A man in uniform
I was contemplating Mary Magdalene and the final hours and Noli me tangere – Touch me not – a powerful statement about the confrontation with death, about losing forever the thing you love. It all started on the 7th floor in the doctor’s office when sometimes a place like that makes you contemplate these things. And then I thought about the human capacity to torture oneself with thoughts of the worst case scenario anytime scenarios are not spelled out – as they sometimes aren’t in doctor’s offices.
A conference call in the parking lot, a walk to get my mother’s car as Blue went in for a/c work and never came out, and a day of constant demands from work, from other areas, doors closing, doors slamming, doors not opening, what’s behind door number 2. A whole lot of doors. And it made me weary.
But I reached into the hat and found mirth yet again despite the deck stacked against me – I thought of G’s tale of her recent boyfriend she just broke up with, he wore a uniform to work with a name tag, and also had a little trouble with French, her friend told her the last time she dated a man who wore a uniform and name tag, his name was Moose, and she was in college or high school, or sometime long ago. Kind of funny.
So E decided to take a journey down the rabbit hole all the way back in time and I went on the ride with her and found very interesting factoids to ponder – interesting to go back and see that the woman I am today had all the same trappings in the girl I was yesterday – my adoration for my father – his musical talent, his offbeat personality, his charisma – all balanced against the nuttiness – I still seek his qualities in men. She also calmed my nerves from this morning.
Ah, but that’s typical therapy stuff right? This morning I placed my nose firmly against the window on the 7th floor of the doctor’s office and looked out at Metairie – flat it is – and I told myself that today I was going to harness my thoughts and when memories crept in and tried to taunt me and make me woeful, I’d shake them off, and think thoughts of now, and sure enough when the memories started marching in later I held them at bay with my virtual stop sign up. Perhaps I had a better chance doing this today since Ambien did give me six and a half straight hours of sleep – that and the apartment chilled down to 55 degrees – poor Bean was almost lying on top of me this morning she was so cold.