Does anybody really know what time it is?

Sometimes, when you’re not paying attention, time turns soft. Its linear movement gets all loose and squishy until time is like taffy in summer. It bends, folds, curls in on itself, pushes itself up and down into humps and dips until it’s loopy as Christmas ribbon candy (the old-school kind you make yourself: ribbon candy recipe). Sometimes, time disappears completely.

I’ve been experiencing this TD (time disruption) since Mom came home from the last hospital stay. For one thing, Mom is deaf in one ear and mostly deaf in the other. She’s also lost most of her sight, especially for non-contrasty smaller detail, over the past year. If you can’t hear or see much, the distinction between day and night fizzles. So Mom, who can’t stay awake for more than an hour or so at a time, dozes and wakes at frequent intervals throughout a 24-hour period. Sometimes every hour or two. That’s a LOT of chances to wake up groggy and disoriented.

Mom will sometimes go to bed at 8 p.m., wake at 9 p.m., and be raring to get her day started. The other night she woke at 2 a.m. and called out for me. When I answered, she asked, “What time do they serve meals in this place?” Sometimes she wakes, clear as a bell, and on a mission: “We have to change those sheets on the guest bed,” or “Will you help me write a letter?” But it’s 4:30 a.m., and she’s already been up every 1 ½ hours since 10 p.m. Our body clocks’ hands are spinning like pinwheels.

This current bout of TD might also have to do with our kitchen’s missing calendar. We’ve always had a BIG PRINT write-on calendar on the wall, that Ray got each year from work. But now that he’s retired, we have only a normal pale, small-print thing. You can’t see it at all once you’re 6 feet away, so essentially, time does not exist.

Another cause of this TD has to do, I think, with my current lack of social cues. I’ve been out of the house only once since December 30 (and that was a quick trip to Walmart, which doesn’t really count), and without my normal human contact and time clues—downtown errands, Good Old Irish Walks, Friday service at Our Lady of Little Town Watering Hole, coffee at a friend’s, work (retirement contributes to TD), etc.—I can’t keep days & dates straight. It’s always Tuesday. Or Sunday. It’s always time to cook. Or clean the bathroom.

Chicago: still a classic...

I’m kind of hermit-y anyway, so this last dilemma doesn’t bother me SO much. But this has been a loooong stretch of hermitude, even for me, and my fear is that if it goes on long enough, I’ll stop brushing my hair, my nails will grow into thick claws, I’ll put blackout blinds on the windows and increasingly avoid the light, my eyes will get huge and buggy, my skin will turn the color of bleached linen, and I’ll become just a bizarre Little Town urban myth.

Today, I think I’ll try to knit a bit and watch some TV news. (They'll give me the date, right?) I’ve got a couple hats I’d like to finish, and heck, I have all the no-time in the world…

Blowing you all a kiss...