Normal

It’s wonderful, when at last things settle down, and you experience…

…normal!

It’s been a time when many things got resolved, some things got relearned, and other things were dropped.

And in the process, time has vanished or warped.

I don’t remember some things—Christmas, or New Year’s.

I remember other things—Taí sitting with me on the floor outside her bedroom, cab rides, a pharmacist checking side effects of Bupropion on her iPhone.

The first week of Lent, and a trek to El Morro. Facing my worst fear—hurricanes—and learning to love the wind, and to call it its name: Domine.

Starting to pick my life up again. Waking at a bit before six, taking my walk, eating a good breakfast of granola and yogurt and a banana in front of the sea.

While listening to Bach…

Coming home, organizing the day, starting to write.

None of the feared events in the anticipated dread occurred.

I’m not wasting time.

I’m not being unproductive.

I don’t miss or yearn for my previous life.

In fact, I tried to remember, last night, what it had been, in those days when I slavishly did my robotic routine. And I can’t connect.

Person is gone….

Or has blended in to the other people I have been—a night nurse, an itinerant cellist, an indifferent student.

And now, I’m somewhere else. 

There is such joy in it. 

Reading what has been dictated, seeing a house get cleaner, feeding and eating well.

A cat who nestles in the crook of my arms, in the hour before I start the day….

Getting to five o’clock, and knowing that my work is done.

And knowing that I know how to do things. 

I receive automatic responses from a publisher whose author I seek to quote?

I call them up, and gently tell a girl—she sounded all of 25—that I submitted the request three months ago, and could she tell me the status of that request?

She’s apologetic.

I reassure her.

And when will that request be granted?

“Today?”

That will be fine.

I go about my day, for which there is a “to do” list.

Most of it I will do.

Some I won’t.

Steps on the stairs—Raf.

The cats move to the foyer, I hear the click of key turning, and shout “Yo!”

He will cook.

I will do the dishes.

And go to bed…

…and rest.