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August 11, 2005

and then I'm gonna break you down

I didn't sleep last night, watched it get light outside my window as morning arrived and thought what the hell, just get out of bed, get in the car and leave--if I could stay up all night I could surely put in a few hours of driving, right? And on that thought, I fell asleep. Woke up two hours later, eyeballs completely dry and skull split. It took a shower, coffee, toast and peanut butter, a few blessed seconds of No Thinking At All and some B-12 and advil to get me out the door and in the car by 9:00.

Rush hour had pretty much ended and the traffic moved easily up 95. Just me in the car at last, on the way to Herself and Moo. I listened to a book on tape and tried to pay attention and after an hour started yawning and got restless and jittery, my body's way of saying "let's lie down and take a nap." So I took out the tape and turned on the radio to WXPN--the first bars of "Woodstock," sung by CSNY, filled the car and was like the sun coming up in my brain. Great music on the radio, my children--whom I had missed, after all--at the end of the drive, the sky cloudless, it was the beginning of my vacation. I felt ridiculous affection for all the other drivers on the road.

I reached my sister's house in the late afternoon, vibrating with hunger and lack of sleep making me stupid. No one but the cats were home, so I ate and took a nap, and when I woke up I came up here to write an entry. I heard the door slam. "Mom? Mom?" It was Herself; I heard her feet coming up the stairs. "Mom!" and she rushed into the room and into my arms, my big girl. "Mom!" standing back to look at me, and the next words out of her mouth, what only Herself would think to say: "You look older."

Posted by JudyLa at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)