It’s been a month since I posted. I’m negligent. I’m apologizing to myself. I have to think through this blog. Is it a store? A diary? An outlet? Maybe if I get better at linking and importing, blogging will be easier and more natural. Anyhow. Time to catch up. It’s been a busy month, as usual.

The biggest event was my friend Jack visiting from Boston for three days at the beginning of October. He’d never been to Cleveland. I hadn’t seen him since ‘04, when I last went to Boston to tie up business stemming from my father’s death in late ‘03. But we’ve kept in touch, as we have ever since we met in 1965 at Boston State Hospital in Mattapan, where we were sent to “cure” us of narcotics addiction. It didn’t work for either of us, at least not then. But we made lifelong friends of each other.

In 2001, Jack broke his neck in an accident at work; he slipped on paint. It permanently disabled him. A settlement with his former employer has given his family a degree of comfort, but it didn’t make Jack whole. The accident, combined with drug and alcohol use far heavier than mine ever was, seems to have damaged him deeply. His short-term memory is shaky, and because he can’t work, he hasn’t really engaged for the past six years. He told me his visit to Cleveland made him more relaxed than he had been in years; what life at home is like I can’t imagine, though his wife is a well-organized sweetie, his son a gifted artist. It’s how he spends his days that’s disturbing, and I worry for him.

When I brought him to the airport, he was apprehensive and timorous, not the Jack I used to know. He wasn’t confident I knew where we were going. He wasn’t sure he’d remembered to pack everything (in fact, I had to send him his phone charger later). I love him. I also felt like I did toward the end with my father: more competent than him, caring and angry. The anger part is the problem I have to resolve. I don’t want to see Jack this way. I want him back in life, so we can talk like we used to and assume each other is strong like we were.

Part of the issue is growing old. When I met Jack we were in our early 20s (he’s six months younger than I am) and felt immortal. Seeing him in Cleveland brought home our mortality, the fact that we’re on time’s downside. I’m going to work on my patience and affection and see if I can tamp down an anger that can have no possible beneficial effect. It was great to see Jack, stressful though it was at times. It wasn’t so great to see how I reacted to him.