This summer has been spent so far settling into our new lives, fixing up our house, figuring out how to live together. There are ups and downs, but in between I can look out my windows and see green everywhere, and if I’m lucky, random animals.

The area we moved to is similar to our last one in that it’s many small towns running into the city. But there are so many farms. Farm stands, farm stores, farm markets. It’s like I’m back in North Carolina; I go buy all the veggies and fruit, then get stuff to go with it at the grocery store.

My oldest son is taking cooking classes in the city, so we’ve gone exploring the shopping that way. My youngest is turning into my hiking and swimming buddy. There are so many places to hike, many of them accessible. Mom is getting rolled all over nature once it’s cooler. Mostly I’ve taken her to the dentist, doctor, and out to eat lately. Her anxiety has been elevated since we had what turned out to be the move from hell: three month edition, bouncing around rentals. Even when she wasn’t living with us, she was coming to visit two different houses. The constant was me, and now she is fine when I’m home but starts to lose her mind if I go anywhere. D. can reassure her when she isn’t sundowning but early afternoon? Forget it. Plus she has had many…rather, shall we say, FUCKING HORRENDOUS experiences with men since she met my late asshole stepfather, so she can be a real grouch toward everyone in the family but me.

We are adjusting her meds to add one specifically for anxiety, because most of her sundowning has a very OCD flavor. We get creative too. She can’t stand to see us standing or sitting around for example. She’ll come out of her room and try to give us a job. Dan complained about this to me and I said “Oh she does that to me too. I just pretend I’m doing something.” I showed him my fake counter wipe with the nearest rag. If I’m playing video games, I’m “waiting on a text/email back from someone on the internet. Oh, there it is! Gotta finish this form.” (Half the time this IS true. I’m lining up dentists, doctors, eye doctors, therapists, new licenses, schools, and occasionally contractors if Dan can’t catch them.) The sky is the damn limit, okay? Call me Nurse Pragmatism.

Mom is also slowly coming off some of the meds they had her on in the memory care from her WV experience. She’s still on several and it gets confusing as hell. The memory care had them all in neat little bubble packs, but now that it’s me and an organizer. I’m just thankful for my own OCD and a fast pharmacy. Also this Ninja soda machine, because she has a sweet tooth and was downing sodas so fast I could’ve paid the mortgage in bottle returns. Now I just make sure we have supplies. I order the berry blast nine bottles at a time.

We brought Jiji, the ex-feral cat, and after she took a giant dump in the travel carrier less than thirty minutes into the trip to convey her gratitude, she did fine the rest of the way. She is doing great as an indoor cat, and there’s no way she’s ever getting out with all these animals. We have things that can kill her, but she’s more likely to chase ten different rodents down the mountain and get lost. She’s really been everyone’s emotional support kitty. Thanks to Pacagen spray, the Purina anti-allergen food, and D’s year of allergy shots, she can actually sleep in our room, usually right by my head, or on it.

After nearly two years of uncertainty, packing, selling, moving, traveling, we finally made it to one house, where we want to be, and now the whole country is going to shit. Par for the course. I dissociate with nature. I watch the birds, wander off to hike, drive down by the river…on bad days I dream of wandering into the woods like that hermit guy in Maine and hiding out until humanity blows over. Or until humanity is over blowing.

Today the birds inspired this poem, which is not a happy one, but was very cathartic to write.

What’s Left

The remnants of dinosaurs hunt for food
in the shady branches outside the window,
reduced to surviving on bugs and seeds.

The remnants of my mother lounge in bed
the next room over, reduced to anxiously asking
for soda, toast, help with a shower, reassurance.

The remnants of my sanity banded together
almost as long as the dinosaurs roamed
and took off for parts unknown.

Sometimes I get a postcard with a photo
of a lovely vista or majestic wildlife.
Wish you were here.