the compulsive newYorker – 081923

THE UPs ’n DOWNs of LIFE.
[1:00p] Here are a couple from those two categories. DOWNs: (major) I finally got a bill from my Health-Insurance company regarding my April 28th ‘Right ’n Left Heart Catheterizations. $3,488.25. (minor) I played my usual morning solitaire game lying on my side, still in bed, with my 23 year-old handheld iPod, to prepare my mind for ‘the slings ’n arrows of outrageous fortune’, and I lost 20 games in a row. (major) In my disappointment with my publicist, when our contract terminated due to my lack of money on July 13th after 9 months working relatively well together. I’m mailing to the New York City Small Claims Court a claim for $3,750.00 for failed to deliver and incomplete in these final two months.
UP: Last night on my way to my Central Park workout, every third day, I stood with my usual gear, black belt-bag, black tank-top, tiny black shorts, black sneakers, at the elevator at 10:30p, pressed the button, and saw that the elevator was on the 14th floor. I am on 12. Right away I occurred to me it might be JF, the woman I was so thrilled to meet last Thursday after her dog-walk. Sure enough, when the doors slid open, there she stood with her brown short-hair big dog, and my eyes opened with pleasure seeing her with her tie-dye sari, gray hair tousled loosely up on top of head. She apparently had returned from her Maine trip which she had used as an excuse for not accepting my biz-card at our first meeting.
DOWN: This time – she stood there and as soon as the doors slid open and I started stepping to the elevator cab, she was reaching for the doors-closing button, and saying to me: “Don’t come in. I may have contracted Covid.” She was wearing a black face mask. Before doors closed I managed to say: “Hi, just so you know I’m in the ‘Y’ apartment here.” She: “I can’t even think of that right now!” Doors closed. When I got downstairs to the building’s garden walkway I looked both directions of walkway but didn’t see her. I can’t imagine how she could have gotten down so much faster than the next elevator that I took. Anyway, a mystery which may never be cleared up. Was she expressing another rejection to my advances, first Maine now Covid?
UP: Likely because of the high humidity of 87% though pleasant 72ºF, 22ºC, I was quite tired at every part of the workout, the ‘blind-walk, the ‘retro-walk, the hill-jog, side-lunges, and worst of all I didn’t think I could do the hill and, back home the 20 flight stairs, this month up backwards. I’ve never missed in ten years, neither hill nor stairs. The thought of opening roof door to fresh air kept me going all the way at a good pace finishing at 10:54m. I had to permit myself to steady with fingertips sides of the stair-case to keep my balance. It would have been too demanding to keep my backwards walk maintaining my own balance on top of strength and coordination needed to make it up. [Google: Experts generally agree that that level of humidity makes outdoor exercise 30% harder.] I was in a sweat but happy.
UP: In a dream last night, I meet a similar but indistinct woman like JF. I tell her about my life experience, my 20 years of psychotherapy implying that I able to handle my former relationship issues of jealousy and control. I ask her at end of my long self-presentation if she thinks we might get together. She doesn’t answer. That’s when I realize I’m in a dream. There is no one outside of myself to respond. I’m often troubled by not getting answers from people in dreams until I realize nano-seconds later in dream-time that there is no one there but me.
At 90, how many more ups ’n downs can there be? Maybe my attitude, if possible, could be:
“Keep ‘m coming, please!”
Affectionately Yours,
Jan

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