Stu Jenks: Fezziwig Photography

The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Four: "The Haw River: Home/Not Home"

The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Four:

“The Haw River: Home/Not Home,
North Carolina”
© 2003, 2008

    “Oh, boy…”
    Buck has just lifted the head off of the engine of the Model A Ford. The number one cylinder is filled with rust. The number two, three and four cylinders are fine but that doesn't matter. The number one is seized.
    "Looks like Stuart didn't drain the water out of the radiator when he put the Huckster up on blocks. It was probably a leaky head casket," says Buck.
    "Looks that way, doesn't it?" I say.
    "Damn."
    Buck sprays a bucket of WD-40 in the number one cylinder.
    "Well, we'll let that sit for a day and see if we can break it free tomorrow," Buck says.
    Fat chance. I knew we were in trouble earlier this morning when I tried to hand crank the engine and it wouldn't budge. So much for the dream of taking my dead father's Model A Huckster Wagon to Tucson. Hell, so much for the alternate dream of selling it for 15 grand and paying off my credit card debts. My guess now is that it's worth five to eight thousand as is. (I got seven grand for it, a few months later, from a guy in Ohio.)
    "Yea, I'll try and crank it tomorrow. Buck, thanks a lot for trying to get this old thing going. But I think it's froze up pretty good."
    "Well, if we break it loose, I'll put the head back on for you, after you've flown back to Tucson."
    "I appreciate that, " I say.
    This little trip back to the ancestral home in Raleigh has cost me more than I thought it would. Plane ticket. Battery and parts for the truck that won't turn over. Vacation time from the day job. Shipping cost for a hula-hoop with Christmas lights on it, that I haven't even used in any photographs. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, as my Dad used to say.
    I decide to go for a drive around some of my old haunts this afternoon, in my sister Pamela's car. Might as well. The truck’s dead. My sister lives in the Raleigh house now. My mother Mary has come down from Virginia to visit with me, since I'm back for a long weekend. I rarely come back home to North Carolina anymore. Mary and Pamela are off doing something. Shopping or a movie I suppose.
    Buck has left and some clouds have moved in. Living in the desert for 20 years has left me unequipped for the Eastern Woodlands. The low ceiling of overcast makes me feel very claustrophobic. I do find comfort in the smells of composting pine needles and damp moss but not enough for me to ever consider moving back to The South. The only thing reminiscent of my home in the desert, here in North Carolina, is the occasional tapestry of The Virgin of Guadeloupe hanging from the eves of the front porch of a Mexican immigrant's home. Granted, there are tortillas in the grocery stores now in Raleigh but they are machine-made and uniform, not the imperfect handmade beauties I find in Tucson. And even though I've woken up in my old childhood bed the past couple mornings, the house, the town, the state, all feel foreign to me. Home but not home anymore.
    I used to think that what Thomas Wolfe was saying when he said ‘We can't go back home again’ was simply because we have changed. But Home changes too.
    I have to use a road map just to get out of Raleigh now. I don’t know the roads anymore for they are much wider or just plain new.
    Today I use a map to guide me to Chatham County. For sure, I usually entered into Chatham County from the Chapel Hill side, back in the day, but this is a little embarrassing, having to use a map. As I get to what I thought would be the outskirts of Raleigh, I'm actually still in town, or at least the suburbs. Strange to see huge two stories houses sitting in what used to be cow pastures, as if they fell out of the sky. Small plots with big houses, arranged at odd angles. Who thought this looked good? Who thought that was a good idea? Oh, yea. Realtors did.
    Finally, I've left the suburbs of Cary and Apex and am heading west on US 64 in my sister's white Oldsmobile. Thick stands of Loblolly Pines flank the road. (Least they haven’t cut down all the Loblollies.) Convenience stores along Highway 64 advertise Deer salt and hunting stamps. Now we’re talking. The girl, who just sold me a couple packages of Nekot crackers and a soda, sounds like she is from here, unlike many of the transplants in Raleigh, who sound like they came from Jersey. Pickup trucks replace SUVs. For only the second time since I've been back in North Carolina, I feel like I'm at home. (The first time was hearing the Drive By Truckers, a smart Southern Rock band, play a couple of nights ago at the Cat’s Cradle.)
    I cross Jordan Lake, a man-made affair that was just filling up with water when I left North Carolina in the early 1980's. It's full now. And I begin to worry that the Haw River may not be a river anymore, but just part of this lake. God, I hope not. I check the map. I’m getting close. I hope I even recognize the bridge. Sure enough, after a few more miles, up ahead I can see the Haw River Bridge. It’s actually two bridges now, for US 64 is four lanes all the way to Pittsboro. (It wasn’t that way in the 70’s.) My heart rate goes us. Will I see a lake or a river? As I cross the bridge I look over the side.
    "Yes!" I say softly. I’m thrilled. It looks the same. It’s still a river with rapids.
    After a little effort, I find my way down to the western bank of The Haw. Twenty plus years ago, you'd just pull off the two lane black top and parked by the 10 foot tall cast concrete cross that proclaimed 'Jesus is Lord.' (The cross is gone.) I park the Olds, grab my Rollei and my Brownie and head for the forest along the river, to look for that old trail I used to walk on. Unbelievably it’s still there. A little trashed near the road but not bad. Just a couple of beer cans. A hundred feet further down the trail, and all signs of Man’s flotsam and jetsam are gone, save an occasional fishing lure. I'm thrilled that after all these years, The Haw is little changed. Seems to be just a bit wider but the rapids are just as wild as I recall from college days.
    We used to drive down here in my white ’66 Karmin Ghia, my Dad’s hand-me-down car, that I got when I flunked out of college. Elliot, Mott, and I would cruise down from Chapel Hill. We'd get stoned on the way and walk down this trail that parallels the river for about a mile, get lit again, and walk back. Doesn't sound like much, just three college kids getting stoned, but it was important to us. Being Nature Boys, we had to get back to some real woods ever once in a while after sitting in classes day after day. One time, I grabbed a 30-pound granite rock and carried it back to the car. Elliot and Mott thought, at the time, I was nuts for hauling around that big stone. They thought I was crazy most of the time, but then never shamed me, nor I them. (It was a great gift we gave each other.) And I was pretty odd back then. (Still am.) I explained to them that the rock was to be part of a sculpture I had visualized. (That big rock, by the way, never made it into a sculpture but I lugged it from house to house for a good number of years. I think it’s in some thick woods near Boone, North Carolina now.) That old concrete “Jesus is Lord’ cross was briefly featured in one of my experimental 8 mm movies, from those art school days. (I did finally get my B.F.A.) Brought women down here too, to see if the woods scared them. (I liked women who aren’t frightened of the woods.) Fond memories I have of The Haw, even if they are a little foggy due to the passing of time and the amount of THC I had in my brain back then.
    The trail narrows as I go, just like it always did. The water isn't high but high enough that the river does roar. The overcast sky isn't bothering me now. Even when I walk into a spider's web that spans the trail, I'm not as freaked as I used to be as a college kid. (Spiders scared me back then. I got bite once and was sick in bed and itchy for a week.) The Haw has changed some. A few feet wider. Some new trees. Some old trees wider in girth or dead. But the sound and the soul of the river is actually the same, after twenty-five years. (The Haw Indians once lived here. The word 'haw' meant river in their language. They were the River Indians.)
    I walk by some small rapids on my way to the big rapids, those canoe-crushers with the stout twenty-foot bluff that overlooks the river. That was our destination, back in the 70's; those big rapids. Oaks, Elms and Poplars and a few Pines fill the forest. I pass the old tall bluff without knowing I had. The land is thicker now with young trees and old growth. Not the prime viewing spot of twenty-five years ago, but a sweet spot nonetheless. The large rapids are still churning as hard as ever, still the nemesis, I presume, of weekend canoers from Durham and Chapel Hill. I stand on some rocks that push into the river and breathe in the pounding sound and the light spray. The rapids sing its song in low and high notes.
    After a while, I head back toward the car, but I stop along the way at the smaller rapids. I sit on a set of boulders close to the shore. I carve a spiral in some moss but it looks contrived. I shoot it with the Rollei anyway and apologize to the moss for disturbing it. Then I take out the Brownie and simply shoot some of the rapids; some rocks, some trees, some of the river. I blur the right pairing image, then mate it with the left sharp one, making a diptych in-camera. I do this technique a number of times, and then I sit on the rocks again, beside the rapids.
    Breathe in, breathe out.
    Listen. Close my eyes. Keep them closed. Open them.
    Across the river on the eastern shore, two Bald Eagles leave their perch in the high branches and glide downstream. I raise my hands above my head, palms out, in salute and prayer to the Eagles. They fly down the river, behind some trees and disappear out of view. I can feel some tears coming. Carolina is still Home. It’s just a little harder to find, is all.
    I lower my arms, wipe my eyes and gaze at the small rapids at my feet.

Hoop Dancing: The Nocturnal Photography of Stu Jenks: Chapter Eleven: "The Aspens Return: For the love of Wally"

Hoop Dancing: The Nocturnal Photography of Stu Jenks:
Chapter Eleven: "The Aspens Return: For the love of Wally" © 2007, 2008 Stu Jenks

          I didn’t wear the right socks. Got cotton ones on, not my orange funky polar fleece pair. No matter. I’m only going to be up in the snow for a couple hours at most.
         God bless the plowman though, for NOT having cleared the tiny parking area at the trailhead of Red Ridge. Not a soul has walked this trail since the big snow a few days ago. (Below me on the mountain right now, are hundreds, if not thousands, of desert dwellers who came up for the day, to throw snowballs at each other, and to fill their pickup trucks beds with snow to continue the fight tonight. Add to that some silly drivers wrecking here and there, who don’t know that even if the road is relatively clear, the bridges are still slick with ice, and a shady road is an icy road.) It’s a good bet there is no virgin snow now below milepost nine, but here on Red Ridge, the trail has only been disturbed by a couple of deer, judging from the prints on the trail. Funny, when I first saw the deer tracks in the foot-deep powder, I wondered what kind of person makes prints like that. Looks like some one walking in high heels. Silly rabbit, that person is a deer-person.
           I had decided to come up to Red Ridge before I got the call this morning from Annie that Wally was deathly ill, and it seems right to come up here now, no matter what’s happened today.     Much of Red Ridge was nuked by the Aspen Fire in the Summer of 2003, over four years ago. I don’t come up here often now. Simply too painful, to find this forest that was one of my personal sacred places, charred and sterilized by flame. Most of the old growth Ponderosa Pines in this area were killed. The Three Surrender Trees, those wonderful trees that I used as models in photographs, are now just twenty foot tall stumps, their dead tops having broken off last year. Took two of the three trees a full year to die. If I had had a chain saw, I would have chopped them down rather than have them suffer so. Last winter, almost a year ago, I came up to play in the snow but the only apparent ground cover was thorny briars and a few odd plants. Really hard to be happy in the snow when so much was gone. Granted, the Prayer Flag tree is fine and I can hike down the Red Ridge about a half a mile and get away from the severely burned area, but that is below the northern overlook that I love so much. That view is special for I’ve looked out northward from there, with every girlfriend I’ve had since 1988. A place where I’ve felt love, given love, received love, had love, at night and during the day.
    I’ve heard it said that many people don’t like change. I don’t mind change. I just hate Purely Shitty Change.
           The Aspen Fire and the Burning of Red Ridge was Purely Shitty Change.
           But today, how can I mind this sight, of snow up to a foot and a half deep, beautiful ripples on the surface of the powder around the bases of these black dead trees. They are so beautiful. The briars are much thinner now. A few still large living trees are easily seen silhouetted against the bright sparkling snow. The tough effort of walking through the drifts in my hiking boots is even fun. (Wish I owned some snow shoes today though.) And I feel love in the knowledge I’ve walked on this trail at least a couple hundred times, over the last twenty five years of my life.
           I imagine the Spirit of Wally running beside me through the snow, but I let that image fade. Wally wouldn’t like the snow. It would freak him out. He was a house cat his whole life.
           Wally.
           Just thinking about him now, makes my eyes mist. What a morning it has been.
           Wally was diagnosed with an intestinal cancer less than a month ago. The vet told Annie that she should start saying goodbye to him, that at some point, he’ll be so anemic that his breathing will become labored and it’d be time. The steroid shot they gave him brought his appetite back but only for a while. Another shot was given and within days, he had stopped eating again. He was already skin and bones. I’d said my goodbyes to him a week or so ago, but my denial returned, me thinking he’ll hang on for another month or so. He’s always been a tough little guy, even if he was the runt of the litter. So why shouldn’t he hang around longer? Mostly, I know now, I just didn’t want to have to face him dying or us having to put him down.
           Annie called on Friday night to say he had stopped eating and that we might need to go to the vets on Monday to put him to sleep. I’d said all the right words but I was thinking, over and over, I don’t want him to die. I love him so much.
           This morning, Annie called again and said we need to take him to the vet, today, Saturday. He’s now leaking out of his anus. She asked if I could drive Wally and her to the vet hospital on the Northwest side. I said yes immediately, but underneath I did not want to go, but I knew I must.
           On the half hour drive to the pet hospital, I asked Annie a bunch of questions again about what her personal vet had said about Wally’s health. When she said that the vet had felt the tumor grown substantially in less than a month, I realized that we ain’t going to make it to Monday. I told Annie on the Interstate that we might have put Wally down today. She said she knew and we both cried just thinking about it.
          She didn’t put Wally in a cat carrier. He hates that carrier. Cries all the way if he is in it. Instead, Annie wrapped him in a towel and placed him in a soft cloth bag. He looked very cute, but if he was feeling himself, he would have squirmed  quite a bit. But this morning, he just relaxed in Annie’s arms, as she held him in the bag against her chest.
           The three of us drove up the Interstate. My denial finally slipped away somewhere around Orange Grove Road.
           We got to the hospital and they put us in a room immediately. A nurse took his history for they didn’t have his chart there. That was at the other office. We nodded when the nurse said that they were thinking they might have to put him down today.
           A few minutes later, the vet-on-call came in. She was a young woman in her thirties with a kind face.
           “I’m sorry that you have to see a stranger on a day like today,” she said.
           Annie knew at that point, that it was going to be ok.
           They gave us as much time as we need to say goodbye. We took about twenty minutes. We had a lot to say to Wally.
           “You are the best cat.” and
           “We love you very much.” and
           “I love you Wally.” and
           “You can soon chase those birds that you see outside your window.” and
           “I’m sorry Wally.”
           And then we spent a long time silently petting him and loving him.
           Then I went and got the vet. She took Wally away for a minute and put in an IV line. When they returned, Wally wasn’t happy, and he actually growled at the vet when she was taking off the tape that held the port.
           Annie and I said our last good byes. Annie looked into his face, as the doc put in the needle into the port.
           “I love you Wally. It’s going to be ok,” said Annie.
          “I love you Wally,” I said.
           He breathed once, then twice, and then one last big breath and he was gone. He was nine years old.
           Annie cried loud and hard, as she saw his eyes go lifeless. Tears ran down my face. The vet put a hand on Annie’s back and I soon did the same. Then the vet kissed Wally on the back, said that she’ll give us a couple more minutes, and left the room. We cried some more, and said goodbye a few more times. In a couple of minutes, I got the vet, and she came back. We said our last goodbyes to Wally and we left the room, before they took Wally’s body away. Annie will get his ashes in a few days. As we walked through the waiting room, everyone there knew what had happened. No dogs barked and all eyes were on Annie and I. We were quietly inconsolable. When we got to my truck, Annie let loose again, with heavy sobs, while I smoked a cigarette outside the vehicle. My tears didn’t stop either. Not then. Not for a long while to come. We just cried and cried.
           After we had stopped crying, we drove home.
           Wally was a great cat, a superior cat, the best cat I had ever known. I remember when Annie first got him, he was a twelve-week-old little ball of fire. I remember how much he liked people but mostly on his own terms. I liked that about him. He would sometimes come when you called him, but only if he wanted to. However, he was powerless not to chase a Laser Mouse. He would sit on his perch, six feet up his cat pole and survey his domain. He would let you pet him for a few seconds or so, and then he would gently bite you to let you know he had had enough of that. And my very favorite thing to do with Wally was to place the top of my head by him, under his perch and we would rub our heads together. We would do that for as long as I was willing to do it. He would do it forever, if we had the time. He loved it and I loved it too And I loved him and he loved me and he loved Annie. He was great. I miss him so.

            I’m hiking up and out of Red Ridge now. Only an hour of sun left. It’s getting late. I drew a ‘W’ in the snow down below. A ‘W’ for Wally. I saw a couple of Blue Spruce trees that had escaped the Aspen Fire, which I hadn’t noticed before. It made me very happy.
           The trudge up the trail, in sometimes knee-deep snow, is difficult but good. My feet are soaked but I don’t care. It’s all good, as the kids say. I saw a Harris Hawk just a while ago; spooked it out of a tree. The briars are thinner now than before and seem to have been replaced by some form of young tree. I wonder what tree this is? I look closely at it. There are many little trees around me, ranging from a few feet tall to over ten feet high. Then I see a dry brown leaf still attached to a branch of one of the tiny trees. The leaf is only an inch and a half in diameter, but I recognized the shape immediately.
        “An Aspen tree,” I say quietly to the baby tree.
        A big smile brakes across my face. I put down my mandolin in its gig bag. I place my camera bag in the snow as well, and pull out the 30D. Before I begin to shoot the leaf, I look around. Dozens of baby Aspens trees surround me. Every Aspen above ground was burned in the Aspen Fire, but the large root colony survived. The Fire may have actually been good for the colony, for Aspens don’t like the shade but thrive in direct sunlight. The Aspens have been reborn. In another ten years or so, there will be a young forest here. In another twenty or so, perhaps a full stand of Aspens will be quaking here. I’ll be 73 in twenty years. I hope I’m still alive to see it.
           Maybe Wally will be reborn somewhere too, in real life or in my imagination. It’s a mystery, you know. Maybe he’ll come visit me in my dreams. Maybe his spirit will rub my leg some night. Maybe I’ll feel his head against mine as I lie in bed.
           Maybe.
           If Aspens can be reborn out of the ashes of a nuclear fire, anything is possible.
           One thing I know without question: I love Wally and for as long as I live, I’ll always love him. Just like I still love Chester, the dog I had as a child.
           And thank you Wally, for loving me back.
          

"From Lively to Sin Vacas" (c) 2008

"From Lively to Sin Vacas" © May 2008 Stu Jenks

    [Images from top to bottom: "The Last Chair, Lively, Virginia", "The Flowering Oaks, Lively, Virginia, "Ancient Oak, Lively, Virginia", "Harriman, Tennessee", "Minnie Pearl's Hat, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee", "Mary at the Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas", "The Very Large Array, New Mexico", "Panoramic Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas", & "Cattle and The VLA"]

        We had just had a perfectly nice little box lunch at an Interstate rest stop in the Valley of Virginia. No harsh words. No crazy comments. No imagined slights from us. Then, as my mother was getting a scarf out of the car, preparing to walk over and get back into the Penske truck, she said to me.
    "You know, after Pamela was born I had a miscarriage and I fought to have another child, so remember that, the next time you get upset with me!"
    I shrugged my shoulders, gave Annie a crooked smile with a slight shake of the head and walked my elderly mother back to the truck.
    And this was Day Two of what turned out to be a week-long journey, driving my mother and her things to an independent living place, near my home in Tucson, Arizona.

    I thought it would be fun, driving Miss Daisy across the country. It was anything but. When Annie arrived, ten days before we were going to leave for Arizona, she was prepared to do a lot of work, packing my mother up. What she didn't know was that in the months leading up to the move, Mom hadn't done a thing. When I arrived three days before we departed Virginia, Annie had done an amazing job, in spite of everything.
    Even though I had been to The River to visit at Christmas, I had no idea how much my mother had begun to fade. She started out the day as a woman in her eighties and ended the day as a six-year-old child. When friends would ask me, on the phone, how my mother was, I would say she was 'petulant'.
    But my mother’s old, and it's not her fault that she has become more of a spoiled brat. She has always been this way. But now, she was ruder, more insulting, and more manipulative that I've ever seen her. She’s never been one to apologize or try and walk in anyone else's shoes, but now it was all or nothing, black or white, good or bad, with no gray in between. And the All was All Her. We either loved her or hated her, and she wasn't shy to say anything now. [Like she ever was.] And even though it was never her intent to be hurtful, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. [Whether a truck runs over you by accident or on purpose, you've still been run over by a truck.] Add to that the entitlement issues in her DNA and the occasional histrionic tears and you've got a nightmare for Annie and I.

    Miraculously, we got the 26-foot Penske truck on the road on Friday Afternoon, with Mother and Annie following in Mom's Buick Le Sabre. We made it as far as Charlottesville, Virginia that night.
    Besides the little adventure caused by me getting the truck stuck in the parking lot of the motel, (I embedded the rear end into the pavement while trying to go up a little hill. Had to get a tow truck to wince it free), the first day's drive was uneventful and rather pleasant for me. For me. Not for Annie. For Annie had Mom in the car with her, for hours. After Day One, Annie and I traded off my mother. Day Two, Mom rode with me. Day Three, she rode with Annie, etc. That way, we each had every other day without the presence of my mother.
    When Mom doesn’t get her way, either she is wrong, you are wrong, or all of us are wrong. There is no simple difference of opinion in my mother's world. If you disagree with her, you hate her. If you are angry at some behavior of hers, you hate her. If you ask for something that she doesn't want to give, you hate her. I wish I could say this was new, but it isn't. It's just more so.
    Also, Mary puts people into two groups, those she considers family and those she doesn't. If you are considered family, then you are obligated to do what ever she asks. You are her servant, her peasant, her slave. And if you refuse, politely or no, she gets mad and either insults you or tries to shame you into doing what she wants. Again, not new. Just more desperate and pitiful these days. (Then again, my mother’s ancestors did own slaves and she was raised by black servants. Perhaps I expect too much.)

    The manipulations and criticism started long before we left Lively, Virginia.
    By the time we reached Tennessee, Mom was saying she wanted to go back home to Virginia or go to Raleigh and live with my sister, Pamela. (Not an option, now or ever.)

         
    In Nashville, she thought she was in Richmond, Virginia. Truly. She thought we were on Broad Street, seconds after we had left the Ryman. Thought the Mosque was just up ahead. ‘What the fuck,’ I silently mouthed to Annie in the rear view mirror, as we drove back to the Interstate.

    In Arkansas, she tried to jump out of the car. We affectionately call it The Arkansas Incident. We were driving slow and it was at night, so no one got hurt.
    By Oklahoma, we couldn't stand to even think of eating dinner with my mother. We prepared food for her to eat and brought it to her room at sundown, and then Annie and I went out and had our own dinner.
    I took some pictures of Mom at the Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas that turned out to be somewhat iconic. Thanks God for that.

    By Santa Rosa, New Mexico, she was weeping in the hallway of the motel, saying we were abandoning her.
    The Very Large Array was fun for Annie and I, and we even had one lighthearted moment with Mom. The sustained winds were 40 miles per hour that day and as we were walking Mother to the Visitors Center, one of us on each arm so she wouldn't blow away, Mary said, with a bit of wonder in her voice,
    "Son, you are really taking me on an adventure."
    We all three laughed. The one and only time that would happen in 2500 miles.

    I could say more. I probably should have said less. Bottom Line: Mary is all settled in at Sin Vacas, an upscale retirement village, where all the street names are in Spanish for nutty things. ('Street Without Sin', 'Street Without Denial', 'Street Without Danger'. Mom lives on Calle Sin Envidia: 'Street Without Envy'. And Rancho Sin Vacas, the gated community where the elderly village is, means Ranch Without Cows.) She’s making some new friends and going to church. She's slowly learning how to get to the bank and to the grocery store. And she’s even saying thank you to me when I come up to help connect the computer or put together a lamp (Even though I know her 'thank yous' really mean 'please don't leave me all alone'.)
   
    Mom and I don't really get along. Haven't really for years. I tolerate her and she probably tolerates me too.   
    But one piece of advice or rather a warning to all.
    Don't say to me "You're being such a good son."
    I'm not. And if you say it to my face, I’m probably going to get pissed off.
    I didn't move Mom because I'm being a good son. I did it because Mom begged me to move her to Arizona, and that we had few options left, for Mary can't really take care of herself anymore without help.
    I told Mom a number of times, that I really didn’t think it was a really good idea to leave 100 friends in Virginia behind, to live near her son and her 92-year-old sister and her son's ex-girlfriend in Arizona. But we have a saying in my family: "Mary does whatever Mary wants to do." Her so-called friends in Virginia, most of them rich, white, arrogant fucks, call Mom ‘a force of nature.’ They are not complementing her.
    No, I'm not a good son.
    I'm not doing this because I want to, or that I even think it's the right thing for her to live in Tucson, but our choice are limited now.
    Retirement places in Virginia are much more expensive there than in Arizona.
    My sister Pamela lives in Raleigh, in the Old Home Place, but she is fighting cancer and is really in no condition to be around Mom, in a number of ways.
    It's by default that I'm doing this, have done this.
    I'm not a good son.
    I'm just the person who’s doing what needs to be done.
    That's all.
    If I had my way, Mary would be living in Virginia somewhere.
    But you rarely gets your way if you are with my mother.
    It's Mom's way or the highway, pretty much.
    Even though she would deny that.

    “Your hair is so beautiful,” she says.   
    “You’re as handsome as your father was,” she says.
    Mom is over the top with her compliments now. I’m repairing a chest-of-drawers in her new apartment. She’s following me around.
    She may be a bit sun-downy these days. She may be her normal Narcissistic self, but she isn’t stupid. She knows she fucked up. She knows Annie and I are pretty tired of her shit.
    Phase One is done: Mary and her stuff have been moved across the country.
    Phase Two is mostly done: Unpacking Mary’s shit and getting her settled in.
    Now, on to Phase Three: Maintaining Mom in Tucson.
    Once-a-week visits and occasional chats on the phone is the plan. My plan. Her plan would be for me to be at her beck and call, 24 / 7 / 365. That ain’t going to happen.

    The view from her balcony is fabulous. City lights in the distance at night. An arroyo filled with birds and their songs during the day. I close my eyes and hear the quails’ sing. I feel sad. Mom doesn’t even notice the beauty right in front of her. I open the sliding glass door and reenter her apartment. She yells something at me from the bedroom. I can’t hear what she is saying. I don’t really care.