- The daughter takes her mother out for breakfast, and
they talk hospital tests, and those tests could mean the
mother’s end, no more trips and meals with the daughter. Fear over coffee.
- A man collides with a rubber pipe. He is stunned, not hurt, though. He is nearly blind, glaucoma. A man watching this says, “Can’t help him cross the street, can’t leave the store, I’m alone.” I take the man’s arm and guide him across a boulevard, some cars slowing. I ask a mother and son to take up the guiding; they are afraid, and then see I’m asking about a blind man, so they take over, helping him to another store.
- So what, cool and damp and breezy, the delivery men, some are women, work in shorts, running from trucks to homes and then back, running, in shorts, running. A friend says, “This is what I love about the United States, you order, and soon the item comes.”
- Most neighbors and friends have given up on any form of holiday wish to me; they know that I will shrug such off, noting that moments and more moments are what count … and then I add to soften some shock, if they are still shocked after two plus decades, “Hey, the lights are nice, and the cards serve for contact and memory. Some suspend meaness for awhile.”
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, late December, 2011
-
