The storms have settled down here…..at least a little……at least for a moment, but that anything-can-happen feel permeates everything from what I thought I was doing yesterday (working in a coffee shop, but instead driving my mother-in-law to doctors after she took a tumble) to my skin (two scary words: poison ivy). When the days get strange, the nights get stranger: when I woke up this morning, I evaporated from the upstairs of a Victorian home full of secret rooms where a woman who let me hide there (after a man was chasing me with machete) showed me an elaborate cape she made from iridescent tiny blue beads.
After some days of fighting off intrusions to my work and thrashing against the reality of the poison ivy spreading from my neck upwards (e.g. face) and downward, I finally got into the groove of the strangeness. Escorting my mother-in-law down long halls in medical buildings because we parked in the wrong place, or doing drive-through fast food for lunch (something I rarely do, but when the gal has to eat between ferrying an 88-year-old about, the gal has to eat), I had a mild realization about strange days: they go a lot better when you simply surrender.
So back and forth to town multiple time because of things left in doctors’ offices? Inhale. Young adult son heading to Newton with no place to stay but the back seat of someone’s car? Exhale. Tick on my leg to pull off? Cat jumping high? New tiny spot of poison ivy on the wrist? Water not draining right in the tub? And all the phone calls lately when someone’s phone died, voice cut in or out, or the call mysteriously disconnected, only to have five minutes of missing each other as we simultaneously dialed each other at the same time? Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t push the river. And just start laughing at it all.
The strange days flow in, spill over, and with them, bring their own weird magic and surprises: poison ivy isn’t too bad with a lot of Zanfel, Sudifed and coffee, chicken mcnuggets are better than I remembered, the wind comes sweetly despite the heat, friends last night talking about friendship lifted my heart, having to take some detours showed me new curves to drive, and while sitting in doctors’ offices for hours, I found a lovely way to organize a poetry anthology.
Strange days indeed, and to celebrate them with John Lennon’s song on this topic, take a listen here. Most particular, Mama.
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