The end of all things happens on the same day
Thursday, 2 June 2016 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59I'm Going To Memorize Your Name And Throw My Head Away.*
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(That subject line is a metaphor.)
A couple of weeks ago, on my way home from work, I found that the first building where Pat and I lived was being torn down.
I'd been expecting that for a while; it was condemned some years ago. It's only a few blocks from my house and I pass it every day to and from work, so I'd been watching it decay and dilapidate. We only lived there a year, but it was our first year and it was special. On the ground floor were little stores—a grocery, I remember, and on the corner, a flower shop. The man who owned the building was the florist Up a flight of stairs were apartments—eight altogether, I think, four to a section.
Today it was nothing but dirt, a tiny field.
Yesterday, I bought a new phone.
It wasn't a choice, exactly; it was necessary. The screen of my old phone died, and with everything going on right now, I need a reliable phone.
It took four hours, and I'm planning on writing about that later. But while I was at AT&T I threw away part of my past.
Pat had a cellphone first, because of her falling. A couple of them in succession: first a big, brick-like thing, then a smaller brick-like thing, then a nice silver flip phone. She got the last one the year she died, and I got one just like it at the same time. I think it was sometime in the early spring. We played with them a lot; we'd call each other from the same room and answer saying things like, "I can't talk now, I'm busy," or "What do you want?" or "You have the wrong number," or "Why do you keep calling me?" We had fun.
(This is the thing I miss most, the frivolity, the having a confidante. I've got this bluetooth thing that I'd like to experiment with and if Pat were alive I would ask her to call me so I could see what happens when I get a call, so I could practice using the silly thing. Even just answering the phone is complicated and I have to keep telling people, "I got a smart phone but it didn't make me any smarter." Pat would like that. Pat would help me, and she'd enjoy it.)
We were on a family plan, and we had talked about getting my mother a phone. But Pat died. So I just gave my mother Pat's phone.
And she doesn't use it. The only time she's ever used it is when I was taking her to Coumadin Clinic; she'd call to come pick her up. I've been paying for it every month for twelve years for it to live in a drawer, but I'm a very good daughter. I can't make my mother carry a cellphone, but I can make sure she has a cellphone even if she won't carry it.
It's been annoying and frustrating, and expensive when you consider it was completely going to waste, but it kept me from having to do something I really didn't want to do: releasing Pat's phone number. I really wanted to keep Pat's number.
Yesterday I cancelled that line. A woman who can't talk doesn't need a cellphone. If a phone rings in the forest and there's no-one to answer it, what difference does it make?
Pieces of my life are falling off or drifting away and there's really nothing I can do about it. All I can do is let go so I don't go with them.
*Oscar Levant
-:- -:- -:- -:-
(That subject line is a metaphor.)
A couple of weeks ago, on my way home from work, I found that the first building where Pat and I lived was being torn down.
I'd been expecting that for a while; it was condemned some years ago. It's only a few blocks from my house and I pass it every day to and from work, so I'd been watching it decay and dilapidate. We only lived there a year, but it was our first year and it was special. On the ground floor were little stores—a grocery, I remember, and on the corner, a flower shop. The man who owned the building was the florist Up a flight of stairs were apartments—eight altogether, I think, four to a section.
Today it was nothing but dirt, a tiny field.
Yesterday, I bought a new phone.
It wasn't a choice, exactly; it was necessary. The screen of my old phone died, and with everything going on right now, I need a reliable phone.
It took four hours, and I'm planning on writing about that later. But while I was at AT&T I threw away part of my past.
Pat had a cellphone first, because of her falling. A couple of them in succession: first a big, brick-like thing, then a smaller brick-like thing, then a nice silver flip phone. She got the last one the year she died, and I got one just like it at the same time. I think it was sometime in the early spring. We played with them a lot; we'd call each other from the same room and answer saying things like, "I can't talk now, I'm busy," or "What do you want?" or "You have the wrong number," or "Why do you keep calling me?" We had fun.
(This is the thing I miss most, the frivolity, the having a confidante. I've got this bluetooth thing that I'd like to experiment with and if Pat were alive I would ask her to call me so I could see what happens when I get a call, so I could practice using the silly thing. Even just answering the phone is complicated and I have to keep telling people, "I got a smart phone but it didn't make me any smarter." Pat would like that. Pat would help me, and she'd enjoy it.)
We were on a family plan, and we had talked about getting my mother a phone. But Pat died. So I just gave my mother Pat's phone.
And she doesn't use it. The only time she's ever used it is when I was taking her to Coumadin Clinic; she'd call to come pick her up. I've been paying for it every month for twelve years for it to live in a drawer, but I'm a very good daughter. I can't make my mother carry a cellphone, but I can make sure she has a cellphone even if she won't carry it.
It's been annoying and frustrating, and expensive when you consider it was completely going to waste, but it kept me from having to do something I really didn't want to do: releasing Pat's phone number. I really wanted to keep Pat's number.
Yesterday I cancelled that line. A woman who can't talk doesn't need a cellphone. If a phone rings in the forest and there's no-one to answer it, what difference does it make?
Pieces of my life are falling off or drifting away and there's really nothing I can do about it. All I can do is let go so I don't go with them.
*Oscar Levant