September Tuesday

A hundred haiku from that one horrific day

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Do Unto: A short story and twenty others
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it's a sultry saturday morning and i'm already drenched with sweat.

i have a heavy heart because of the events of the last few weeks, in which my son's life crashed, and he came to stay near me for a while. it was actually nice having him around, yet getting closer to what he was doing and how it played out filled me with both stress and dread, even though it could be much worse. he actually had a pretty decent life built up, yet....well, i'll save that for a more private blog. let's just say that your kids can put twenty years on you in the bat of an eye sometimes.

we have an extra puppy around here, a third; he is very small but has huge feet and bounces around cheerfully reminding us of how great it is to be a young puppy and have a family. he even pees in his excitement as he's just learning to wait until he's at a spot where he can crouch and put it somewhere. this has caused my wife to have to do a lot of climbing up and down the stairs, keeping him away from the other puppies and making sure he gets regular trips. the puppy was originally going to be my son's, or perhaps my daughter's, but neither of them are particularly disciplined or able to keep up with what we might call chores, and very quickly it all fell to my wife. i was a little leery of her taking on all this responsibility but they barely asked me in the excitement of going to get him. and now i have to walk the other two more often, as most certainly there will be lots more work to go around.

my nights are haunted by thoughts of my son living in his car, or being out in the strets of chicago, or being unable to secure a place to stay. in fact he is there now. knowing how badly things fell apart for him has been hard, and i don't even know the part of it. i shouldn't talk too much of it, as it's his story, not mine, but the process of finding the truth has been difficult. i can barely write, or even read, or do the things i usually enjoy. i'm too ground up and nervous.

the sultry humidity is not unusual for illinois in august but still it's something i'm not used to, and i come home drenched and exhausted. i've lost a little weight though, especially worrying, and i had a dizzy spell the other day that topped it all off. i was simply driving home on two of the prettier local roads, the ones i'm on several times a day, and the world started spinning in front of my eyes. it was raining and a car ahead of me had its lights on, but the lights were flying along in a horizontal line in front of me and i could barely tell which way was straight ahead. i clutched the steering wheel hard and slowed down, determined to get the two blocks home rather than pull over and start throwing up. i got home, and lurched into the house, feeling like a drunk unable to stand or walk straight. i was aware that my neighbor's security camera would testify against my apparent lack of sobriety. but i made it into the house, threw up repeatedly (a rather empty stomach) and then slept it off for a couple of hours.

when i have a bad dizzy spell i count back to figure out what i ingested that topped my sodium limit or sent me over the edge. in this case i had had a little too much coffee waiting for my son, and even ate a few things that definitely could have put me over the limit. i vow to keep calm, stay under my limit, take care of myself, not let it happen again.

the son is in chicago as we speak, taking care of business and driving around with no permanent place to live. he is, perhaps, arranging things so that he can go back there to live and work. it is, after all, the place where he has everything set up. i've said too much already; you can probably guess now, which son, etc. respect his privacy please. he will be ok. he has my prayers and the prayers of all my friends. he has the energy of youth and the ability to work it out. may god be with him on his journey.

i am sitting here stressed out on a wednesday evening and i haven't even taken the garbage out. my wife is mad at me because my son is coming home from the hospital too early, in her opinion, but i knowing him am aware that it will be way too late in his opinion and he is dying to be free. enough said. my heart is crying.

the sun is going down on galesburg as it is about to get another resident.

since it was august first, a number of momentous things happened, and i'll explain a little why it's momentous to me anyway. i have a stepdaughter who had a birthday today, and she moved from up here in brimfield, to marion illinois today, and i don't think she was happy about it. she'll be ok though, she's resilient, and she will be starting in a new school which in my opinion teaches a kid a lesson in making new friends. the lesson is: it's not that hard. other kids like you because you're there, and you're the same age as they are. it's possible to be sensitive about the fact that they've known each other longer than they've known you, but that is rapidly outweighed by the fact that you are right there, while have the people they've known forever are gone, or have changed. so it's really practical to be open to the possibilities and usually most kids are.

August first is important to me because it is PV's birthday. PV was a kid I knew growing up. His parents were overprotective so frequently we were not allowed to go places that we wanted to go together - most of which I admit were trouble. Like back in the woods, or down in town where trouble happened. So ok we were trapped a little in his living room - there was stuff to do but we were restless - and eventually we left him behind and did other stuff. but that wasn't really the best outcome, and i was always a little sorry about that. in honor of him, i celebrate his birthday. here's to the kid who feels left out, for whatever reason.

got to go, too much happening.