Arthur has some incipient deafness, but he’s somewhat in denial about it. It makes it hard to tell him things – it feels as if everything ends up being repeated. But it doesn’t help that he constantly has his audiobooks running (I suppose he likes those because he can plug in the ear buds and turn up the volume, which allows him to feel like he hears things just fine?). So there are attentional issues. But above and beyond even that, even when he does pay attention and he does understand what I’ve said, I struggle with the frustrating fact that he doesn’t seem care what I have to say. He will regularly interrupt me in the middle of an explanation with a non sequitur, and he will outright argue with or reject any advice that runs counter to his preconceived way that something must be done. Several times a day, I mutter to myself “I should just shut up.”
I have lately found myself intensely fantasizing that my cancer surgery had left me unable to talk – this had had a very high chance of being literally true, and I miraculously beat the odds in the fact that I regained my full, unimpaired ability to talk. It feels like it would be easier, and I wouldn’t have the temptation to communicate when it is so utterly pointless and frustrating to try.
I mostly talk to the world around me – the plants, birds, trees, rocks. They listen.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Day: July 23, 2020
Caveat: Art #88
I drew this ink still life in my 1992 art class I think – something the teacher had set up.
Caveat: Poem #1453 “Simple pleasures”
ㅁ When the berry drops into your hand, unpressured is satisfying.
– a pseudo haiku.