A very weird thing has happened. A strange old lady has moved into my house. I have no idea who she is, where she came from, or how she got in. I certainly didn't invite her. All I know is that one day she wasn't there, and the next day she was. She is very clever. She manages to keep out of sight for the most part; but whenever I pass a mirror, I catch a glimpse of her there; and when I look into a mirror directly to check my appearance, suddenly she's hogging the whole thing, completely obliterating my gorgeous face and body. It is very disconcerting. I've tried screaming at her to leave but she just screams back, grimacing horribly. She's really rather frightening.
If she's going to hang around, the least she could do is offer to pay rent. But No. Every once in a while I do find a couple of dollar bills on the kitchen counter, or some loose change on my bureau or on the floor, but that certainly isn't enough.
In fact, though I don't like to jump to conclusions, I think she steals money from me regularly. I go to the ATM and withdraw a hundred dollars, and a few days later, it's gone. I certainly don't go through it fast, so I can only conclude that the old lady pilfers it. You'd think she'd spend some of it on wrinkle cream. God knows, she needs it.
And, the money isn't the only thing she's taking. Food seems to disappear at an alarming rate. Especially the good stuff---ice cream, cookies, candy----I just can't keep them in the house. She really has a sweet tooth. She should watch it; she's really putting on the pounds. I think she realizes that, and to make herself feel better, I know she is tampering with my scales so I'll think that I'm gaining weight too.
For and old lady, she's really quite childish. She also gets into my closets when I'm not home and alters all my clothes. They're getting tighter every day. Another thing: I wish she'd stop messing with my files and papers on my desk. I can't find a thing anymore. This is particularly hard to deal with, because I'm extremely neat and organized; but she manages to jumble everything up so nothing is where it's supposed to be. Furthermore, when I program my VCR to tape something important, she fiddles with it after I leave the room so it records the wrong channel or shuts off completely.
She finds innumerable, imaginative ways to irritate me. She gets to my newspapers, magazines and mail before me, and blurs all the print' and she's done something sinister with the volume controls on my TV, radio and phone. Now all I hear are mumbles and whispers. She's also made my stairs steeper, my vaccume cleaner heavier, all my knobs and faucets hard to turn and my bed higher and a real challenge to climb into and out of.
Furthermore, she gets to my groceries as soon as I shelve them and applies super glue to the tops of every jar and bottle so ther're just about impossible to open. Is this any way to repay my hospitality? I don't even get any respite at night. More than once her snoring has awakened me. I don't know why she can't do something about that. It's very unattractive.
As if this isn't bad enough, she is no longer confining her malevolence to the house. She's now found a way to sneak into my car with me and follow me wherever I go. I see her reflection in store windows as I pass, and she's taken all the fun out of clothes shopping because her penchant for monopolozing mirrors has extended to the dressing rooms. When I try something on, she dons an identical outfit, which looks ridiculous on her and then stands directly in front of me so I can't see how great it looks on me.
I thought she couldn't get any meaner than that, but yesterday she proved me wrong. She had the nerve to come with me when I went to have some passport pictures taken, and she actually stepped in front of the camera, just as the shutter clicked. Disaster! I have never seen such a terrible picture. How can I go abroad now? No customs official is ever going to believe that crone, scowling from my passport is me.
She's walking on very thin ice. If she keeps this up, I swear, I'll put her in a home.
On second thought, I shouldn't be too hasty. First, I think I'll check with the IRS and see if I can claim her as a dependent.
The Spinner
As I calmly sat and span,
Toiling with all zeal, Lo! a young and handsome man
Pass'd my spinning-wheel.
And he praised,--what harm was there?--
Sweet the things he said-- Praised my flax-resembling hair,
And the even thread.
He with this was not content,
But must needs do more; And in twain the thread was rent,
Though 'twas safe before.
And the flax's stonelike weight
Needed to be told; But no longer was its state
Valued as of old.
When I took it to the weaver,
Something felt I start, And more quickly, as with fever,
Throbb'd my trembling heart.
Then I bear the thread at length
Through the heat, to bleach; But, alas, I scarce have strength
To the pool to reach.
What I in my little room
Span so fine and slight,-- As was likely. I presume--
Came at last to light.
The Poems of Goethe
The Child in Me
She follows me about my House of Life
(This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!)
She has no part in Time's relentless strife
She keeps her old simplicity and truth --
And laughs at grim Mortality,
This deathless Child that stays with me --
(This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!)
My House of Life is weather-stained with years
--
(O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay.)
Its windows are bedimmed with rain of tears,
The walls have lost their rose, its thatch is gray.
One after one its guests depart,
So dull a host is my old heart.
(O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay!)
For jealous Age, whose face I would forget,
Pulls the bright flowers you bring me from my hair
And powders it with snow; and yet -- and yet
I love your dancing feet and jocund air.
I have no taste for caps of lace
To tie about my faded face --
I love to wear your flowers in my hair.
O Child in Me, leave not my House of Clay
Until we pass together through the Door,
When lights are out, and Life has gone away
And we depart to come again no more.
We comrades who have travelled far
Will hail the Twilight and the Star,
And smiling, pass together through the Door!
May Riley Smith
Muy Vieja Mexicana
I've seen her pass with eyes upon the road --
An old bent woman in a bronze-black shawl,
With skin as dried and wrinkled as a mummy's,
As brown as a cigar-box, and her voice
Like the low vibrant strings of a guitar.
And I have fancied from the girls about
What she was at their age, what they will be
When they are old as she. But now she sits
And smokes away each night till dawn comes round,
Thinking, beside the pinyons' flame, of days
Long past and gone, when she was young -- content
To be no longer young, her epic done:
For a woman has work and much to do,
And it's good at the last to know it's through,
And still have time to sit alone,
To have some time you can call your own.
It's good at the last to know your mind
And travel the paths that you traveled blind,
To see each turn and even make
Trips in the byways you did not take --
But that, `por Dios', is over and done,
It's pleasanter now in the way we've come;
It's good to smoke and none to say
What's to be done on the coming day,
No mouths to feed or coat to mend,
And none to call till the last long end.
Though one have sons and friends of one's own,
It's better at last to live alone.
For a man must think of food to buy,
And a woman's thoughts may be wild and high;
But when she is young she must curb her pride,
And her heart is tamed for the child at her side.
But when she is old her thoughts may go
Wherever they will, and none to know.
And night is the time to think and dream,
And not to get up with the dawn's first gleam;
Night is the time to laugh or weep,
And when dawn comes it is time to sleep . . .
When it's all over and there's none to care,
I mean to be like her and take my share
Of comfort when the long day's done,
And smoke away the nights, and see the sun
Far off, a shrivelled orange in a sky gone black,
Through eyes that open inward and look back.
Alice Corbin
Age...it's mysterious...it happens to us all eventually
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