There is a strange juxtaposition of moods in this house. The happier I get with my work situation and my online life, the more unhappy my housemate seems to become. After the dramatic job shift in December, things have begun to arrange themselves well for me. I am being paid better wages to work on more interesting topics. Yes, the schedule is harder to manage and I’m back to arising in the dark hours of early morning. There is no regular paycheck that arrives on a given day, but more and more the word “better” is creeping into my thoughts.
I’ve struck up new online friendships with folks from my little town who, though a few years older, are wickedly bright, funny, and genuine. So few things change in our beloved ranching community of yore, that we can laugh about the same people and places, using nostalgia as a foundation to get to know one another better in the here and now. I cannot explain the comfort level that comes from “home folks,” I can only revel in its warmth and safety.
My housemate watches me smile at a message on my Blackberry or laugh outright, and she is both puzzled and unsettled by it. She doesn’t understand the technology, but she knows that somehow I have a life inside those machines and out on the landscape of cyberspace of which she isn’t a part. Can you understand me when I say I’m not trying to exclude her and yet that’s exactly what I’m trying to do?
Community is a peculiar thing. What I miss most about home is the very aspect of small town life that can be most maddening; the common knowledge, the familiarity — the never having to explain what you just said because everyone speaks the local vernacular. It’s being sure-footed about where and when to cuss, when to use “m’am” and “sir,” and how blue the joke can get before a coronary sets in. Religion and politics are set aside when human need intervenes.
Here in the city, when my housemate and I are out and about, it is rare for someone to open the door so I can push her wheelchair through unimpeded. I’ve become skilled at holding the door open with my backside while executing the maneuver solo. Shortly after R.’s stroke, my Aunt Elizabeth died. R. insisted on going to the funeral in Menard. At the cemetery, I took her wheelchair out of the trunk, put her in it, and turned to roll her over the curb and to the side of the grave.
Out of nowhere, two men in dark suits and western boots appeared. They said, “‘Scuse me, m’am,” effortlessly lifted R. and carried her as if she were seated in a sedan chair, gently placing her under the shade of the funeral tent. That was the only point in the day when tears came to my eyes. I was in a place where it wouldn’t have occurred to those men not to help a little old woman in a wheelchair.
As a caregiver, I frankly take my comforts where I can find them. Just yesterday I was discussing this in an email and wrote that I thought the hand of the Universe had a role in bringing me a source of support both old and new at just the time I seemed to need it most, at that point when I still had hold of the rope, but could surely use a knot to improve my grip. I don’t question. I’m just grateful.