is a good thing, life and its hard, unexplain-able ways, it is a good thing, and although I may have gone a little crazy at fifty, I loved my life. When everyone is on the way out, I want you to play James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” Really, really loudly. I don’t care how old you are at the time or how you feel about James Brown, I want that song at my funeral. Every time I ever heard that song, I really did feel good. I always said, “Ow!” right with James a time or two, even though I was an uncool white woman who couldn’t dance. I want picnic food after the funeral service, ribs and coleslaw and potato salad and brownies. At our house. And then kick them all out, Martin, even though there will be some who want to stay. Some will want to stay and say things to you, and some will want to stay because they are always the last to leave in case anything happens. Usually it’s women, hovering around like huge flapping birds, but you just kick them out. And then you go in our bedroom and you pull down the shades and you take off your shoes and you lie down and you think of when we first met and you keep on thinking of everything you can remember about me up until the last day. Don’t you dare clean up the kitchen and put away the leftovers before you do this. You just lie down and remember everything. That will be the real service. It would be kind of nice if you would talk to me, because we don’t know, I might be able to hear you.
It’s so funny, as I write this I think, but of course that won’t really happen. Death. It won’t really happen to me. This is just in case.
I’ve decided to stay here in Minnesota one more night. Then I’ll be moving on. As always, I’ll write from where I am.
It seems to me that your physical exam with Dr. Singerman was scheduled for some time around now. Don’t think you can cancel it just because I’m not there to make you go.
Love,
Nan
I am writing this by flashlight, which makes each word seem so important, so intentional. It is an odd feeling; a stage play by one to an audience of the same one.
I have built a bed in the woods, and it is very dark, no moon that I can find, no stars, only the very dim outline of the foliage nearest me, and then the rest of the world drops off. I can feel fear in me but it has stayed at the level of my throat: my head is clear and calm. The air is close, humid. There is the high whine of insects dive-bombing, full-time residents here who do not respect the rights of those who are not. Tomorrow I will have plenty of bites to scratch. Sometimes it is a pleasant thing; it feels good to scratch a bad itch, three bites in a neat row at the ankle can offer an odd sort of bliss.
There are the sounds of moving leaves, twigs snapping for this reason or that, a rare call from an owl or, even better, a loon. I have sat for some time trying only to be still. It is so much harder than it seems. I have always hated the notion of stillness, of meditation. It seemed, on the surface at least, colossally boring. Empty of anything I might be interested in. I tried meditation once. I bought a loose white outfit, I bought a book, I sat in a prescribed position; and my singular longing the whole time was for a watch I could sneak a look at. The book had said not to wear any jewelry, especially a watch, that time would become irrelevant. Not for me. After ten minutes, I was up looking at the clock on the dresser, thinking surely that my half hour was up. I was so resistant, nothing could enter my head: I saw no instructive images, I heard no wise words from a blurry source. No dramas played themselves out; no lighted center of peace was created inside me. All that happened in my head is that some huge foot began impatiently tapping away. Fingers drummed. My mind was straining at the leash, saying, oh, please, let me at least make a grocery list.
I put my meditation outfit