A Lazy Saturday Morning

It's quiet. Beyond the gentle, low hum of the freezer now ensconced in my dining room, there is no noise. The street in front of my building is quiet. Jim is not here; the TV is off. There is no noise of bustle or activity. Even the wind is still; my tree stands motionless, not even the birds moving about in the branches. It is as if there was no sound anywhere, as if all the world was voiceless, or perhaps as if I am near deaf. It is a restful place, a calm place, a gentle place.

I like mornings like this. I am getting to enjoy them more and more. There was a time in my life when mornings were active, bustling times, where children were getting dressed to head off to school, where work of my own beckoned, either from my home office downstairs or my work office in some far off building where the world of business seemed to never end. There was a time in my life when morning meant new things to do, new places to go, new people to meet. And sometimes the morning was simply a reminder that, as the sun rose in the east, I had worked all night and forgotten to sleep. Now, peace rules the morning, at least most days.

I need sleep these days, not less than about 10 hours a night. On top of that it is not uncommon for my to nap an hour or so in a day. My body is at war with itself, the forces of life trying desperately to slow the destruction of motor neurons, working to build new nerve pathways, trying valiantly in a losing cause to keep what muscles I yet have working, pliant, supple and strong. The forces of death are simply working inexorably, working to kill motor neurons, working to stop my nerves from communicating with my muscles, like dwarfs below the deep, dark earth, tunneling relentlessly, stealing my life, the gold of my existence.

It becomes clearer each day, as a new weakness sets in. I drop things because my fingers are losing grip. My arms tire when I lift them, not the tired of muscle exhaustion, it is the tiredness of neurons screaming across the gap of contact to dying muscles on the other side; not visible exhaustion from work, but invisible exhaustion from the hidden efforts at the root of making those muscles work.

Not all of this is bad. Not all of this is sad. It is simply life working as it does, quietly, softly, slowly taking its time with me. It is a lazy Saturday morning writ large.