?>{"id":277,"date":"2012-01-13T06:34:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T14:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/?p=277"},"modified":"2012-09-10T07:53:50","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T14:53:50","slug":"wonderin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"wonderin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI am of the theory that all of our transcendental connections, anything we\u2019re drawn to, be it a person, a song, a painting on the wall – they\u2019re magnetic. The art is the alloy, so to speak. And our souls are equipped with whatever properties are required to attract that alloy. I\u2019m no scientist so I don\u2019t really know what the hell these properties are, but my point is we\u2019re drawn to stuff we\u2019ve already got a connection to. Part of the thing is already inside of us.\u201d \u2014 \u00a0from God-Shaped Hole<\/span> by Tiffanie DeBartolo<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
***<\/p>\n
Mom was too tired to brush her teeth, and red Jell-O was all she wanted anymore. She slept with her mouth slightly agape, her teeth pink, her face white, her fingers blue.<\/p>\n
In a Tijuana hospital, nobody spoke English well. I got her M&Ms from the corner store once, but she was frightened when I wasn’t there.\u00a0I changed her bedpan, and then her diapers. The nurses and I salved her bedsores, turning her, trying not to hurt her broken hip.<\/p>\n
Ella tiene dolor en la cadera.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
It, too, was dissolved, like her ribs, her breast, her lung. She cried at night, she shit herself. I held her hand when they poked and prodded. I smoothed her hair and she smiled sometimes. She had big, brown eyes like a calf. Like a Black-Eyed Susan.<\/p>\n
Por que los dedos azul?<\/em><\/p>\n
I rode in the ambulance with her. Federalis in full SWAT gear patrolled the streets. I signed forms, I reminded the EMTs in broken Spanish to be gentle, that her hip was broken. I promised I’d be there when she got out from radiation. There were piles of hair around her bed, but she never went bald. She asked me if she was going to die.<\/p>\n
Tengo miedo.<\/em><\/p>\n
Whispering, too weak to speak, so tired.\u00a0She slept at night, but I didn’t. I watched movies, I used music. I was delirious from isolation, from tending a frightened child who happened to be my mother. And I had to be strong.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Many years before all this, my best friend got the first rewritable CD-ROM drive of anyone I knew. It took me all morning to rip and compile the first CD mixtape I ever made. It took the rest of the day to burn it.<\/p>\n
Even though I didn’t like him, my day-long labor included one Neil Young song. It was like… I had to.<\/em><\/p>\n
Two years later, my brother and I drove six hours to St. Louis to see CSN&Y. I was happy that Neil played that one song. I felt like I’d seen something important, even though I still didn’t like him. Stupid whiny voice, shitty guitar playing.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
A decade later in a hospital room, I was despairing and I was alone with my thoughts. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it. One day I noticed that nothing that I used to love made me happy anymore.<\/p>\n
Nobody quite knew what to say. So I\u00a0corresponded with a friend of mine, an Iraq combat vet, who understood the depths of isolation and weariness and \u00a0futility and the unfair demands to muster strength and comfort in an impossible situation. He said I was the only civilian he could talk to.<\/p>\n
When Mom went to bed, the TV was on all night. It was comforting for her. I couldn’t sleep anymore anyhow; there were always sheets and diapers and a body to be cleaned. The nurses were gone.<\/p>\n
One night, she wanted the TV off. It was too dark, and so I gathered in my laptop. I don’t remember how I found it, or why I was looking for his music, but I watched this video of Neil Young — who I didn’t like, who had a stupid whiny voice and played shitty guitar — over and over:<\/p>\n