The Last Word On Nothing

It was a Wednesday morning, the last day in May. I’d been at the emergency room until the wee hours with a loved one and I needed to be asleep, but my brain had other plans.

Me: how about sleep?

Brain: Alternative proposal: how about obsessing over your problems, such as this loved one who is currently in the hospital?

Me: [sigh]

But I know a trick or two after 47 years in this brain, so after a while of trying to soothe it back to sleep with a book, I put on presentable clothes, tied my shoes, and took my brain and my body out for a walk.

I took one of my pandemic walking routes around the neighborhood. I don’t remember much about this walk, but I can tell by the evidence that I stopped to take a picture. I’ve lived around those black sidewalk smudges for decades, but only in the last couple of years have I realized that they are a sign to look up and stuff my face with mulberries. I don’t even remember if did that this time. I continued on to my local coffee shop, bought a latte, downed it, went back home, and conked out for a few more hours. (Like I said, I know some tricks about this brain.)

I haven’t had the chance to reflect on all that has happened in the last month, so I’m not reflecting on it here. I don’t have the brain space to think about anything else, either. I’m not even spending that much time outside. The mulberries did their thing mostly without me this year. I guess I’ll catch them in 2024.

photo: Helen Fields