BAD DAY

BAD DAY

My nightgown is an old fashioned red and black checked flannel thing that reaches my feet. When I turn over on my skinny sofa, the nightgown stays put, squeezing my body as tight as a winding sheet, and I am stuck, barely able to move. That’s how my day began, working my way free. Then I made something out of clay that is half sea creature and half dying swan. Nobody likes it except me, but I love it even though someone said it looked like “a cross between a yam and a poop.” Which it does. Now I both love it and it makes me laugh.

Then Olive ate a chicken thigh bone out of the garbage. I called the vet who told me to call if she vomits, gets diarrhea, seems lethargic, or loses her appetite. So far, she seems fine. Next I couldn’t answer the questions to renew my overdue registration. I tried to do it online. How could I know how much my car weighs? Or how many cylinders it has. I don’t even know what a cylinder is. Plus whenever it tells me to put in my ID number, it’s always wrong, and I’m getting it right off my license.

Later I ran a few errands and after the last one couldn’t put my car in reverse. The gear shift would not budge. I asked a man outside Cumberland Farms if he knew anything about cars. I told him I couldn’t put mine in reverse. He got in the car and within seconds he backed it up. What did you do? I asked him. He said he turned the engine on, put his foot on the brake, shifted into reverse. I had no idea you had to put your foot on the brake but I must have known because I’ve been driving for fifty-two years.

Catherine said it was my body forgetting, which gave me a different way to think about it. But why did my body forget? And then later I didn’t know how to turn on the porch light. Something I’ve done thousands of times. Good Lord! What’s going on with me? What will become of me if both my brain and my body forget everything they know? Who will I be? I will be lost.

• My dog Olive usually sits on the arm of my chair, straddling it as if she is riding a horse. I’ve never seen a dog do that. Whenever Olive is elsewhere, I absently pet the chair. Thank goodness there is something that my body still does automatically, because I’m petting it now, while over there on the sofa, Olive is chasing something in a dream and trying to bark with her mouth shut.