I’m finding Proust fascinating, but I can only read about 10-20 pages at a time before my brain gets tired. I’m really enjoying the little ritual I started of reading Swann’s Way in the mornings with my coffee. I have my phone’s dictionary open plus a notebook at my side to jot down notes, and quotes that I love. I have to read many sentences more than once, but that’s okay, it feels good to take my time, knowing I don’t have a deadline. I love reading a long paragraph without really comprehending much, then going back and methodically reading through it again, this time taking the structure apart, and gradually finding my understanding increasing. Checking references is also very illuminating.
It occurred to me that a good exercise would be to describe an average morning following the Proust example of focusing on minutiae and including as many tangents as I feel like. So, that’s what this post is and I hope you enjoy it!
7:30 a.m.
Upon waking I became aware of Buster stirring beside me and I wondered what time it was, checking my watch as the thought occurred to me, but my Fitbit had died during the night, so I made an effort to judge the light glowing through the curtains to help me estimate the time of day. I decided it must be close to 8 a.m. and thus was late enough that I couldn’t allow myself to turn over and fall back into the arms of Morpheus, in the slothful way other retired people might, who have nothing to do all day. I was not one of those people, as I had a few personal projects I had committed to, some to finish, some to start, and wasting the morning in sleep was not a luxury I would allow myself. I am not usually able to fall back to sleep anyway; in fact, I’m always surprised to find out from some friends that they rely heavily on the snooze button, something I found very early in life that I didn’t need, because once awake, especially when I had to go to work or school, I was awake for good. I can count on one hand (or maybe two, tops) the number of times I’ve gotten up late as a result of going back to sleep once the alarm had sounded; I guess sleep has always been somewhat elusive.
Buster noticed my movements and stretched himself out long, crawling his way closer to me– his freakishly long tongue extended in a languorous yawn out of his suddenly cavernous mouth, reminding me of a cobra but with its tongue moving in slow motion– hoping to encourage me to get up and feed him. When I continued to think and ignore him, he crawled onto my legs and gave himself up to sleep again– making that endearing sound half-way between a growl and a sigh that he always makes when he’s settling down–which I tolerated despite the heat and weight of his body, which was half on, half between my knees, because it was a comforting feeling I liked, despite the inconvenience of being pinned down; I used it as an excuse to continue my slow wakeup and to let my mind wander.
It’s Monday, but this means very little to me except that I must remember to put out the garbage tonight for the morning collection and maybe our cleaning person will be here in an hour or two. I hadn’t thought about her until this moment and I wondered whether she was going to coming to work that day, since she usually confirmed the day before and I hadn’t received her text, but I dismissed this idea, since she was pretty reliable; the only problem with having a cleaning person was that while she was working, we had the inconvenience of avoiding any space where she was vacuuming or was busily folding laundry, or whatever the job was. It was awkward too, because our guilty feelings grew as she worked so hard around us and we often felt that the best thing would be to leave the house to her alone, to go on some adventure or other, or just for a long walk with the dog—anything to flee the house. Thus, I would be somewhat relieved if Aida couldn’t come for some reason, despite how lovely it was to have a clean house, because it put off the moment when we would feel guilty that we don’t do this work ourselves now that we’re retired, nor have to quit the house for the day just to avoid the embarrassment of facing those facts in person. The idea of letting Aida go and cleaning the house ourselves had its moments in my consciousness, but I worried that we’d be leaving her in the lurch, on top of the depressing thought that I’d end up doing most of the housework, or nagging Dave, since Dave wasn’t likely to be the self-starter in this scenario, and I hate both nagging and housework. So, since we seem to be able to afford her services and are very fond of Aida (she having a large place in my heart when I think about how she stayed behind when we moved to our present house twenty years ago and cleaned up the whole garage—my gratitude knew no bounds), we keep the status quo, and deal with our guilt in the privacy of our hearts.
I finally dumped Buster off my legs so I could do some stretches, in an effort to keep all my body parts-but especially my hips- moving decently; probably a lost cause, but I do it anyway since I saw an osteopath a few months ago who recommended some exercises (including these ones done before getting up) to help with some hip joint pain and some weird pins and needles I get in my thigh when I lie on my back. The stretching reminded my of when, in 1975, after my parents broke up and they sold the house, my mother and I (and a foster-sister, Ruthie) lived in a small apartment on Madison avenue here in NDG, and later (after Ruthie had gone back to live with her family) my grandmother joined my mother in 1980, while I was at Ottawa U. In 1982 I briefly lived there with both my Mom and Grandma, who was a rather petite woman and very thin, and would often do a little yoga to help keep herself limber, and the mental picture I have from that period shows her reaching her arms above her head and from side to side, very creakily and stiffly, and without a lot of perceivable stretch, reminding me of a line drawing by Picasso my parents had in our house growing up that depicted Don Quixote and his sidekick on a horse and donkey, respectively; the skinny, stark, jutting-out limbs of Don Quixote reminded me of my little grandmother’s thin, frail arms and legs stretching out awkwardly towards the peeling paint on the ceiling. My young self felt a bit sorry and embarrassed for her at the time, but now I know how she felt; keeping flexible is not easy as you get older, but so important. That apartment was full of light, and full of the plants my green-thumbed mother needed the light for, though when we first moved in I couldn’t figure out why she chose the place, (was it just for the light?) since it was pretty small, right beside the train tracks-so it was very noisy- and the street itself was a bit sketchy; not quite on the other side of the tracks, but pretty darned close. On the other hand, we had an unencumbered view of the sky and could just see the Monteregion Hills in the distance on a clear day when our eyes were drawn beyond the city works department on the other side of the tracks, with its trucks and plows and their constant backing-up noises; we also got terrific TV reception there. I finished my stretches, thinking of my grandmother fondly as I did so, then got up to get Buster some breakfast.
I could go on, but you get the drift! If you’ve read Proust, you know that this is only a pale imitation of what he does with his fanciful descriptions along with his metaphors and similes. If you have the time, I recommend the exercise of reading Proust slowly, it’s very rewarding. Despite the fact that the story moves very slowly, I haven’t found myself bored at all. Mentally tired, yes, but not bored!
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