Writing Assignment:

Without using your hands (you’re writing) describe an accordion and how it works.

I know a tougher one: without using your hands describe a fitted sheet, how to put it on a mattress, how to fold it. Maddening. The older I get the the harder it is—to do it—the folding, that is.

I read of a person who wanted to be a writer and who took a writing course that included that kind of writing assignment. Turned out he was a whiz at describing things; he ended up with a good job writing descriptions of stuff for catalogues.

This, as a preamble to what I have to write now: some descriptions of things. It’s not easy.

Past gifts:

1) A new toilet paper dispenser. Older bathrooms have built-in niches for toilet paper rolls that used to be a standard size, guaranteed to fit the space. Years have passed and now you’ll find toilet paper rolls double and triple the size of earlier ones. A friend sent me a toilet paper dispenser with a drop-down hinge to make any roll slide down from the tight space while it didn’t fit and then slide up when it was partially used and slim enough to fit. I must have complained to my friend about one of life’s little annoyances. I think of her every day, obviously, and thank her, may she rest in peace.

2) An orange peeler. Well, it’ not really a peeler, it’s a help-peeler. It’s a 5-inch plastic stick--orange, of course--with a tiny hook at one end and an equally tiny shovel shape at the other. You slice through the orange peel with the hook, but not through to the flesh, several times around the fruit, and then with the little shovel you lift the edges of the partially open skin and pee it off. It’s easy with Clementines or Mandarins and a real help with Navels. My friend knew that I eat an orange every day and I send her my thanks and my blessing every morning, may she rest in peace.

3) A glasses lanyard? Would you call it a lanyard? It’s a kitchen tool for me. The same friend gave me this: a cord with slide-on grippers for the stems of my reading glasses so that I can wear them around my neck and put them on quickly when I need to read the measurements (in such fine print!) in a recipe. RIP

These were latter-day gifts when we were older and either had everything or had less money and could not afford to buy gifts for friends who had everything. They matched my father’s plastic hair brush for thoughtfulness and care. The brush is gone but I still use the other items.

You’ve heard the expression, “It’s the thought that counts”. It’s true. It takes time, though.

It took me a lot of time to write this.

I took a visit to my past today. A friend drove me to a small city outside of Toronto to visit mutual friends who used to live in my apartment building. I don’t like to take medicine, prescribed or not, but I took an Advil to alleviate what promised to be a long hard day: driving and sitting, sitting and talking, driving and sitting. I talked too much. I don’t have people to talk to so it was very nice to share with friends approximately my age. (No one is as old as I am, at least not no one close.)

Work on my new book was seriously interrupted by the presence of my challenged son, Matt. For almost two years we lived together mostly in lockdown for our mutual safety (Covid). I had difficulty adapting to living with another (needy) person after thirty years alone. Now that he is gone and I see him once a week for Sunday dinner I have had withdrawal symptoms. I’ve had a number of other residual problems so I haven’t yet begun to write. Soon, maybe, in 2022?

I don’t normally “talk out” my books until after I have written/ or published them but this one is different. I hare been gathering memories from a very distant past, making more sense of my life than I have ever done—though I might not be accurate in my reading of it. I talked too much to my friends as I pieced the clues together. It was a strange visit. I feel better tonight.

Maybe it was the Advil.