The Fragrance of Memory

I took myself by surprise this morning, and not an especially pleasant one, all things considered. I accomplish almost my entire 'going to work' routine (sometimes to and through the 'driving there and starting into the job' part) practically in a somnambulist state. Don't get me wrong, I'm awake and can't go back to sleep even if I wanted to after my feet touch the floor (I'm up for the duration at that point) but most of it is auto-pilot. Maybe you have a portion of your day where Rote Rules and when you get to the end and try to reconstruct what's gone on, you have blank spots where, basically, we fell asleep with our eyes open.

I've discovered I can trip myself up if I don't leave notes for me as part of my routine. For instance, Monday evening, because I knew I needed (=wanted more) it, I bought a flavored liquid coffee creamer. However, because I didn't leave myself a note on the pin board on the refrigerator that's specifically for notes, I failed to take it out of the refrigerator Tuesday morning when, as I do every morning, I took out the Byetta that I put in my work bag to control my Type II diabetes.

I could shoot myself up in my house before I go to work and leave the medication at home instead of taking it to work, making sure I have an injector for it, shooting myself up, having breakfast at work and then remembering to take the Byetta home at the end of the day so I can use it before dinner. But because I get so easily distracted when I come to work-along the lines of 'oooh, I haven't been here in about six hours, what's new and exciting?' (Adam has the same life, I suspect; weird how ours have paralleled one another despite the difference and the years), I sometimes forget to have breakfast right away. If I haven't eaten within an hour of injecting myself, I've wasted the dose and then will usually choose to skip breakfast which aggravates the very condition I'm trying to keep under control. Stupid pancreas.

The not leaving a note caught up with me this morning on, of all things, deodorant. I used the last of the gel that I had in the bathroom on my shelf (I can be incredibly territorial and, during the summer, when I share the house with two adult women, I have to be, out of self-defense) and didn't need to buy more, just get it out of the little room, under the stairs where we stow some, but not all or even much, of the bargains we get at the wholesale club.

I love those places, in the abstract more than in the real, but still....Where else can you buy fifty-five gallon drums of Head and Shoulders Shampoo (they sure look about that size, don't they?) or blades for the Gillette Fusion razor (have you priced those in a regular store, even a Wal-Mart? Obscene! And the Gillette guys always have Sunday newspaper coupons for the shaving cream or the razor, but NEVER on the blades.) which are cheaper when you buy them in the wholesale place by the pallet, but they're still a large chunk of change (and the solace is you don't need to buy them for a year, except if you're like me, at some point you didn't put the box 'o' blades back where you last had them and now you've misplaced them and have to go out and buy more anyway.)

So when you buy deodorant (I always think of "Odorono" deodorant used by Peter Townsend on the cover of The Who Sell Out) in these places, you get a lot of deodorant thingies (what do you call the bottles, containers? I have no idea). All I needed to do was to remember to take a new one out of the little room and put it on my shelf in the bathroom, ready for this morning--nope, not me.

Here I am, out of the shower, toweling off and reaching for the--DAMN! It's not here because I never went down the hall to get some more and I am just not up for this at this hour. What's on the shelf? Oh, cool, a travel size of Mennen Speed Stick. I have no memory of buying it, but my memory is not what it used to be, until I apply it. And then, I catch myself catching my breath because I remember the smell and how it lingered in the big bathroom of the house at 33 Bloomfield Avenue.

It's funny how you forget and then how you suddenly remember. My father used this same deodorant for decades. And I dared not meet my own gaze in the mirror at the moment I realized this because I know the look I have when I remember him and I'd rather not go there this morning. I've worked hard to not dwell on memories of how we were, when we were anything at all to one another. I've even gone so far as to search out a helping hand to assist me in sorting through that McGee's closet of emotions and feelings that I have when I do think of him.

And I've been doing really well with all of that, and this morning and so far, today, it's one of those one step up and two steps back situations that I sort of brought on myself and that I hope, with every bit of strength I have, that neither of my children ever have to experience. I've spent a lifetime accepting I am my father's son, but refusing to become him. I'm hoping later today to figure out if I'm still on the beam and still balanced.
-bill kenny