A Different World

When you exist in a place, going from day to day
Seeing, but not
Hearing, but not
It takes on the feeling of Musak
Just background without substance.

And so as I look out the window this evening,
In the distance I can see a glow of lights from something, maybe a town?
Six floors up is a unique perspective.

I am in a hospital bed this evening. I was admitted this day with discomfort in my chest. Can't call it pain, really. I wanted to ignore it and now some twelve hours later, I wish I had. The pain from the Nitro-patch is worse than the original experience. Eventually the nurse removes it and gives me pills to ease the headache.
I'm wearing a monitor hung from my neck, like an albatross, only not fuzzy. It doesn't hurt either. It just a reminder, beeping as it does.

The hospital is a strange place at night after the visitors have left. There are far away moans and coughs. Nearby rustlings of bed sheets, murmured questions, clicking of bottles, tubes and paraphernalia. Shoes squeak down the hall and the bing, bing, bing of the nurse's call button is heard in several places.

The blowing of the air conditioning, the grunting of the guy across the hall, backdrops all to the stream of recriminations in my mind. Why did you come here, it asks. You could have ignored it, it states. I'll never get to sleep, it nudges. Unfortunately, that last voice is right.

When I come home the next day, the sounds are there, the ones I hadn't been hearing lately. The birds at the bird feeder. The bubbling of the fish tank. Even the whine of the cat looking for dinner, all remind me I'm home. I like these noises better.

The 4th

What is it about patriotic holidays that makes me so sentimental? I really like all that flag-waving, fireworks shooting, family picnicing. And then they show those war movies on TV and I'll even watch one or two. My eyes well up when I hear the Marine Band play, or the radio plays the occasional all male choir from some military institution or another and "I fill with pride and deep within my breast, I thrill to see old glory paint the breeze."

My father was a WWII vet and I'm proud of that. But I'm filled with a sense of wonder about how this country came to be and continues to be. Yes, I know there are things that are wrong with this country. Yes, I know that there are things which need to be fixed. But what other country in the world has a democracy that works so gloriously. So allow me my flag waving, my filling with pride. I will go back to the grumbling about bad policies, bad decisions by law-makers and corporations alike after this weekend. But just for this weekend, Hooray for America!