Month at a glance

The thing about moving to CA to help care for Marvin is that big stretches go by where I forget all about the situation. Now that we’re past the shock of the diagnosis, the crisis of the hospital, the steeling-yourself-for-news-of-what-it-all-means of the initial few months, things feel sort of normal at times. Marvin is doing well, there is a routine to the treatment and I’m free to walk around the house peering into rooms wondering where all my stuff is going to go once it arrives (it’s en route). It’s amazing how many boxes books take up when they’re emptied from a bookshelf. It’s also amazing how many books I have since I only recently learned to read. (Pop-up books are total space hogs!!!!)

So anyway, mostly I wander around like a dog whose house is being messed with or put on a table to be cleaned, completely unsettled with my lack of a home and new my identity as a person living in my parent’s house assuming my old identity. It’s like someone Command-Zd through the last ten years of my life. Also, where the hell am I going to put all my stuff?

And then I’ll catch a glimpse of something which snaps me right back into the present. This morning it was an image which I wish I could upload a photo of but instead I’ll just have to describe. It was a calendar, the same calendar I’ve seen a zillion times. Written in familiar handwriting down a neat clean row of Tuesdays was the word “chemo.” Same size, same pencil pressure, same placement in the box (upper left) as all the other appointments entered, some indicating other doctor visits, some reminders about bills paid or to be paid, some in other penmanship as this is a family calendar and a record of everyone’s somewhat mundane daily tasks. I suppose that’s the thing with this situation: when it’s under control, when it’s behaving as desired, it recedes into the background, flattened by the momentum of days passing, becoming just another thing to be dealt with, checked off, lived with.