Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more,
cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.–“Uncle John’s Band,” The Grateful Dead

Grief can make you a little crazy.

Not full-fledged walking-down-the-street-naked-and-singing-Grateful-Dead crazy.

More like leaving comments at newspapers online.  (POINTless, Kat!  You lose a point.)

So we are hanging out.

Relaxing.

Iced tea.  Grateful Dead. Cherry Garcia.

I am turning myself into a Deadhead this weekend.

No books, just music.

That’s me in the back yard in sunglasses and iPod.

Oh, and maybe with my Nook.

I am sorting through my mother’s things.

She died a few weeks ago, pointlessly.

At the funeral I felt like an envoy from another planet, gravely stepping back and declining to look at the open casket.

“The next time you see me I’ll be in my grave,” her friend said.

Aint no time to hate, barely time to wait,
Wo, oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

Her house was sold two years ago.

We now have a few odds and ends from the nursing home.

A laundry basket with a Room 219 tag, cf. Doris Lessing’s “To Room 19.”  (Actually the number is 224.)

One sandal, Size 8.

Many, many matching pants and tops in Size X-Small.  She was anorexic the last few years of her life.

Eight leather handbags, Liz Claiborne, East West, etc.

A copy of The Des Moines Register, Aug. 6.

A copy of The New York Times, Aug. 4

A copy of Cathie Pelletier’s The One-Way Bridge, bookmark on page 180.

A copy of Elizabeth Goudge’s Green Dolphin Street, one of my mother’s favorite books.

A tiny little pair of pajamas with Scotties design.

A framed picture of a dog.

A wooden block calendar.

It is the detritus of a life.

You know the kind of thing.

Anybody’s choice, I can hear your voice.
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?