Massless

My last shoelace broke -- just above the knot.

It never fails. And it may mean another embarrassing call to A. Our last telephone exchange: I was caught hating my age. We're an unlike pair - bellows and fire - I stoke his worry and he worries over his poor mother now he's moved away. Makes me sad. Like my shoelaces, I suppose. Weak like me.

I miss having the mundane being actually trivial.

With age, there are too many unmentionables. In all likelihood, I will be first. But if I weren't...? It almost seems to be too much pain to ever be experienced. As any old lady can attest, pain's boundaries, though, are such that they can expand to fit the entire universe, if need be.

Prior history lessons from former curricula are like chattering little children today: a line from Ovid harasses me:

"A foreign grave, and thy poor mother's tears / are all the honours that attend thy herse."

It seems my former lesson plans are small comfort. Which is no surprise, really - but I wonder when, finally, will my mind be taken? I'm tired of this: reduced to reductio ad absurdum. Struggling to deny the untenable: a not-so-walking cliché of agile mind and wasting body.

I can't grip things. I miss having the mundane being actually trivial.

I can't grip - but I can grasp. I can grasp the silliness of an old woman in a desperate struggle with her footwear.

So, I have a plan.

Today, I will grasp a sharp knife. I will not lose my grip.

And I will cut these damn shoes from my body.