It’s always something.  Today, I’m angry with the air.  I resent that it refuses to flow freely into my mother’s lungs, bathing them with replenishment and energy.  

Today, I’m angry with the designers of handicap access ramps, who, in their interest in minimizing pitch, create a distance demand that requires extraordinary effort on Mom’s part.  I’m exhausted just shuffling beside her.

I’ve been planning today’s trip to the library for about half a year now.  As I’ve watched Mom grow weaker, I came to realize certain outings that she and I used to enjoy together just aren’t available to us right now.  Among them was a trek we would make to Northshire,  her favorite bookstore up in Saratoga.  When they closed their bathroom to the public, she lost interest in shopping there.  When we realized she could no longer make the walk from the city lot to the shop, we lost the ability.

But it had been years since she visited the library in town.  I thought we could go there and peruse the books, then go out for smoothies or coffee at the Tagua nut cafe just down the street.  Both places have easy parking.  And accessible bathrooms.  And they’re only a few minutes from home. 

Mom’s long descent into poor health made that trip impossible for a long time, too.  While she was in the rehabilitation center this spring, we talked about the day we’d make it happen. 

It took most of the summer for her to recover to the point where we could try this trip. And now this.  Not enough air.

But she pushes through.  She lets me try to show her how to download ebooks, then makes a visit to the shelves and selects two titles to take home with her.  The librarian thoughtfully puts them in a satchel and prints a receipt.  It feels just like going to the bookstore.  I can tell she’s delighted.  And she talks about how good it will feel, to go home and lose herself in a new book.

It’s always something.  I told Ula she could take Saturday off from the cafe to go on a field trip with her riding class.  I am certain it will be slow enough for Saoirse, Jack, Kyle, Bob and me to cover it.  I get up at 3 am on Saturday morning to get ready, and check my messages.  Kyle, who manages Tibbets house and does chores Saturday mornings, washes dishes and cleans at the cafe on Saturday afternoon, and handles Sunday and Monday chore shifts so we can have some days off, has broken his foot while on vacation.  He’ll be laid up for the next two months.

Bob will be late coming in to the cafe so that he can cover morning chores.  I’ll have to cover him on dishes while I do the morning prep.  Saoirse will cover Ula’s afternoon chore shift after closing, and I’ll stay late to help Jack and Bob with cleanup.  That will make a 14 hour day for me.  I tighten the laces on my work shoes and hope my feet and knees will hold up.

It’s always something.  We open at 9am and there is suddenly a line out the door.  My records from prior years indicated this would be a sleepy day at the cafe. My predictions are wrong.  We are under-staffed and under-supplied.  

It’s always something.  I’m in the back cooking breakfasts as fast as possible when Saoirse tears herself away from the espresso machine and runs to find me. 

“Mom!  Something’s wrong with the milk!  It won’t stretch when I steam it, and it tastes horrible in the coffee!” 

“That’s impossible! We just got a fresh delivery!”

 I drop what I’m doing and rush forward to the espresso bar.  I pour myself a glass of cold milk.  It tastes fine.  Then I pull an espresso shot and steam some milk for a latte.  I pour the milk across the top of the coffee, and it fizzles and sinks.  I take a sip and have to spit it out.  An entire shipment of milk, all bad.  

“You can’t serve this!”  I order her.  I go into the back kitchen where I have less than half of one last gallon from an earlier delivery.  I pass it up to her.  Then I send Dad to town on an emergency milk run and hope that we can…literally stretch our last good milk until he gets back.  

We finish out the day, and I’m so tired when we get home, I just weep.  For the first time, I wonder if I’m getting too old for this.

It’s always something.  Sunday would ordinarily be our recovery day, but with Kyle out, the girls will have to do the chores, and Bob will turn over Tibbets house.  We have guests checking out at 10am, new guests coming in at 4pm. While they’re gone working at the farm and Tibbets,  I plan to take advantage of the quiet and catch up on desk work.  I get out of bed and grab the phone as I start the coffee.  The family of six that is checking out sends a message reporting that the dishwasher at Tibbets has stopped working.  They apologized for having to leave the dishes unwashed before getting on the road.  So I throw Sunday dinner in the slow cooker and join Bob down at Tibbets, washing dishes and changing linens while he tears apart the dishwasher and figures out which parts to order.

It’s always something.  We finish Tibbets in time for the next guests to check in, then head to the farm, where we need to catch the chickens for processing.  Saoirse brings down the slow cooker so we can have Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad after.  

But Sunday dinner isn’t much of a dinner.  Mom is worse than she was on library day.  She struggles to draw a breath.  We get her beside the air conditioner and Dad gives her her evening medications.  After a short while she is able to draw a little more air, but she has lost her appetite.  So have the rest of us.  We head home.  I sit on the steps in front of our house and just cry.  Just like they used to when they were Youngers, Ula grabs a brush, unwinds my braids and starts brushing my hair until my sobs settle and my breathing calms.  Corey comes over and we all sit together, drowning our sorrows in ice cream.

It’s always something.  At 3 am the next morning, the phone rings.  I grab it before anyone else wakes up.   “I’m taking her down to the hospital in town,” Dad tells me.  “Don’t forget the butcher will be here at 7 for the chickens.” 

I hang up and go stand in my kitchen and consider the grim reality that..It’s always something.  I’m usually pretty good with that.  The fact that I love my life greatly enhances my ability to cheerfully weather a fairly high dose of It’s always somethings.

But seriously?  This feels like an overdose.  

I stand and stare out the window at the dark and think…I need .…  A blessing.  A spell.  A ritual to shift the energy around me.  Anything to lift my spirits.  A little help.  

On the windowsill above the sink sits a dried up Jericho Rose that Saoirse bought for me after our Honor Store was shot up by a mentally ill neighbor back in 2022.  She told me that I could put it in water to help clear bad energy, to bring peace and well-being.  The rose sits on my sill, looking like a dried up dead plant.  But when it is set into water, it turns green and unfurls these beautiful fern-like leaves.  The botanist in me just adores it. 

So I seize the rose and my favorite bowl.  I pour in fresh water, clear a table on the side of the kitchen and set it out to bloom, accepting whatever life may offer next, but asking for a little help along the journey.

Bob wakes up and he and the dogs join me on the ride to the farm,  where I watch the morning light play across the mountains of West Fulton.  Wow.  That’s something, I think as I take it all in.  We pull into the farm and walk out to the pasture to let the chickens out of their huts.   I see that about thirty of them have broken out in the night, and they’re roaming freely.  It’s always something, I think, noting that I’ve got to ask Bob to repair the huts.

But then I realize:  There’s no sign of predation anyplace.  The chickens broke out, but nothing got them.  

Thank goodness.

On a farm teeming with wildlife, with coyotes just across the creek from this pasture, that’s something.

Ula comes down to do chores so that Bob and I can go home and have coffee in the woods.  We don’t have a lot of time before we have to get on the road and make deliveries, so we just go a little ways behind the house with the dogs.  Mist rises up from the forest floor and we gaze up at the trees around us.  Saoirse comes out to sit with us, and the dogs hug close by our sides.  I take it all in:  the beauty of the woods, the companionship of the dogs, the cheerful company of Saoirse and Bob, the willing competence of Ula down at the farm, taking her turn so that we can rest. 

That’s something.  

We pack up and head down to the cafe where I make a couple sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches to deliver to Mom and Dad at the hospital.  They report that they found a blood clot on Mom’s lung, but that it’s small, and they anticipate being able to clear it.  Mom is able to breathe better already.  Her nurse practitioner is one of my friends from jazz band.    He’s a great keyboard player, and he’s kind and loving to Mom and Dad.  Isn’t that something?  Better still, the hospital is just a fifteen minute drive away.  I marvel at how, when so many rural communities across the nation are losing their hospitals, we’ve managed to hold onto ours.  That’s something.

It’s a long day on the road, but on one of our stops, a customer hands me a gift: some freshly made eggplant caponata and a wild raspberry sauce to serve over lemon cake.  It’s just so kind, so thoughtful.  Wow! That’s something.

We stop at the hospital on the way home.  Mom looks so much better.  She’s enjoying seeing the Olympics on television, something she wouldn’t have been able to do at home.  We talk for a while, and then we help her get into bed for the night.  And there, on the bedside table, is her library book.  She’s two thirds of the way through it already.  I ask her if she will want to go back next week.  She nods with enthusiasm.  I think she’s going to be able to make the trip.  I’m looking forward to it.

We go home, where Saoirse has peeled fresh cukes and sliced up field tomatoes.  We eat them with salt potatoes and meatloaf and a small rack of spareribs that I’d put in the oven earlier in the day. As I carry my plate to the sink, I pause and run my hand over the fronds of the Jericho Rose, now green and bright.   I think about the miracle of the library.  And the miracle of friends, and good customers and faithful dogs and loving family.  I think about the good food that I have the privilege of helping to bring to my community, of the good food that graces my plate from other farmers in my town.  And I marvel at how, even though there’s always something, it’s never very far from  Wow! That’s something!

 

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