Doing "Nothing" All Day

I woke up with a sore throat, went to CVS to get some Benadryl, then decided to rent three movies at the Redbox kiosk: Nebraska, Labor Day, and The Invisible Woman.

When the clerk inside the store saw my movies, she said, "Oh, Nebraska!  I just watched it.  It's hilarious!  You will be laughing your head off."

Having watched it, I'm still puzzled about her prediction that I'd laugh, that anybody would. It was a road trip drama, father-son traveling from Montana to Nebraska, filmed in black and white. I liked it a lot, but I didn't laugh, not once.

Then I watched Labor Day.  In one scene Frank (the escaped convict) was making chili for Adelle and I had to have some--so I drove to Wendy's and got a cup of chili and watched the rest of the movie.  Two excellent movies for a day of being off the hook, no laundry,  no cleaning, nothing remotely productive.

Jan popped over with her two grandsons to invite me to dinner, but not yet knowing whether what I have is a cold or allergies, I decided to quarantine myself.  Then another knock at the door.

Carl is a massage therapist, an altogether sweet soul.  He had dropped his card in my mail slot and I opened the door just before he walked away.  We hugged, old friends, and I noticed that he had gotten some grey hair since I'd seen him a few years ago, but his unlined face still looked more like a man of sixty than a man of eighty.  He looked frailer, changed somehow.

"I have something to tell you," he said.  "Evelyn passed."

His wife, like Carl, was one of those people whose age you'd never guess--flawless skin, beautiful smile, bright eyes.  I remember having dinner at their house.  I remember how happy they seemed together, and the way Carl sang a few lines of an old Negro spiritual when he came here to give me and a friend massages.

"When?"

"February.  Cancer."

I remember asking him once, "What's the secret?   You and Evelyn look so young!"

"It's the good dirt of Missouri," he said, laughing.  "We had good dirt in New Ground."

We would have talked longer, but he had a client in the car, a woman visiting from out of state who was unable to walk, so he had to leave.

Carl has a resonant masculine voice, but his manner, demeanor and language have always reminded me of a soulful grandmother.

"Okay, Baby, " he said, walking away.  "Call me, now.  I want to tell you more.  We'll have coffee, lunch, something."

I'm glad I was here, doing nothing, to hear that  knock at the door.