infused

For reasons of birth and nothing more than that, and with no dire consequence that I can think of, I was told not too long ago that my constitution is deficient in small detail and so I am in need of occasional infusions of the missing element. In other words, I need a coctail. Of sorts.

I like to believe that I would manage in life without special anything – that I would be the caregiver rather than the care receiver. And in the calm period where no one needs care, I would go to places where care isn’t even available. Tough Polish peasant stock.

Maybe. But in the meantime, just in case, I give in to what the doc orders.

If you’ve ever been in an infusion place (they are within hospitals), you’ll see that they’re much like hairdressers. There are customers who need to talk about details of their lives and a staff who is forced to listen. Loneliness does not hide its face in rooms where coctails drip very very slowly.

But it is, overall, a quiet place (when no one is opting for the TV) and so you can get work done in the hours that you need to be sitting still. Or, you can contemplate your lot in life. From postwar Poland, to an infusion center in Madison, Wisconsin...

Or you can listen to the wisps of other people’s lives, easily passed to you through the thin fabric of the curtain separating you from the rest of the world.

It’s a sleepy place where people are dripped closer to health.



Several hours later, I’m out and heading toward a café, where I meet up with a person infused alright. With love. I think that watching love sprout is remarkably exhilarating. It’s a shame that so much of it stays hidden from private view.

Or maybe we’re just not used to looking around. Maybe we avert our eyes.

I look up, waiting for my friend, the one infused with love. There she is. See the tip of her blond head? Oh, but wait, there’s another couple in love. Wow. It’s everywhere.





Ah spring! I love you so!