Damn

I took the usual walk today, and all was OK. There were no iguanas doing anything irregular (for us, I mean) and the Old City was filled with tourists (also behaving, in their fashion). “Curious,” I thought, “I could fit into that group.” And indeed I could—even the tour guide was a gringa.

But why should I think that?

OK, up to El Morro and all was well except that I didn’t just touch the door, as I do in homage to Franny. Instead, I just walked in.

Well, maybe it was the pain in my hip, which of course might have distracted me. Hips, you all remember, playing a big part in those last days….

Right, so I walk down to inspect the ceiba trees (that’s silk cotton to you) and they seem bigger. Well, I do know that trees grow, but that much in two days? That’s when I saw them last.

Hip still hurts and I rest for a bit, and see a cat in a tree. ‘Oh, Cloudy,’ I think. That was my mother’s cat, and yes, the tree cat did resemble Cloudy….

Now I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before, and that’s pretty interesting. What were they? Can’t remember now.

There was a very big caterpillar, brightly striped with black and yellow. They hang out on the frangipani bushes, and do some real damage. But why was it so big. Why had the ceiba tree been so big.

“Damn,” I say, again invoking Franny. She used it, though judiciously. “Am I becoming the worst of gay men—a size queen?”

So I walk past the governor’s mansion and see that traffic has stopped. The governor, or his wife, or maybe just the hairdresser (out to get some goo), is leaving. This requires stopped cars, four cops, and two huge SUVS, with blue lights flashing. I see nothing remarkable in this. Why?

Go home and do the emails—my normal thing. But it seems that the computer, with whom I’m normally on good terms, is doing funny things.

Errrrr… or I?

Well the photo I was trying to save posed a problem. Raf’s family—where do I put them? I consider, briefly, putting them in the folder labeled “birds”—no disrespect here, it’s where I put a lot of stuff I don’t know what to do with. If I’m just gonna use an image once, that’s where it goes.

Why do I do that?

And why birds?

And just now, Raf calls, and says simply “I can’t log in.” I’m completely stumped. His silence tells me he’s stumped—by me.   

We figure it out. I had mailed him, ten minutes before starting this post, the family photo. He was supposed to enter the site of his mother’s alma mater, log in, and upload the photo.

Shouldn’t I have known that?

Hip hurts, and I think of Franny, and how, really…  It was never good again. The hip, I mean. Do I need to specify that?

Don’t know if I’m clear.

And then I think of her, how she stopped walking and began to, well, shuffle. And she was never again, I think, free of her hip.  

She always knew it was there. It was hurting or aching or just there.  

And then I think, well, that’s just like my mind. I went crazy. There were park rangers doing manhunts for me.

I’ll never use my mind as I used it, unthinkingly, before. 

Also like my mom….

“I’m falling down the rabbit hole,” she had written.

Made us cry….

And I have written, too. Is it catharsis, people ask? Well if it was, or if it was supposed to be, it didn’t work.

Her hip.

Her mind.

Is this my rabbit hole?

Damn!