I'm not quite sure what I wrote the last time, since none of the last entries has appeared. However, Simon has turned grey along with me, yet gravity doesn't seem to affect him in the same way it does me, I was noticing today. He chugs right along on all fours while the pull of the planet's gravity has shortened me two and a half inches, compressed me, so to speak, and pulled me over. It hurts to walk upright and is darn near impossible. Gravity is turning me into a caricature of my former self.
I remember that there are five senses, though I seem to have lost one: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and, ah, taste. Thanks to the neuropathy, touch, as I think I wrote the last time, is mostly gone. Feet, hands, legs, none of them work well anymore. I drop things, trip when I walk, etc. Last night I filled my eight day pill container. The first pill I picked up popped out of my fingers, hit the floor, and disappeared under my chest of drawers. I had to move out the dumbells, get a flashlight to see it, then use my cane to have l it out from underneath, along with several weeks worth of dust. If we are ashes to ashes, dust to dust, it looks as though someone under there and the bed is either coming or going. That was an average size pain pill; my little water pill is as small as an 81 aspirin. I cannot tell whether I have picked it up or not. At least they are white and easy to see against the dark floor though I have to push the pill onto a small 3 x 3 square of paper to pick it up.
I used to pick up pennies on the sidewalk or in the parking lot or in Walmart whenever I saw them, believing, along with Annie Dillard, that they were gifts from the universe and that I wasn't wealthy enough to turn them down. The other night at Save-a-Lot, as I was checking out, I saw a grungi penny just beyond the checkout area, but there was a woman behind me so I walked on, not wanting to delay her while I struggled with the universe, neuropathy and gravity. However, we came back the next night and there was another penny and no one behind me. I briefly overcame neuropathy and gravity and managed to pick it up. Of course, I put it in my pocket and that was the last I saw of it. It is probably still there. I'll check.
I hadn't worn the pants since then and the penny was still in the pocket! Ha! What usually happens is that I again forget about it but then find it again at the bottom of the washing machine. This penny was a fairly shiny 2014 affair. I found a quarter at the dog walk parking lot several days ago, used my cane to haul it out from under the car, at which point my wife, who was coming around the car to pick up Simon, reached down, grabbed it and announced to the world that it was hers. I still feel the loss, and hugged Simon tightly all the way home. It was my quarter!
Along with touch, smell is mostly gone too. My nose is always plugged up though I shoot some nose spray up there twice a day, a steroid, according to the bottle. That leaves sight and sound, or seeing and hearing, the two most important senses as far as I am concerned, not that age hasn't taken its toll on them too, though all things considered they work fairly well. I have had cateract surgery which improved my vision wonderfully, and I suppose I should go for a hearing test in the near future. Without hearing there would be no Mozart, Beethoven, Hayden, Chopin, Handel or any classical music. No Clancy Brothers, no Kingston trio, no Elvis or fifties rock and roll, no Beetles. Without sight there would be no visual beauty, no Renaissance art, no Impressionists, no Michalangelo, no Pieta, no David, no beauty as it manifests itself in the female form or face.
Speaking of beauty, this morning I saw two lovely Carolina Wrens feeding on the boardwalk by our bird feeders. Well, there it is, impaired but still moving, still above the ground, listening and seeing, still walking at least 6,000 steps a day, knowledge accrued from my Fitbit, tap tap.