You Are What the Times Demand

So, what was interesting about today was that I learned that, even at my advanced age, I can keep a falling bookcase from killing me.

There were moments when I was holding the tipping bookcase and listening to all the glass candles, papers, notebooks, photographs, file folders, and tax returns crashing around me that I thought I might cry. But then, my husband held one end of the bookcase. This didn’t save me, but it staved off the tears. Then we strategized about what to do.

The bookcase was tipping because one end of it fell off the end of the desk on which it has been sitting for twenty years. This is because we pulled the whole set away from the wall so we could look for something, which, of course, wasn’t there although there were plenty of other things there, like a desk calendar from 2018.

After fraught discussion and an increasing realization that there was no way to set things right without a lot of extra help, we maneuvered such that the bookcase would lean backwards against the wall. Then we set about cleaning up the incredible debris – papers scattered, broken glass, old photos everywhere – and then I went swimming.

It’s Wednesday, you know, and on Wednesdays, I go swimming with Karen because she’s having a special time of it and asked me for this one thing – to go swimming once a week. I considered not going, claiming that a bookcase had nearly killed me, but it seemed a better story for the car than it was an excuse, so I went. Plus, I promised.

We swam for a good hour.

Afterwards, my left shoulder was hurting mightily, and she hectored me about going to the doctor. We have to take care of ourselves so when the street fighting comes, we are ready.

Tonight, I am thinking I am not weak. I often think I am weak or weakening. Things seem heavier, groceries and cats. But today I kept a bookcase from killing me and then I swam for an hour. Tomorrow, I’m calling the doctor about my shoulder so if other furniture starts falling on me, I will be prepared.