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my dinner with alzheimers
Jul. 26th, 2005 11:29 pmAt thirty-five thousand feet, there's turbulence over the Ohio river basin. I took an Ativan. Beside me is a German woman in her eighties; when I boarded the plane she was sitting in my seat, 23F.
"Um, I think that's my seat." I waved my boarding pass over my armload of luggage and my blinged-out cane. "23F."
"But I like to sit on this side!" she hissed.
"Yeah, but it's my seat."
"Scheisse!" she spat at me. She left for the other aisle, 23 ABC, with her two travelling companions. Moments later the steward comes by, ensuring that all luggage is in the overhead bins and that some objects, bulky and awkward, may shift during takeoff. "I want to sit THERE!" Scheisse grabs the steward's arm with her crone-y bony fingers, points at me. I'm in the window seat, staring out the window, watching TSA operatives fumble with bulky and awkward luggage checked under the plane at the gate.
She's beside me now, 23E. Her travelling companions are caretakers of a kind, German both, and according to Scheisse, criminals, crooks. They take her money. They have been travelling together for some time now. Their initial place of departure is a mystery to me, as is their final destination -- this Boston to Los Angeles leg seems to be just one in a series of Golden Years adventures sponsored by depressed, depressing hospice care coordinators in an effort to get the dead and nearly to Budapest or Bucharest before returning to the hospice watch. This I've deduced in broken English and some German, but the sentiment in 23E is clear. She glares across the aisle at her caretakers. "They are CRIMINAL," she says. "I will not rest until I see that they are kicked out." Kicked out of what, I don't know; I can't imagine it matters, and anyway she moved over here, it seems, to be rid of her caretakers and closer to the window, to see the clouds, to see the sunlight. Something we have in common, Scheisse and me. Even on Ativan I need a fixed point in turbulence, some soft fluffy clouds a couple thousand feet below that aren't moving, that put our shudderation in context; the context of the big huge sky.
( in the days of the Kaiser )
I've landed; I'm home safely, jetlagged, sleeping, work tomorrow. Missed you, you know.
"Um, I think that's my seat." I waved my boarding pass over my armload of luggage and my blinged-out cane. "23F."
"But I like to sit on this side!" she hissed.
"Yeah, but it's my seat."
"Scheisse!" she spat at me. She left for the other aisle, 23 ABC, with her two travelling companions. Moments later the steward comes by, ensuring that all luggage is in the overhead bins and that some objects, bulky and awkward, may shift during takeoff. "I want to sit THERE!" Scheisse grabs the steward's arm with her crone-y bony fingers, points at me. I'm in the window seat, staring out the window, watching TSA operatives fumble with bulky and awkward luggage checked under the plane at the gate.
She's beside me now, 23E. Her travelling companions are caretakers of a kind, German both, and according to Scheisse, criminals, crooks. They take her money. They have been travelling together for some time now. Their initial place of departure is a mystery to me, as is their final destination -- this Boston to Los Angeles leg seems to be just one in a series of Golden Years adventures sponsored by depressed, depressing hospice care coordinators in an effort to get the dead and nearly to Budapest or Bucharest before returning to the hospice watch. This I've deduced in broken English and some German, but the sentiment in 23E is clear. She glares across the aisle at her caretakers. "They are CRIMINAL," she says. "I will not rest until I see that they are kicked out." Kicked out of what, I don't know; I can't imagine it matters, and anyway she moved over here, it seems, to be rid of her caretakers and closer to the window, to see the clouds, to see the sunlight. Something we have in common, Scheisse and me. Even on Ativan I need a fixed point in turbulence, some soft fluffy clouds a couple thousand feet below that aren't moving, that put our shudderation in context; the context of the big huge sky.
( in the days of the Kaiser )
I've landed; I'm home safely, jetlagged, sleeping, work tomorrow. Missed you, you know.
