Stories - FD Thornton

  Well we got supper simmering in the pan, a simple combination of gold potatoes, celery, bell pepper, onions, and mushrooms with ground turkey and mushroom soup. with a pot of sticky rice warming next to it. It may not sound like much of a summertime meal. But with meat hovering at around $8 a pound, you do what you can do with the cheapest cuts. After a day and a weekend deciding between what groceries to buy, how much gas to put in the car, and buying medicine, this land of plenty is starting to look like a land of the privileged few. While the rest of “us” blame everybody but ourselves for the mess we are in. And before any of you get on your high horses and complain away, let’s all be grateful we still live in a land where we politely tolerate each other for now. But don’t worry your “revolution” is coming soon enough. But what it is that none of you realize is that it was never about white, black, tan, or yellow. It’s about rich and poor, and we already know who’s running...

 It’s a bright, sunny day outside. I’m finishing up taking my gummy vitamins, chewing very carefully in my damaged mouth . I’ve spent the last few days in a bloodbath with a leaking liver clot where my tooth once sat. My dentist wasn’t able to do anything about it , so she sent me to the ER to have them cauterize it. After an hour-long trip to the ER and a three-hour wait, they did nothing and sent me home with a pat on the back. They did tell me to make an appointment with my dentist and stop taking a blood thinner till then. To my dentist's credit, she did call me after hours on her personal phone to check on me. I told her the story of the ER, and she told me to be at her office at 8 AM Monday morning and to be careful till then. I’m trying not to be mad at anybody; I mean, I heard enough while I was in the ER. It’s just sad to see an understaffed ER get overwhelmed with cases that should be handled by a Family Doctor. But with our current pay-as-you-play, for-profit heal...

It’s 5:13 in the morning and I’ve been up since 4:40. I had a bad dream about trying to drive through the Italian Alps in an electric car with a limited charge and no cash. The roads were lined with toll booths that only took cash and not a charging station in sight. The discomfort of the dream awoke me. So with my ears ringing, and my heart and head pounding, I lay here now at 5:22 wide awake writing this pathetic shit. So I finished the first paragraph, and my mind began to wander. So I started doom scrolling around to apps I enjoy. One which feeds my head and the other that feeds my soul. Now it’s 6:25 and my day is coming into focus. The ice pack on my head is working, my thoughts aren’t as urgent, and my thoughts are relaxing. The old heart is working much more smoothly. Recently a young friend commented on a piece I wrote, that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I wish I could explain to them that the piece was just a moment, a photograph if you will. Where I have now purged mys...

  After three days, I finally get to start my day with my established routine. I find that as a retired person who’s also a caregiver, it’s important to establish routines. If for nothing else, it keeps your own ass sane. My son and my wife already have their established routines down pat, with my wife going to bed at 9:00 every evening and waking up at exactly 7 a.m. Since both of them can fix their own breakfasts, my main job is logistics, paying the bills, and getting them from one place to another. Sprinkle in reminders to bathe, clean your room, and get ready on time—and you pretty much have my day. Other than trying to keep my head on straight, I manage the pill dispensing, their doctor appointments, cooking most meals, taking them to get haircuts—you know, the usual stuff we take for granted. But after 39 years, it’s pretty much routine now. Of course, there are the setbacks, such as my time being in and out of the hospital or recuperating, and my own bouts with having a m...

  The shadows hang long over the apartment building across the way, but I slept well last night and woke up early, for me. I’m surprised by how little activity I see across the way, as far as people moving about. By now I’d see the frail old woman and her tiny dog walking the grounds. Or the young man in his hoodie in 80° weather waiting for his ride. But maybe I am a bit early for the day, with the sun just starting to climb. I finished my weekly responsibility of filling my bride’s pill caddies after fulfilling my own responsibility of taking my own meds. Life seems infinite in this long-winded cycle of rinse and repeat. Till you come across a child you haven’t seen in a while and realize how time passes so quickly and how much you have missed. But such as it is with cycles, they loop back into each other with such precision, that we don’t even pay attention anymore. So I do my best to shrink myself into a single space, kinda like I am doing right now. Focusing solely on this...

  Just completed my “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing” pre-appointment check-in for an upcoming cardiologist appointment next Monday. Funny how I have to add things that you would assume they already knew. Like new medications and recent surgeries. But such as it is, in this so called world of modern medicine and corporate mergers. You see, the two cardiologists I deal with work for the same corporation at two different hospitals. Yet as I stated, “the left hand don’t know what the right hand’s doing”. When it comes to the health of us older Americans we walk through a maze of specialist. Long gone are the days of the family doctor, who coordinated your extended medical care. Now you are sent to specialist who never talk to each other, let alone sent notes to each other. Right now I deal with eight different specialist for my various conditions. None of which has had a word with the other, even though two of them share a building and five of them work for the ...

  Through the shadows on the curtains, I can hear the roar of a CSX horn blow from across the road—a long line of tracks that run north from Atlanta, south to Brunswick’s Ports. It’s been an exhausting few weeks, first with relentless rain and then the humid heat, complicated by the fact we’ve had to suffer two weeks without a refrigerator. ​ But beyond all that bullshit we put up with, presented to us by the faceless shareholders of a corporation, we now live in a country determined to bring back nostalgia, like it’s some comfortable chain to wear around our necks. ​ I remember when the country turned 200 years old. It was 1976 and I was in the ninth grade. Our former Governor Jimmy Carter was running for President against President Gerald R. Ford. We had just lived through our uncles and our big brothers fighting in Vietnam, then witnessing every day as soaps and game shows were interrupted by the Watergate Hearings. The grownups were mad and I was mad, because I had to liste...

  Some days are diamonds and some days are stone—that’s what I’ve heard my whole life. My parents were often too busy building for tomorrow or for themselves to really shape who I was. That job ended up being finished by my Grandma, my friends, and even my supposed enemies. The last few weeks have been a trial for me, between the stress of the surgery, the adventure with the fridge, and the malfunctioning of the fire alarm. Life seems to have handed me one stressor after another. My oldest child and I often just recognize it as our run of luck, where a few good things come our way only to be snatched up by an even longer run of bad luck. But inside, I still try to keep in mind that despite how much life mistreats you, you should never mistreat it. For years now, I’ve kept online relationships with a randomly chosen few people. It’s not like we have anything in common; it usually started with me or them admiring the work of the other. Recently, one of those friends was strugglin...

  To understand love, first you must learn to understand yourself. Looking back at my earliest memories I remember the emotions of joy and laughter. As I dig deeper though, I find emotions of being tolerated and ignored. Most of us I’m sure were given a little bit of both, much like a blended cotton shirt. A sturdy 80/20 blend with strong roots in faith and a little mental neglect sprinkled in for stretch. I suppose the main thing is, what parts stand out the most in your mind? Now I’m not making light of mental health struggles, cause Lord knows I’ve had my share. For nearly 30 years I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, GAD, PD, and a host of other letters. I’ve spent nearly half my life focused on the causes and trying to get better. Funny thing is even with all that planning; I only made baby steps in my recovery. The one thing I now realize through all my searching is that, without taking a compassionate look at yourself, I never found peace. When understanding love, we first hav...

  After about three weeks in on my “Ignorance Is Bliss Tour”, which involved no national news and very little TV and Social media time. I was giving my mind a break from the amount of dopamine it was receiving. Till last night when I fell asleep just after dinner. Even as I spent the evening listening to the latest political novel, it didn’t seem to bother my rest at all. And do you want to know why?   ​ Because this clown show we call politics hasn’t changed a lick since I started voting in the early 1980s. What has changed is our insatiable need for hits of dopamine, that natural little drug (for lack of a better word) that fires up our pleasure sensors. I’ve been doing my damnest to pull myself away from that little booger. Allowing my mind instead to focus on silence and interesting conversation. I started going to the local Senior Center, if for nothing else but to soak up the atmosphere of community.   ​ For far too long for those of us on the left and the right...

  Right now my head is a jumbled mess of “what if’s” and “when’s it going to be over”. I mean I look perfectly together this morning after a shower and a shave. But last night and this morning my head is a jumble of insane messages my fractured mind wants to scream at me. In days past, I would simply sweep all that noise under a rug and go about my day working on some new half-finished project. Now that I have pretty much learned to embrace the silence, I allow those voices of panic to have their say. to most that might sound totally unproductive, but hear me out. I’ve learned by giving those parts of me (the panic, the fear) their say. I can then through mindfulness practice of living in the here and now, embrace those voices and acknowledge them and let them go. Now you might say to yourself, “All that kumbaya shit sounds great, if I was able to sit around and smell daisies all day. But hell! I got work to do and still have to stare at the damn problem all day”. Hey. I tota...

  I dreamed of a beautiful piece of poetry this morning about five o’clock. But I didn’t get up to jot it down for my wife was asleep on my arm. Sometimes words just don’t need to be said, when the flames of passion hover so close to the surface. I was a man brought up around a strong foundation of strong women. I mean there was my father and a whole pile of uncles around me. But even they seemed to be in awe of the women in their lives. While my father was a good provider, it was my mother that I was most comfortable around. I suppose it was because we were so close in age, and my mother having been raised in a house full of boys, it just came natural to her. Me and my dad struggled to find our way, till we finally did when I became a father. For those few years he had left, he was a doting grandpa. But it still makes me sad that now those clear images in my head are nothing but faded memories to my children. But the dawn woke up on this cloudy and humid morning, where I see t...

 So I guess the current frat boys and future corporate CEOs got their wish last night and turned the People’s House into a fraternity house. I’m sure that’s been the wish of every wanna-be proud boy in the country. To take that nearly holy beacon “freedom for all” and paint it up like a cheap whore. But such as it is, as the country melts down to its lowest denominator. But what can I say, Happy Independence Day! Life around here is crawling back to normal; I’m still finding new aches and pains while others go down. My head has definitely cleared up from its weeks’ worth of fog, so maybe I can make sense now when I talk. But just as my doctors more than warned me, it’s the internal work that really needs healing. It’s funny how fragmented one can feel when diced and sliced from the inside. But despite the lack of external sutures, there's a great many on the inside. So while I wait for the hole in my heart to heal, and the plug to fit snug into place, and the entry point on m...

The Road Home   Once again another sleepless night confounds me; tensions of the day haunt my dreams. Leaving me restless and out-of-sorts, anxious and ready for change. Usually before and after a major event, such as this surgery, I find myself searching for meaning, while at the same time putting up old habits that are my survival mode. I wear a nearly impenetrable mask of this happy-go-lucky man who doesn’t have a care in the world. But just as in the distant past, the building of that wall eventually cracks and crumbles. So I sit here with this weight once again, listening to wise words of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh about healing myself through a life in the present moment. Listening this evening to a friend nearly coming to tears about a past pain nearly brought me to tears myself. I wanted to say words of comfort, but instead I sat there and gave them some compassionate listening. But through my own suffering, I found myself falling to old habits of self-defense and w...

This is from last years surgery.   It’s creeping close to noon-time, and for the last few hours I’ve been scrolling through messages and social media posts. Some of the posts are funny, some sad, or enlightening; but all sent to stir up attention. Believe me I’m just as guilty as anyone else, if I weren’t I’d just keep my posts to myself. But I don’t, I share them. Last night was a little rough, I woke up cramping on the right side of my rib cage. With my life as a professional pill taker, my world is a crazy balance of making sure the medication I take to live, also doesn’t kill me. In other words, one medication I take to strengthen my heart can also lower my blood sugar dangerously low. So we have to adjust one other medicine, so I don’t lose too much fluid and dehydrate. All the while still taking that medicine to control excess fluid from building around my weakened heart. I know, it sounds crazy as shit. But I do what I got to do to keep the machine running. Kinda like an...

  At 10:30 in the morning, I finally got a taste of sweet tea and lemon on my lips. Already this morning I’ve taken myself and our special needs son for a haircut, at the old barber shop next to the Piggly Wiggly. Mr. Bob the owner isn’t as old as me, but he religiously keeps the TV turned on to Fox News. I’d much rather watch Peppy the Pig or Bubble Guppies, but each to their own form of fiction. But my son is used to Mr. Bob and will even speak to him about how he wants his hair or a sports team. So I’ll take my dose of propaganda with a grain of salt, as long as it gets the job done. It’s funny how people in a barber shop keep tight-lipped to themselves. Old men staring down at their phones like a pack of teenagers. But even teenagers today seem to be bored with all the technology. Collecting vinyl records and reading actual books, more or less like we did as young people. But responsibility keeps us moving like the second hand on a clock. Counting every second, trying to mana...

  It’s 3:33 in the afternoon. Usually, I’m just waking from a nap, but today I had an eleven o’clock confab with my hematologist. Every eight weeks I get checked to see how tired my blood is. Turns out it remains stable at the same shitty numbers it’s been running. So, I guess I’ll see them in eight weeks! ​ Not to be confused with the blood work for my kidney doctor, cardiologist, urologist, or GP. My oil gets changed regularly. For me, if my blood’s tired, it’s from driving to all these specialists in three different cities—not including the eye exams, hearing tests, and begging a dentist to see my nine or ten broken teeth with exposed roots. ​ I’m a shitty sight. If not for regular showers and washed clothes, I’d look like I live under a bridge. But give the current administration time. ​ So what’s the point? I guess I’m just too stupid to give up. Mentally I’m a certified trainwreck with the paperwork to prove it, yet here I am—like a wad of gum you can’t scrape off your shoe. ...

  After a night of raw seventies-style fever dream, I woke up disturbed again by the whole thing, struggling to make any sense out of it, considering that’s not the way I grew up. I mean, I didn’t grow up in a low-income trailer park or surrounded by desperate people who always stay in trouble with the law. That was to come much later with the people I associated with after my first wife. But who knows, maybe that’s where the dream came from? Now, I’m sitting here some 40 years older and a lifetime away from that world. Still a stranger in a strange land, tiptoeing his way through the landmines laid by the natives. But even when I do make it home, I’m a stranger there myself. For time still affects us, whether we know it or not. And like most humans, we take the path of least resistance just to make it through, even if it means abandoning the moral values we once held true. So I sit in my “cone of silence,” creating my own world, surrounding myself with like-minded people. Peop...

  With my head on a swivel I spy the corners of my room like a prisoner with a slit for a window and a gym mat for a bed. Plotting and wondering about my next move, because that’s all you got to do. Except for the few moments you are outside or when you get mess call to prepare meals. It’s a routine with a hierarchy born out of intimidation and necessity. Where everything’s a little game you have to play, the side hustle, the secret deals. Funny thing about this prison, is it’s all voluntary. No one sentenced you other than yourself. But you stay because you have to, because you’re needed, because you think you got nowhere else to go. So you serve your time, till a hearse finally rolls you out and they bury you in the cold, cold ground. Don’t sound like much and it doesn’t mean there isn’t a little excitement. Like a visit from a friend or a phone call or two, don’t forget the long letters home that get spied upon by god knows who. So you don’t think about it much—you...

  Well you can tell school’s out; every youngin with a tablet, smartphone, or a video game is up this morning. Sucking every meter of data out of the fiber optic stream and have been since this weekend. Last night my phone would barely run music let alone stream video. While this morning my laptop still hasn’t woke up, running at dial-up speed, lagging while I try to use a word processor. The bad part is I pay premium cost to get the fastest speed, the problem is so does everyone else! But you can only flush so much shit down a pipe at one time unless you put in bigger pipes. So I’ll get off my soapbox now and learn to practice patience for the next four months. Life has a funny way of showing us we are not special, that we are just part of the status quo. The thing is, most average people already know that and deal with it. But there is 1 or 2% of the population that lose sight of that. They literally think their shit don’t stink, or at the very least don’t care if you smell i...

  Waking up this morning, for some reason I decided to bring up my daily newspaper on the big screen to read while putting my medicine together. What I had forgotten about was the reason I decided not to read my digital newspaper in the first place. No better than the headlines screaming across my TV on news channels were the headlines of doom and gloom. It meant that if I wanted any sliver of cited information, I was going to have to dig deep. So I turned the app off and went back to real life, finishing a call to my urologist about a prescription. It seems like even reputable news sources have jumped on the hype-train to catch more views and subscribers, while the forces of FB, TT, and 24-hour news all fight for our limited attention spans. It doesn’t seem that long ago when I’d see my dad or granddad at the kitchen table, their heads buried intently between the pages of the Savannah Morning News or The Evening Press respectively. Even as a kid, I’d ask for the comic strip ...

  Sometimes it feels like all is lost. So often we amplify the responses in our heads with the worst sort of things. The car breaking down and not having the money to get it fixed. The light bill is past due, and the fear of having the electricity shut off. A pencil breaking in the middle of a test, all sorts of things. And for the moment, we panic not knowing what to do.   Funny because I’ve lived through each and every one of these situations in my lifetime. Cars breaking down on a lonely stretch of road, on the Interstate with the kids in tow. The power getting shut-off multiple times in the summer, winter, and fall.   And with each of those times, it was up to me to pull up my “big boy panties” and get things done. You can ask my kids, although they may not tell you, we had it rough for a long time. But with each setback it made them tougher so they could face the roadblocks in their lives. Fortunately for us there wasn’t too many physical aftereffects, ps...

Jekyll Island, Georgia   Despite my better angels, I’m here at the keyboard typing away for the first time in a few days. For months, my wife and I had planned a trip to the beach to do some seashelling. But, as it is with most things, good intentions get trumped by the reality of life’s demands. Still, with a couple of extra bucks in my pocket, I decided I owed it to her to take her down to Jekyll. For the average healthy person this trip is a no-brainer—just hop on US 341 and head South till you run out of real estate. But for the past ten years or so, nothing in my life is a “No Brainer.” ​So, despite temperatures in the mid-80s and my increasing fatigue due to new medication, by sheer will I pushed ahead and made the trip. I made sure I hydrated well before the trip, and I think that helped make the whole thing more bearable physically. Still, my bride seems to have enjoyed combing the three beaches we covered to find her shells. After a fair night of sleep at a budget motel,...

  Well, I assume I made my last run over to my daughter’s house to tend to the dogs and cats. They are leaving their holiday resort in the morning and heading home. I took out the trash, sprayed the furniture and the curtains with Febreze, and put the dogs and cats in the yard, fed and watered. Outside my apartment window, the neighborhood cat is toying with what looks like a big field mouse. I wish the cat would get the job done before the damn thing gets into an apartment. Other than that, the world's still a-turning as I work on my second cup of decaf. Of late, I have been having long conversations with a young (at least to me) person who is a recovering addict. At the moment, she has been struggling not so much with her addiction, but with life’s circumstances. Living alone in a motel room, abandoned by family, she has no money, nothing of value to pawn, and nowhere to go. I really feel for her and can sympathize with her situation, being that me and my family have been in ...

  I finished up feeding the dogs and cats and changed their water. Sent them outside into the yard, took my own bath and shaved, because frankly I stank. Now I just got through taking my own meds and cleaning up my crowded computer screen. My blood pressure is normal for those of you keeping count. Although there’s not many of us left that remember when that was a thing in conversation. I feel like getting back in bed to be honest. But my wife took that idea away by making up the bed. Still my eyes are feeling heavy, but I’m doing my damnest to stay motivated. But considering it’s the middle of the month and all the things that drove me in life have either moved out or work themselves. I starting to feel like one of those old folks rocking the morning away at the old folks home in Lumber City. Our goals are different now, gone are the obligations that kept us chained to a job. If you’re lucky you get to work a job for something to do. But sadly most of us old timers have to work ...

  I spent the early part of the morning working on some Painted Poetry me and Sandra Lynn had collaborated on over the weekend. Putting the finishing touches to the painted end of her words, while I’m still fiddling around with mine. It’s a habit that has extended through 4 marriages, 7 kids, and God knows how many grandkids. But it’s something we have done together, if for nothing else but our own entertainment and letting go of the secrets that we keep. For a while we had hit a bit of a dry spell, but recently we’ve got the old factory running again at full production.  Most artist usually keep to themselves, and I am no exception. Sandra is a busy little lady managing a warehouse and being the glue for her expansive family. Our blood runs deep, with a shared passion for music, words, and peace. While I wear the same old curmudgeon armor I have worn for years. But we both have our needs and our desires we have carried since childhood. So we except our fate and do our damne...

  The sky outside can’t make up its mind, rather it wants to be blue or grey. As for my own head, well it feels about the same. Chewing down my gummies there’s a sweet taste lingering in my mouth. While the sky outside grows darker and darker, looks like its headed south. As for me it’s hard to say where I’m headed, my body says to get up, but my head wants to go back to bed. In this semi-urban spawl, if you want to call it that. Small towns sprung up between miles and miles of Georgia Pine. Erasing from your imagination any idea of what this land was like a hundred years ago. With a freshly paved expressway rolling aimlessly to the beach. This place looks nothing like what it did a mere 50 years ago. But apparently the attitude has stayed the same, with the Fat Cats in Atlanta and Washington telling these paranoid want-a-be Lumber Barons how to think. But today there are no lumber barons now, just corporations and big power owning the land your Great-Granddaddy’s sold years ag...

  It’s 10:30 AM and the candles finally lit. I spent the first two hours of my morning driving 65 miles round trip to give a blood sample, which for me takes all of 3 minutes. But when you live in the woods where you have a food desert, a doctor desert, and a hospital desert; what do you do? Don’t worry though, I ain’t complaining too much considering there are those worst off then me. I mean, I do have insurance and a way to go. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful trip, traffic was light. The long construction zone before I got to the labs was fairly smooth, and Dave the lab tech was efficient and quick. So now at 10:45 AM I can sit down with my brain mostly intact and tell you a tale. Other than a headache it’s a bright shiny day outside, not a cloud in the sky. Sitting here with nothing in particular weighing on my brain, other than missing a few friends and wishing I had the time and money to go to the coast. It’s going to be Mother’s Day this weekend and my bride sure...

 Staring in the mirror I don’t take too long to think. Because if I do, I’ll reflect too long on the wrinkles and grey hair that now cover that once youthful smile. Still I laugh at the thought of all the time I spent just being busy and not appreciating the moments as they came. But for the last 30 years, I’ve been forced to think and appreciate such things. But still the mask remains secure, holding in the thoughts of stillness and calm. Only displaying the wit and the showmanship that has been my life. ​So I sit here with the curtains drawn to the afternoon sun. Debating with myself about the words I wish to say. Knowing dreams are but subconscious emotion playing out in my head, wishing for more but getting less. So I leave myself asking this question, which one of me is truly me? The joking, wisecracking, happy-go-lucky fellow you see? Or the reflective man you read about behind these drawn curtains? I dare not answer that question, at least not out loud. For each of us is n...

 That damn blinking cursor is taunting me again, staring at me with its blink-a-d-blink little self. But that’s okay, I just laugh at its power over me. While I continue to type the gibberish that eventually turns into words, that turns into statements of truth. I talk to a few budding writers out there and a lot of them compliment me on my style and the things I write about. It picks me up believe me, especially for a guy with no wealth to speak of. For my writing at the most has bought me a decent dinner or two over the years. But the main thing we writers always come to is the subject and the material. Which is funny to me because my main subject is usually myself. I mean, what easier or lazier thing can you write about other than yourself? But still my limited audience expects that or wants nothing else. So I dilly-dally about writing my little 300+ word salads every day, for the benefit of no one other than myself. And you know what? Maybe that’s the key to good writing, ent...

  Done with all the usual. The vitamin gummy tastes good in my mouth after a job well done. Yesterday morning, I went to my Family NP to get an official blood pressure reading and some bloodwork done to check on my new medication and my lightheadedness. Well, the results came back, confirming her suspicions and diagnosis. So now, it’s just a waiting game and a bit more of being very careful when I move about. I hate sounding a bit paranoid about my health, but I am. However, I do my best not to water those seeds of fear as I used to in years past. By living in the present moment, there is a certain degree of awareness concerning your health and wellness. It’s not that I don’t fear death, but I’m also not ignorant of my quality of life. So, I do my best to keep myself as healthy as I can given my current situation. Life is about awareness and the quality of life you live. None of us want to be uncomfortable, I’m sure, but at what cost do we pursue that level of comfort? Over the...

The Old Sycamore Trees  Maybe it’s a little too soon to start another life post, but for the better part of the morning I’m going to be arguing with two pharmacies over who gets my prescriptions. So while I’m in a hopeful frame of mind I thought I would at least start this story. This morning began like most stories, only this time I slept through the night, and my bride was the one that kept waking up. I told her I hadn’t noticed her getting up, in which she replied with a snarky, “I know!”, and thus began my peaceful morning. The neighborhood cat is hanging outside the neighbors window this morning. Apparently ignoring my mental pleads of “Good Morning”. But I shrugged it off as just another cat picking and choosing their victim for the moment. But isn’t that how most of us deal with who we want to deal with, and who we don’t. For a moment I caught the smell of wild honeysuckles across my nose. As if to remind me of my old yard and the scents I caught on the old park trail. Spe...

  Chewing on my vitamin gummies, after taking a shower and downing my pills. A neighbor from the other building takes her little Frenchie out for a walk. While a daddy follows behind a toddler chasing the neighborhood cat who gladly stops and welcomes a rub. As for me I’m stuck behind these four walls much like McCartney, but stranded by my own choice. Now Granny, who am I kidding, Great-Granny has finished walking the dog and the cat from yesterday is stretched out on the sidewalk. Wearing my new uniform of a green plaid oxford shirt, an orange t-shirt, and grey shorts. I sit behind my table pretending to know the next thing I’m going to say. With little to no imagination I press the keys to entertain no one other than myself through a morning of anticipation and grace. Before I got out of bed I heard the anger of a new friend against a newly remade app. Listening to their frustration as my “Good Morning!” to them was being sent. But I understand the situation, for I have them ma...