Waking up today

I'm awake, it occurs to me, after prayer
still in bed. I pull myself up, to remove
the headstraps of my breathing machine,
and my first breath exhales direct from
nostrils to darkened room. And I breathe
in the curtained-room's air, to the oxygen
supply of which my jungle plants have
been contributing all thru the nite. (They
have names but I won't tell you, as they
are my sleeptime intimates and I'd have
to consult them before mentioning so
webbishly.)

Then off from my eyes comes my
sleeping mask, the second of the two,
as I have a breathing mask held in
place by the best headstraps the
breathing-machine industry can make
in Germany and supplied by Medigas
(hhhm, we wonder, don't we?). And
I have a five-and-dime mask to blacken
out any play of lite from the curtain's
crack of lite, when I leave it so. just
slightly ajar to feed, well by know you
can guess just who (rhymes with
Bamboo).

It's a real transition, this act of getting up,
but continues. Now, both masks off and
still sitting up in bed, I reach for my yellow
thin-rubber gloves, and get them in place
over each hand, left and right, both hands
knowing what the other's up to. Then
reach ... if they're not there in their proper
place, it would mean there are no clean pair
at hand, But there are today: Gloved
hand reaches for the black pressure
stockings, then guides the right stock
over the toes and up, not to the nose,
but to the knees, please. The right leg
is the worst, needing special attention
each time that this morning ritual is carried
out, before "my feet even touch the floor,"
she said with the strict severity of a stern
moralist nurse on TV. Then I massage black
stocking on the right leg to make
certainty-sure there's no folds and the tite
mesh of the stocks is well distributed from
toe to heel to knee. Then the left. I am
stockinged!

Once I'm black-stockinged, like the ladies
in the big Reform synagogue that annoy
my dear NS so much, I can stand. Up. I
can walk. I can jump (a bit). I can take my
daily walk ... but it's early and there won't
be anyone in the mall yet. And today's
smog won't allow me to walk much outside.
Outside = smogside, in summer Toronto
(by the way, the name is abbreviated,
nicknamed "T.O." - you don't have to
pronounce the periods but saying "TO"
won't get you anywhere, better the other
nickname for Polution City, "Hog Town" -
so-called because the cars and trucks
hog all the clean air).

But I'm up. Now I move to disconnect the
tube from the breathing-machine to the
humidifier; next, remove the second tube
from the humidif to my headstraps
nostril's-mask. Once disconnected I
move the freed-up humdfr from just
beyond the top of my bed to its interim
place sitting at bed's bottom, in just-so
a position that the remaining water in it
won't spill. Now I go to front of the little
room, my monastic cell, and pick up the
heavy metal half-a-chair I store there at
nite with boxes of stuff on it, and turn back
to place it on the bed ever so carefully
next to the humdfr that I don't want
to spill. That done, I go back to the front
of the room, leaning on the card table at
the widonw, leaning to stretch out my arm
to reach the far end of the curtain, then
pulling that double curtain a deep dark
purple on the outside and inside an
off-white with pale stripes and pale
purple-and-green floralities. Pull, but not
to strenuously. Just enuff force to slide
the curtains across the long great window.
half a jar thru the nite, now exposing the
room to the early day no direct sunlite but
brite, and now once again revealing an overly
gray sky ... yep, it's a polloot day ... still I
can see the sun's angled rays illuminating
the white-aluminum siding of the house
across the alley, even overnite my two
big fat tomatoes sat on the window sill
awaiting this indirect source of ripening
and I know in a couple more days will taste
so good. The anticipation of fresh tomato
arouses a sense of breakfast for me.

I have lite enuff, and space enuff now to
gather up my basin prepared for everything
I will need in the kitchen and bathroom. Oops!
I am about to leave home, so I must put
on my pants in order to observe the
decorum of a public place - the kitchen
and the bathroom. Of course, the other
two tenants will be gone. However, the
landlady may be lurking, so best not
risk the alarm of public nudity, as I really
don't want to be thrown out of this urban
monastic dig (you can't really call it "digs"
as is done sometimes by Egland-influenced
folk round about here, of which I'm not
a party; anyway the plural makes my room
sound plural which it isn't, just a Rubic's
Cube where to move something something
else must be moved first and before that
second thing can be moved a third thing
must be moved first.

I move the water-catcher from beneath a
large hanging loping jungle plant (who
shall have to remain anonymous here) and
by that means also open a space to open the
door, I place my humidifier on top of the
load of stuff in my basin, I gather my
fortitudes about me with my basin in my
hands, and walk out the door into the
hall. I did get from waking to the hall
after all, didin't I. In the hall, I turn right
to unlock and open the outside door, so
waht air is there can circulate in, if any
breeze has a mind to do me such a favour.
Then, I aboutface, and down the brief hall
toward the the large kitchen I go.

The quotidian has begun.