Signs of a summer season: a disabled man slumped over in his wheelchair in front of the US Post Office on Penna. Ave. SE while in the background a younger man tenderly gives fresh water to his dogs using the top of a small jar. Trees above are a blessing. So are passersby thinking to give some money to the tired oldster.
Why such a stupendous heat 'storm' locally and nationally? And why do I let it be my excuse for lack of any meaningful activity?
Sure, I helped a friend move from her small house to a medium-sized condo nearby. That led to a short sense of wellbeing, a sense of helping others. But that doesn't carry over to the next day.
Because it's July and the weather seems to be in charge - the unpredictability leading to a wayward mentality no doubt.
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And for distraction, I focus on an old habit: reading, considering and sometimes using New York Times Cooking recipes. Where does the satisfaction come from I ask myself: the urge to collect them is hard to resist, often hard to follow and seldom produces satisfactory results. I concede this is probably a solitary woman's subject probably a holdover from pandemic activity's closet life. I surmise it is admiration for the orderliness of instructions, the promised evocation of good tastes and smells. No doubt it is the anticipation that brings joy. In any event, I doubt I share the compulsion with anyone I know. So much the better then.
And so it is when I go for a trim with Walter - to have the attention of another person,, however brief, and see accomplishment in the result, however imperfect. Clip, clip, clip he goes on relentlessly, matching talk to the sound of the scissors. He begins by asking a polite question - something about 'where have you been traveling' or such. Soon the session becomes a series of anecdotes, observations, advice. He has just yesterday perhaps had a slight stroke, he says, but he knows how to ease out of it - by taking off his shoes and walking slowly outside on the grass, all the while breathing slowly, in and out, focusing on calming his nerves so his heart slows. A neighbor saw him and told his wife who screamed thoughtfully, insisting on taking him to an emergency room. He obliges her - now that he has conquered the tremor - but the medical team probably agrees that he has had a small slight stroke. Ah, but he is undaunted. He has solutions to prolonging life: watermelon juice, daily round of salt in hot water - "since what they give you first thing when you go there is a sodium injection,' (he thinks).
The stories go on, of past encounters low and high: about being asked to 'do the hair' of certain high end government officials at some super secure event before such people were to take the stage or sit before a camera. How, one time, a woman begged him to let her come along as his so-called assistant but when he obliged, she broke down with nerves, drank too much and had to be ejected from the scene.That was the last time I'll ever do that, he confesses. He confesses so much while his fingers move with such finality through my ever shorter locks. He wants me to have 'a certain look,' not like anyone else - he says. Younger and more vital. We are in this together, this aging thing.
