Sharon Olds writes about racing to see her dying father . . .
The Race
by: Sharon Olds
bought a ticket, ten minutes later
they told me the flight was cancelled, the doctors
had said my father would not live through the night
and the flight was cancelled. A young man
with a dark brown moustache told me
another airline had a nonstop
leaving in seven minutes. See that
elevator over there, well go
down to the first floor, make a right, you'll
see a yellow bus, get off at the
second Pan Am terminal, I
ran, I who have no sense of direction
raced exactly where he'd told me, a fish
slipping upstream deftly against
the flow of the river. I jumped off that bus with those
bags I had thrown everything into
in five minutes, and ran, the bags
wagged me from side to side as if
to prove I was under the claims of the material,
I ran up to a man with a flower on his breast,
I who always go to the end of the line, I said
Help me. He looked at my ticket, he said
Make a left and then a right, go up the moving stairs and then
run. I lumbered up the moving stairs,
at the top I saw the corridor,
and then I took a deep breath, I said
goodbye to my body, goodbye to comfort,
I used my legs and heart as if I would
gladly use them up for this,
to touch him again in this life. I ran, and the
bags banged against me, wheeled and coursed
in skewed orbits, I have seen pictures of
women running, their belongings tied
in scarves grasped in their fists, I blessed my
long legs he gave me, my strong
heart I abandoned to its own purpose,
I ran to Gate 17 and they were
just lifting the thick white
lozenge of the door to fit it into
the socket of the plane. Like the one who is not
too rich, I turned sideways and
slipped through the needle's eye, and then
I walked down the aisle toward my father. The jet
was full, and people's hair was shining, they were
smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a
mist of gold endorphin light,
I wept as people weep when they enter heaven,
in massive relief. We lifted up
gently from one tip of the continent
and did not stop until we set down lightly on the
other edge, I walked into his room
and watched his chest rise slowly
and sink again, all night
I watched him breathe.
Rushing to a dying parent’s bedside is understandable. I would have run like Olds to catch that flight, without a doubt. I don’t like being late for anything. My parents taught me that, if I’m five minutes early, I’m already ten minutes late. Thus, I always arrive about a half hour early for important events/obligations. It’s just the way I’m wired.
It doesn’t help that I’m the youngest in my family of nine siblings. If I sat down late for dinner when I was a kid, chances are the best food would be gone. I’d get stuck with peas instead of mac and cheese. Not a good tradeoff.
That’s right. Food insecurity fueled my perpetual promptness. Also, my diabetes kind of makes it imperative that I adhere to meal times pretty strictly. Extreme low blood sugars tend to make me feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. It takes about five or so hours for me to fully recover.
It’s Monday, after a three-day weekend. Sliding back into my work schedule was challenging. Zero motivation. Zero energy. Yet, I plugged along and got lots of things accomplished. I don’t want this week to really rush by. On Saturday, we have to drive downstate to help our daughter relocate for medical school. The faster this week goes, the sooner I have to say goodbye to her. Therefore, I’m hoping this week goes by s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y . . .
But time is so relative. Today has felt like a wild ride on the back of a tortoise. As the week progresses, I’m sure things will speed up. Summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan always seems like a fever dream. It’s over before you even have a chance to hit the beach. Now that it’s past July 4th, there’s a lull—no big events to anticipate in the coming months. Pretty soon, classes will resume at the university, and, from there on, it’s a quick sprint to winter.
And the older I get, the quicker life seems to be fly by.
Saint Marty wrote a poem about the power of food to slow things down, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
On this date in 1908, food writer MFK Fisher was born. In honor of her birthday, write a poem in which a specific food or foods, or a recipe, figures. Scan a cookbook and make a list of verbs that have to do with cooking/baking: truss, whip, broil, braise, beat. Aim to include some of these verbs in your poem.
Feeding the Hungry
by: Martin Achatz
I’ve seen friends do it—rummage
around in fridge, freezer, pantry,
collect improbable pairings of ingredients:
quinoa and Cheerios, leftover hotdogs,
kumquats, cheese slices and kale,
always kale because nobody likes it.
They combine, marinate, broil,
sautée these morsels into repast,
and we gather, sometimes around dinner
tables, often in kitchens where
pans simmer and skillets sweat,
use Fritos to scoop something
that resembles guacamole into our mouths,
wash it down with glasses of boxed red wine.
It’s almost Biblical to witness: Jesus
feeding the five thousand with Ritz
crackers and a tin of sardines.
Nobody goes away hungry. In fact,
most of us bring home plates piled
with leftovers of the leftovers, starters
for our next impromptu feast, sort of
the way I gather words, lines, images
from journal scraps, dump them all
into a pot with hardy chicken
stock, make a roux that could end
up as the base for a good meal, us
with arms around each other’s shoulders,
feeling as if the tops of our heads have
been taken off by each savory stanza.
