September 18, 2003
My mother phones to tell me she is depressed and with flu. Reading Balzac. To cheer herself up? After a stint of manic gardening she is paralysed in a slump of misery. How familiar the pattern.
To the dry cleaners early. (And this is not tax a deductible luxury. How to be an old hostess and look even moderately fresh?) A man is milling around pursued by the tailor in a jacket that is pinned up both sides, a lizard in cheap wool. A pile of his clothes lies at the tailor’s station, jackets and pants to be shrunk to his newly diminished proportions. Not a successful diet. He picks up another batch of altered and cleaned clothes, exits, hails a taxi. He is having his whole wardrobe altered. I recognise sickness in his sparse hair, fragile skin, large feet that speak of a frame that was once more robust. I feel so grateful, briefly, that once again I have to wedge my ass into my pants, that the morning's task is merely part of the day and not an outing that will weld me to my sofa until the following task that should be completed.
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My mother phones to tell me she is depressed and with flu. Reading Balzac. To cheer herself up? After a stint of manic gardening she is paralysed in a slump of misery. How familiar the pattern.
To the dry cleaners early. (And this is not tax a deductible luxury. How to be an old hostess and look even moderately fresh?) A man is milling around pursued by the tailor in a jacket that is pinned up both sides, a lizard in cheap wool. A pile of his clothes lies at the tailor’s station, jackets and pants to be shrunk to his newly diminished proportions. Not a successful diet. He picks up another batch of altered and cleaned clothes, exits, hails a taxi. He is having his whole wardrobe altered. I recognise sickness in his sparse hair, fragile skin, large feet that speak of a frame that was once more robust. I feel so grateful, briefly, that once again I have to wedge my ass into my pants, that the morning's task is merely part of the day and not an outing that will weld me to my sofa until the following task that should be completed.
- rachael 9-20-2003 11:48 am