As much as I like to complain about the state of the world, I have to admit that it’s been a good summer.
I’ve seen friends and family, I’ve traveled to new places, and I’m slowly getting back into running shape.
The park is still beautiful, and I see it often. I tend to go there early, when I’m alone with the trees and plants.
Recently, one of my friends from high school was noting how he had started feeling ‘invisible’ in a way his wife had been complaining about for years. He was saying this to his twenty-something daughter and one of her (female) friends, and they rolled their eyes as I explained to him that every woman (like every gay) understands what it means to feel invisible.
I told them about my running group, which is largely populated by young gays in their twenties and thirties. For many of them, I am a strange (old) ghost hovering in their midst. But I don’t mind. Sometimes, I thought — remembering how I feel in the park, alone with the trees and plants — it’s nice to be invisible.
I often think about my mother, now living in Memory Care, and how she’s reached an age where her former networks of friends, colleagues, and family have fractured and evaporated. She spends her days with her fellow dementia patients, attended by nurses and aides. Occasionally a family member or friend will visit. When I talk to her, she doesn’t seem unhappy, but she confesses to feeling very ‘fuzzy’ about what’s happening. She’s becoming invisible to herself.
I ask her about the weather, and with a laugh she says, ‘I think it’s nice, but remind me what month it is?’
