d

is for
dementia
depression
disability
drugs
distraction. . . .

i went to a nursing home yesterday.
i had been there before, but the experience was different.
i was there for work, to take photographs, but you see nothing here
of them.

a public- and philanthropic-money-funneler, a social service agency, if you will, was descending on a residency of 81 or 82 humans, several canines and a few avians, for a holiday act of giving. the board had discovered that 25 of the residents there had literally no one left in their personal lives.

on the good side, the place is full of loads of staff all doing something and all appearing to be continually interacting with the residents.
they care, and it's not a wretched place really.

i did not take any photographs of the people living there. i know some good photographers who could, but i do not have the guts to overtly steal people's lives.

instead am slutty and stealthy and i pretend i have observed something, and then i spit it out like this - like i did the other day when i said our moral code was inconsistent and i loathed it, not humanity - i noted the absence of all but one brave phone-comment; thanks, a., for hearing my angry song. : ) good freakness, where did a e-land emoticon come from?

anyway, i am genuine in my intentions. i always admit i'm a writer. people aren't forced to talk to me, after all.

besides, i was not about to intrude on the constructed moment of generosity peppered down from a board of directors who, from my knowledge of four key members, all own their own businesses, lots of property, etc. (or are bank presidents).

in their suits and ties - the red-headed real estate woman wearing a red springy spiral santa hat, of course - she always wears fabulous hats and she's in that crazy red hat/purple dress group, too - they were smiling but unfathomable as they passed out red bags brimming with red pointsettias. the bags also contained some fluffy socks and some hand-made cards from kids from three gradeschools. one gave a little speech about hoping everyone would have a good holiday with their friends and family. did he say anything about care? i don't remember because i was just watching his body language. a little quiet and stiff, like a john kerry-type. so what were they feeling?

i suspect they had as much confused-comfortlessness itching at them as i did. it was an innocuous experience, it was nothing remarkable that made you want to run away as quickly as possible, but it was a bit unsettling. i observed a person living inside a mobile chair with a cubical structure built up on it to contain. . .? another fellow was probably among the youngest there, but he was made a shape that is quite rare in our species. he, too, had a structure, a smaller and specific one, holding up his head. the skin on his forehead was abundant and so somewhat squished into it.

i said hello to everyone i passed or with whom i was able to make eye contact.

i did not talk to the board members much, but i did help the media person from the organization and a couple of the board unload the passenger van full of 90 gifts when i got there. during the entertainment, i went to the back of the greatroom where i thought i could catch a moment (i wasn't going to go to any moments, as i said), but no photographs ended up coming my way. i started to talk to this guy in a scooter, after a brief break in the off-key chorus doing some christmas songs. we shared an opinion about the quality of the entertainment, provided in good intention by a high school, but i have a suspicion his appreciation for the music was affected by the race of the singers. i say this only because later in our talk, which was about how long he had lived there (three years), where his wife was (over in the other, more intensive care building) and how long they had been married (unclear), he expressed concern for how the neighborhood had changed. he kind of even laughed.

then, he offered statistics supposedly from a church alliance as to the racial composition of the area. "in 1951, 90-something percent caucasian." take your guess, folks, as to the statistic now. . . yeah, poor (often literally) white people number only about 17 percent. boo hoo for them. (sarcasm, okay? he, on the other hand, presented it as just a set of facts that had a negative tone. i tried to tell him about the young people moving in to the neighborhood who were good, etc. and who chose to live there and liked it.)

he was difficult to engage in a meeting of minds, but i invited this man to call me or whatever in the future, in case, you know, "something happens."

i looked at the activities calendar on the way out. things that happen include piano wednesday. that's all i remember because it's the only activity i talked about with that man.

i sat down and talked to a group of three people, but one one was shy and eventually left, even though every time i looked at her in an attempt to engage her in the conversation, she would smile but not say much and be run over by another woman who was the dominant talker of the trio. they probably weren't really friends, i believe, just sitting in the same place.

that conversation was basic and unfruitful. the chatty woman, who was there recovering from a knee issue that requires operation (she's not going to do it, though), started to suggest some people living there (the names were fuzzy) i might "do stories on." "eventually, you should do them all, but they don't all stay here that long."

on my way down the hall to the exit, i got stared down by a peg-toothed walker-woman in pink sweats, who asked me if i was with the organization that had come through. i said i was just there to see it, and she told me about how her mother hated her, her husband had been dead five years, her children did not give a damn about her, and perhaps some other injustice. i told her i was sorry about that situation, asked where they lived, but she basically said "bah!" and went into how she was a ___ in world war 2 and how her mother taunted her about it, saying "you're smoking and drinking and having babies with men!"

"they think i see things, but i don't. i'm fine."

chatty woman came out into the hall and said, "she's one of the good people you should write about."

the first woman went along, and chatty woman wheeled to the lobby. we passed a cockatiel in a cage, mateless. she said they couldn't get it another mate, that it wouldn't work out. i tried to explain that i thought it would, but she was preconvinced.

she went on and named who had dogs there, and i stepped away past a row of people sitting there, a lumpy noncommunicative man with a yellow patch on his bald, otherwise mostly-healthy pink and spotted head, a woman dressed up a bit and muttering "is it dinner time?" over and over. i wasn't sure if she was talking to the man, so i didn't interrupt, but she said, "doesn't anyone hear around here?" and the woman behind the counter said loudly in her direction, "no it's 2:20. we haven't had dinner." the old woman protested that it was dark. i said it was just cloudy, but no one responded. i expected the two young men (yes, i have to say they were about the only black people in the place, there to visit or pick up their friend, also younger, but with some kind of injuries - he shouted over a little angrily to the dinner-woman that no, it was not dinner time yet) so at least acknowledge my presence as a fellow younger and non-injured or lonely alone older person. they didn't. it was weird, but i guess i'm a freak, so whatever.

i ran into the world war 2 veteran woman and she stared at me in the same shocked and owlish way and said "did you come here with __?" "no, i came to see it, i'm tracy - " "yes, we met in the hall."

i was glad she remembered, but sad because she mentioned her mother again.

she's someone who is looking for redemption, too.

i felt i didn't belong there. i left.

the sign posted on the second set of glass doors on the way out says,
"do not give the residents cigarettes,
lighters,
or matches
or light their cigarettes."

d
is for
damn,
i guess.