Monday, September 15, 2008

the sun and I will have our ups and downs



When your back is wrecked, you sometimes can't walk, sit, stand, or lie down without a whole lot of pain. When it's on the mend, you sometimes need a reminder of the things you can't do.

1. You can’t go grocery shopping and pick up the giant box of large-size Milkbones from the bottom shelf, put it in your cart, put it on the conveyor belt, put it back in the cart, put it in your car, and bring it in your house. You can’t even do the first thing.

2. You can’t lug your new kneeling chair, which you discover was delivered without so much as a knock at the door (you know, because your junkyard dogs would have made a fuss), into the kitchen. You can’t even squeeze the 19.55 pound box from the place between the railings where the UPS guy wedged it.

3. You cannot put together the chair that you cannot lug into the kitchen from the front porch, especially hunched over in another chair while holding the heavy metal parts in the air until you get their holes matched and their screws tightened.

4. You cannot sit on your ass for hours writing, while your L5 throbs, and your feet grow numb.

5. You cannot make the bed! Do not make the bed! You don’t even make the bed when you’re feeling good!

6. You cannot take forty of your husband’s long-sleeved shirts off the hangers to the washing machine in the basement; take them out, wet, to put them in the dryer; and bring them all upstairs, where you cannot hang each of them back up in the closet, fastening at least the top two buttons while you lean over the bed. And you cannot do this after having done this with forty short-sleeve shirts, and you cannot do it again with forty more long-sleeve shirts. And your husband, who refuses to wear deodorant, but whom you caught hanging up a shirt he’d just taken off after working in it all day—on a day he walked a mile to work-doesn’t even understand why you would.

7. You cannot squander the sunsets. You cannot miss the chance to carry your heavy camera up three flights of stairs to the attic, slide up the window screen, and lean, crookedly, on a narrow, dirty sill filled with dead bees, and shoot the sunset.

Because when the time comes that the list of things you can’t do grows unwieldy, itself a thing you cannot lift, your ability to enjoy the sunset—no, your desire to enjoy the sunset, your not having given up on the sun’s big, smeary, wet goodnight kiss—is the test of whether you should continue—making lists, adding to your list of days.





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11 caws:

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips

Love your lists. Love your sunsets. I don't have anything clever to say, but couldn't not comment on your awesomemess.

Aunt Teena said... Best Blogger Tips

But you can take some mighty pretty pictures.

40 shirts? How often do you do laundry?

patrick said... Best Blogger Tips

Yes... the sunsets must always be given their due.

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips

Ha; I was thinking the same thing about the shirts. Although, my husband and son both seem to change clothes multiple times each day. It does add up. I always seem to wash and wash, and somehow still leave out my own clothes.

fuquinay said... Best Blogger Tips

No, see—when I saw he was wearing his shirts twice between washings, I took all the shirts in his entire closet down to wash them. All of them. Because I was not about to sniff armpits, and I figure some of them have been up there infecting the other shirts since last year.

Diana Pappas said... Best Blogger Tips

Good stuff and love those blazing sunsets...

serious bummer he doesn't use the big D. He won't even try the crystal?

and you need to stop lifting stuff and go to a spa for like, a month, and get pampered.

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips

just remember I'm working from home on mondays and thursdays - if you ever need help with anything. I can't ALWAYS show up to lug stuff around, but better to call me than hurt yourself. I can ride my bike over and try not to fall before I arrive;) ... Or if you just want to take a break and grab lunch.

Though I don't know if I could deal with Marty's shirts...lol.

cybergabi said... Best Blogger Tips

Could it be you're making your life a bit too complicated by the shirt thing? If he wants to be smelly, let him. Just refuse to let him get close to you when he smells (at least if you can't stand it).

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips

I know it's really hard to rest, to sit back and see everything that needs to be done but your back needs it. Beautiful pictures!

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips

It's both funny and beautiful, a good mix!

daringtowrite said... Best Blogger Tips

Wow, way to transform the suffering into creative beauty!