No, the above is not the name of my new rock band. Several years ago the Silent Neighbors were moving out. They rarely emerged from their home. He was in his 50s and dying in the basement from Parkinson's disease. She was caring for him. Only one person, AnnaLynn was allowed inside to help with the vigil of slow death. The man spent 80 percent of his time asleep.
Suddenly their home was a beehive of activity. Their two sons converged on the house to move both parents out and onto Compass Road in Warrenton VA, I believe, where mom could have a life and dad would count down the remaining days of his life. They would move into the newly purchased home of bachelor son Randy, an air traffic controller.
They let me into the house during the last week. They gave me a small orange book on the Jehovah's Witnesses. The entire family were Witnesses. I asked Randy to inscribe the book for me and write his new address and email. I got in touch with him once on the day he was giving some out-of-towners a tour of his Washington DC office. "I guess it IS pretty impressive," he said after I commented.
What qualities do you need to be an air traffic controller? I asked.
The main quality, he said, is the ability to forget what you had for breakfast. To forget what happened an hour ago. You've got to live exclusively in the moment.
Think of it. Those planes are coming in from all over. It's all computerized of course. Your mind must be a blank slate.
That's how I feel when I come home from New Directions' meetings. I try to tie up all the business right there at the meeting so I can come home w/no unfinished business.
After our post-meeting trip to IHOP, I got home & opened the door. It smelled like dinner - chicken soup with brown rice, leftover asparagus, carrots, celery, mushroom & a heavy dose of cinnamon for flavor. I had some orange juice mixed w/tonic water for a post-meeting treat.
Mostly, tho, I was waiting for 3 people to write me back their impressions of my most recent poem Guido Grows Up.
No one wrote back. On my wall I tape up a phone list. On the list it says:
Poetry:
HAR
CC
CB
MB
SLD
CYN
LG
These are all the people I call when I wanna read a poem & make sure it's understandable. I just need to reach one single person so I go down the list.
Okay, so no one wrote me back. I clicked onto the NY Times to see what disaster had happened in the interim & something reminded me of a fellow I went to Goddard College with. I decided to goggle his name.
This is so manic, I said to myself. In the old days, I would call up old boyfriends in the middle of the night- what for? In my mania I'd feel a strong thread between us. So now, 30 years after Goddard, I'm goggling "Tom Twist" and find him on Facebook.
Against all my principles, I sign in to Facebook & send him a message:
goddard college? please lemme know if you went there.
In 2 minutes I get a reply. 1963-66. Tim Pitkin's finest hour. (Tim was the president)
Gleeful, I reply back. DO YOU REMEMBER ME? I was short, Jewish and hung out with Carolyn Hughes and Wendy Davidson.
Psyched, I pour myself another glass of OJ and await his answer.
It never arrives.
Like the air traffic controller, I must excise my folly from my mind.
