I'll Never Know.....

 

“Your father is getting up every morning and unloading the dirty dishes from the dishwasher with his bad back.” Lanky Frustrated Man complains to Sorta Mean Bird Woman as I march past them up 31^st street.

            I can’t hear her response. But he bellows, “I don’t know what it is. I know he’s sleeping a lot….”

            I walk on, wondering, what is the situation he’s describing for all the neighborhood to hear and what is his relationship to her? If he were her sibling, then he’d say ‘our father’ right? Unless of course, they are half-siblings. Then they could share the same mother but have different fathers. Maybe this is the case? There is a definite intimacy between them, a sibling sort of frustration floating through the crisp post rain air.

            Or I suppose he could be some sort of caretaker? Her father has some sort of dementia and his lack of awareness of dirty v. clean dishes is a symptom of this condition? And Lanky Frustrated Man just is at the end of his rope. Wants her to solve the problem? Or at least be aware of it?

            I’ll never know. It’s not like I know these people. Like so many people I see every day on my walks, I know very few of them. There was Evie last week, whom I finally ‘met’ after telling her about Biden’s win. There’s Two Peas in a Pod, whom I finally introduced myself to and they did likewise. Yet, for most of my walks, I just see the same people since I go on the same route and I never know their names or their stories. Sometimes like this morning, I hear a snippet of a story, but I will never know what the real story is. Maybe Sorta Mean Bird Woman is in denial. She doesn’t want to acknowledge how far gone her father is.

            I get this. Denial works wonders a lot of the time. Esp. now. I can go through my day, walking, grading, teaching, swimming (sometimes) and just pretend like everything is okay. That there isn’t a worldwide pandemic killing thousands of people every day. That we don’t have a narcissistic, misogynistic, mendacious dictator in the White House who refuses to concede that he’s lost the election. That there isn’t a real crisis with the planet and the lack of rain here and the too much rain elsewhere. That there isn’t systemic racism and protests running rampant in our streets.

            Yeah, I can pretend that none of this exists. And, yet, it’s there. Hangin’ over me. I feel its heaviness in an unconscious way. It invades my dreams with tidal waves and unmasked crowds.

            As I head across Clinton Street, a murder of big black crows swoops into someone’s cluttered yard. A bonanza of litter and dead furniture and sickly-looking plants. The crows caw and fight over a piece of trash. One triumphs, picking it up in his hard yellow beak and flying up and over the telephone lines to savor it in solitude.

            I think back to the dishwasher and the dirty dishes and part of me gets why this happens. Sometimes whoever had loaded the dishwasher with the dirty dishes cleans them off so well before they’re loaded that honestly you can’t tell if they’ve been washed or not. So, unloading the dishwasher makes sense. It’s just being a helpful member of the household, right?

            Yet, I know that this probably wasn’t the case that was being discussed. And I feel sorry for all parties involved, even Sorta Mean Bird Woman. (I forget why I call her that. She has a bird-like aspect and she isn’t very nice.)

            Okay, maybe I don’t feel that sorry for her.

            Oh, what does it matter! I walk on, the sun bright, the trees dripping with silver water droplets from the night’s little bit of rain. Another crow caws at his ‘friends’ before jumping in front of me with his treasure of trash in his beak.

            I smile to myself as I head up toward McBryde, waving to a Random Dog Walking Lady who seems to recognize me. Her wave is hopeful and friendly, and I think, I wonder what her story is.

            I’ll never know…..