We can finally take Jonah off-campus, so I’ve been driving down on Saturdays to visit. Andy and I pick him up and take him to the apartment, just like before, only now we get our temperatures taken and answer a series of health questions at Jonah’s house before they bring him out. No visitors are allowed inside, ever. Anderson’s done a great job of keeping its employees and residents safe.
For a while, before they allowed us to take him off campus, we talked them into letting us put Boo in the car and drive him very slowly around Anderson, winding in and out of large empty parking lots and campus roads, passing the same people over and over, a placated Jonah directing the radio and CD player. It reminded me of that scene in Rainman where Raymond drives around the circle in front of the casino.
Maybe someday we can let Jonah drive slow on the driveway. Here’s to hoping.
We’ve been grateful Briana is such a caring, responsible, hardworking manager and caregiver. I know Jonah’s house isn’t an easy one, and there have been a lot of staff changes. That’s never easy for Boo; his 18-month long ‘pendulum swing’ of no aggressions is over. A few times now he has become very upset and attacked staff.
One pair of broken glasses. Two people bitten. Three takedowns.
We expected this – or Andy did, at least. I had imagined Jonah crossing a red-ribbon threshold to a future devoid of aggressions and attacks. But we’ve been through all this before. I know now the only thing we can count on is change.
It’s been hard for everyone, this brave new world, much harder for others than me. I see my privilege – white, wealth, and every other way. I work both my jobs from home, driving in to the office just one day a week – and even then, I’m alone. The office building is a wasteland of social distancing and no people, of mask signage and no one to cough. The cafe is closed. Construction workers are tearing the old empty bank space apart to make smaller office spaces – for whom, I have no idea. They crash and bang and grind and saw while I sit there by myself. It becomes surreal.
Everything is surreal now. For an old hermit like me, it’s not too difficult, really. I don’t have to leave the house, and nobody bothers me. My animals stay close by, and I put musicals on TV as backdrop for my workday. I’ve discovered Hamilton and re-discovered Rent. Today it’s The Sound of Music. I’ve started reading again, which usually means listening to audiobooks; my eyes are tired and strained. Right now I’m tackling Les Miserables, which might not work because the French names are so hard to distinguish. Who am I hearing about now? Wait, wasn’t that the other guy? It would be easier if I could read the words on paper. Maybe I’ll try something shorter and less, well, miserables.
Also I’ve been painting rocks with acrylic pens. A lot of rocks. Many many rocks. They piled up, naturally, and so I started hiding them all over the neighborhood. I place them in trees, on playground equipment, at the bus stop. I send them to friends, leave them for the mail carrier, gift them to people who may or may not want a rock painted by the neighborhood crazy lady.
It has kept me busy during all the Groundhog Days, especially those early first weeks of working from home. Now I’m on to painting alphabet and chess sets. I’m even tossing around the idea of opening an etsy shop. I’m no artist, but I’ve gotten better since late March and I reckon I do about as well as anyone else selling decorated stones.
Plus there is a meditation in it. When there is day after day after day of the same, I need the creative outlet. I can’t imagine a life where I am not painting and writing, dancing and collaging, arranging stones in streams and acorns on paths. They say the writing saves the writer; that feels about right with all the things I love to do.. I play my little drum and I grow a small garden (sage, cilantro, and parsely) and I bake banana bread. I paint my rocks and gift them to the universe, usually with little messages on the back: YOU ROCK or ROCK ON; SHINE or RISE or JUST KEEP SWIMMING. I hope I am adding some good to this world. I aim to, anyway. Plus be a good mama to Boo. That’s enough for now.
“Everything’s untouched but forever changed.” ~ OK GO
Hang in there, my peeps. We’re all in this together.
Jonah’s is the whale, of course!
The Never Normal 