Dear Diary: Scene Change
Exit Kathleen — to North Carolina. At about two this afternoon, she had a phone call from her father, and learned that her mother’s decline has accelerated. Before seven, she pulled up at her father’s door. (At three, she appeared at the apartment, with a car downstairs waiting to take her to the airport, and threw — and I mean, threw — some clothes into a suitcase. She had the only remaining seat on the only unbooked American Eagle flight to Raleigh-Durham.) Hustle and bustle, and then an unwonted stillness.
The flight was scheduled to take off at 4:25. When I hadn’t heard from Kathleen by ten of five, I concluded that she had taken off more or less on time, and I set out on a walk. The plan — a success — was to stay out until about the time for her touchdown. I hate sitting at home while Kathleen is in the air almost as much as I hate flying myself, and I can alway use the exercise. But I wouldn’t be very imaginative. I took my ordinary route, which my feet can follow without executive input, and when I’d completed my loop through Carl Schurz Park and along the Finley Walk, I kept walking west, to hit up the ATM machine for some cash — I’d given what I had to Kathleen. Crossing Third Avenue, I notice a scaffolding pasted with a sign for Burger Heaven — the upper floors of the building in which the branch is situated are being renovated — and I realized that I’d forgotten all about Burger Heaven.
Not to worry; it was just another sign of my summer depression, which this year, at least, I’d harnessed and exploited. As the weather gets warmer and hazier, my body slows down to the Slowest Possible Denominator. I simply saw to it that I spent this immobile period seated in front of the computer in the only room with supplemental air-conditioning. It was a hugely productive six or seven weeks, but I was still depressed — or, to use the fancy term, in estivation. Rarely leaving the building during daylight hours, I forgot about lots of simple things, eventually. Such as the presence of a Burger King location on Third Avenue, next door to the Orpheum.
I’d had big plans for the day: I was going to write up Sam Shepard’s story in The New Yorker, which I read at the barber shop this morning, and I was going to clean out the refrigerator. The refrigerator is not in the dire state that usually compels clean-outs, but it’s crowded, with half-empty jars of semi-useful substances. Leftovers. I’m quite sure that I’ll find some unusably wilted green beans. I was going to write about that, too. I was going to write about the dinner for three that I made on Friday — our young art-student friend came by to tell us what he’s been up to. I hadn’t cooked for three during the estivation period, as I several culinary stumbles reminded me.
(For example: I was going to accompany the chicken sauté (one of the best I’ve ever cooked) with angel hair pasta. The angel hair pasta is kept in a canister that stands behind the spaghetti canister, so the two canisters were both standing on the counter when the water reached a boil. I was chatting with Devin and sipping white wine — and presently I was wondering what the hell was taking the angel hair so long to cook? And how’d it get so thick?  In the end, we ate truly al dente spaghetti — at the very punto of inedibility.)
I was going to do a lot of things today. But Kathleen’s trips always diminish the quality of the light, and this trip has made me feel that my Persephone has been summoned by her mother to the underworld. The very air is clotted with inanition. I’m glad that Kathleen is where she really does want to be right now; the long-distance perch was vexing her. But I can’t wait to have her back.