Last November, in Day Room 38, I unplugged the Amazon Alexa device to plug in my laptop. During this visit, I learned Alexa hadn’t worked since.

Tonight, I’m listening to the new Alexa device. My mom lives about 2 miles from an Amazon warehouse, so it was here in less than half a day. Yesterday, Charlotte finished the setup when I got stuck. About the replacement, she said, “You didn’t have to do that,” but I knew I did.

You break it, you fix it.

Forty years ago, on an early winter afternoon in a St. Paul park, a young man and I tentatively stretched our words toward each other as we figured out our future. I could tell by his restrained phrasing, his asking about my heart rather than speaking about his own, we didn’t have a future together.

The lake at our feet had frozen a top sheet of ice overnight. I took off my thick wool mittens and pushed at the ice’s edge.

Some crust broke away under my fingers, but then a soft crack and a piece the size of a living room broke free. I gripped and pressed it a little to the left, then a little to the right, then pushed it out into the lake. If I couldn’t move this young man, I wanted to move something.

My hands came up red and wet, but he didn’t offer to hold them and I shoved my mittens back on.

This is how I feel at my mom’s. Not the young woman with icy-cold hands. The flat sheet of ice. Untethered. I remind myself to stay in the present, to notice and appreciate. I listen to meditations.

But still.

A friend came to visit with lunch and desserts she baked. The three of us enjoyed the meal in my mom’s apartment. Afterward, they talked while I walked Roxie. Then Mom turned in for a nap while my friend and I talked. It was a bright shot of sunlight.

When she left, I was back to floating ice.

It’s not that I feel sad. I feel loose.

There’s been an earworm running in my head for the last three days that I’m taking as a good sign. “I’m gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club.”

 Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful friends who understand, who soften the rough edges of life.