She figures it's not for the faint of heart. This life. This softly cooing head rocking in a fetal position while looking out the window life. This breathing through her nose so as to not make a sound, while she's gritting her teeth and wondering when the phone will stop ringing. This madhouse is full of cats and animals, she wishes we could all be more like kittens, and that the plastic phone on the wall would stop its ringing. Here on the 32nd floor hospital ward for those who haven't had their meds, she blends in like a kitten at a window, waiting for lunch, waiting for God, waiting for a god-awful hamburger.
She goes to the hospital each November, some kind of hibernation of sanity, just under the mud, like a frog, waiting for Spring.
I came to visit her once, and I brought blueberries. I still remember the way the skins stuck to her teeth and how I nodded even though it didn't make sense.
Later that day I was out in the light rain, holding an umbrella, and realized the family next to me with a small boy didn't have an umbrella, and I handed mine to her, the mother, and she didn't know what I meant at first and I pointed to the stick of the umbrella and then handed it to her, and she grasped it.
We waited for about five minutes.
A gypsy girl was in the doorway of the store, she was naturally shielded from the rain, in her striped stockings and boots. Not an actual gypsy, mind you, just in fashion. She didn't have an umbrella.
I waited, letting the rain spit on my face, feeling like a man.
Then the bus came and she handed it back to me.
As cold as I was, and as wet as I was, I thought to myself as I sat into the blue bus seat, at least I am not on the 32nd floor. At least I have my facilities at least I am making my own choices, and my mind hasn't turned on me.
Sometimes I close my eyes and shake the world like a snow globe, hoping it will all just land back in place.