As I'm sure happens with all dementia families, I keep buying prairie clothes to stave off the loneliness and depression. I keep thinking, maybe if I ride my horse in this skirt with the petticoat fluffing out underneath then on the trail I will be back in time and none of this will be happening.
I love my mom. I love her skin, the sounds she makes, the body I know every inch of. I like that I have to figure out how to hold her up while I yank up her pants and shift her massive weight from toilet to chair. Today somehow she ended up on my lap. Both of us panting. But at least the one of us who can still somewhat reason was able to wrestle shift and dump her into the rolly chair. My real morning, my real life, and a successful transfer of power(s) (ha) today.
So in my other life I keep looking at lots of things with underlayers. Eyelet. Soft and fluffy. Cause I'm definitely going through all the levels of life here, and some of these levels heading toward afterlife could use some light and freshness. If there's a ledger to mark this into somewhere, like God's Notebook. People would like more lace.
The flowers and colors and fabrics help. Maybe costumers are the secret to the universe. My riding buddy just got frontier pants off the internet and when he was leaving to ride, his x wife said you look like you work at Knott's Berry Farm.
It's impossible to ride in a petticoat when you're used to sweatpants. People in the old west musta just been sweating their balls off. I haven't perfected the old west outfit quite yet. There's an apron (necessary for pocket for cell phone), there's a skirt that has to be wide enough not to trap your legs if you have to leap or be thrown off your horse, there's an underskirt that has to be light enough to not bug you but fluffy enough to peek out underneath and cheer you up. There has to be something on the legs so the saddle doesn't pinch so that's bloomers, but they're all too short on a tall person. I already have boots of course. And helmet will have to replace sunbonnet unless some freak like me but mechanical has made a sunbonnet helmet.
I was telling my other parents while watching That's Entertainment with my mom (she was watching the heater on the floor but I kept redirecting her) that whoever was in charge of the Esther Williams bonanza was the gayest person alive. If there was an afterlife Busby Berkeley planet we all get to be on, I want to go. Who could be sad with all those feathers and colors and zing and splashing song.
I'm pretty sure Mom will happily go that way with me, so we'll meander toward those bright colorful lights, maybe it's not a made up world, maybe Busby painted stuff for us we couldn't see like watery stars made out of legs and the beauty of a yellow bathing cap set to music. What other path would you want to be on, the regular path? Nah, come meet us. I'm just passing Petticoat Junction.
