must have had thirty.  Off to the left a sparrow had built a nest in the open light fixture above the door back into the kitchen.  The dad, or perhaps it was the mom, was off in the cedar tree, not far away, with various and sundry in his mouth scoping out the scene and then flying back to the little ones, loudly chirping away in the nest.  And it was all lovely until you realized, as pointed out by my mom, that they weren’t shutting up. 

 

I had nothing to drink besides soda water, but I quickly grew tired.  The claws of the nether world sunk into my shoulders summoning me in an uncompromising fashion.  This feeling wasn’t one I could just shake off.  I’ve grown used to rising long before the dawn for calls with one country or another and then, the afternoon proceeds the need for a nap becomes irresistible.  Normally I don’t resist at all.  And though I did for a while today, considering how it might be impolite, eventually I begged off and caught a cat nap in my sister’s old bedroom. 

And it was one of those naps that never seems to properly start.  Once I lay down, I stared about aimlessly waiting for sleep to assert itself.  Instead I explored the parameters of that stupid space where you try to sleep, because you are tired, and don’t seem to go anywhere, until finally you are on a train, going between cars, and you realize that you’ve left your backpack in another car, which was stupid and now you’ve got to go back through one and another train car and it becomes clear that this is not going to get you to the place where you left your backpack but that’s secondary because your now talking to someone who’s arrived, but the nagging sense of loss is an irresistible undercurrent of anxiety, tugging and then your wife comes back from shopping and notifies you that your mom has put dinner on the table.  “Yes.  Right.”  Sleep, if not especially restful. 

 

 

 

Sunday, 06/06/21