My wife makes numbered to-do lists that can bring present and past, wishes, ethics, ideals, and regrets into a convergence that suggests what ought to occur. Her lists remind me of freewriting. A person without academic instruction in writing and its biases might call it doodling, talking to yourself on paper, or brainstorming. Sometimes when her moving finger writes, I think that had Auguste Rodin glimpsed her doing it she might have inspired a creation he’d call “Woman Dreaming,” which my mind displays beside his “Praying Hands.” At the breakfast table before she awakens, I find her latest list. From three feet away, the grace of her writing stands out. The nuns taught her cursive so well, her notes remind me of copies of the Declaration of Independence, the fluid clarity of Jefferson, Dunlap, or whoever the scrivener was. It’s like
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3rd Act magazine | fall 2021
Dream Catching BY BILL VERNON
Chinese calligraphy. In contrast, her canvases are anything handy: used envelopes, the blank side of printed paper, a page ripped from spiral binding, the margin beside newspaper articles, or sheets from pads that groups seeking donations send us. Since last year such pleas fill a 12x16x5-inch cardboard box with these pads, more requests for help than usual, though pandemic conditions may have skewed my judgments on that. While I eat toast, my wife’s notes inspire such thoughts until I see an item in all caps: “CLEAN BATHROOM
DRAINS SINK AND TUB.” Damn. I
imagine her loud insistence convincing me to ransack the shed for a snake and plunger to clear off the smell and rot of forgotten things from our past. If I threw away this list, maybe she’d forget the drain work. I don’t trash the list only because the next entry is, “Send George Money.” Whoa now. I’d better ask about that. Giving money to relatives is touchy. For one thing, the main reason the mail brings us list pads from so many groups is that we give a little, though nothing to brag about, but then those recipients share our name and address with other charities. Our bank account has limits. A second thing is that relatives in George’s condition— meaning age range—sometime get too generous. Grandma Vernon comes to mind. Evangelical television broadcasts convinced her to tithe, then send even www.3rdActMag.com
