Boredom

Friday, August 19, 2011

Today is a day of rest and boredom.  Grandmother is so ill she doesn’t even want to get up and eat.  I force her to have at least some tea and a tortilla to make sure she’s not without food all day.  I am not sure I want to eat myself.  I hate days when I have nothing to do.  It is the nothingness and the silence that bring about thoughts and feelings, mostly of home and how much I wish I was there.  I try to keep myself busy but it is difficult here since I don’t even have a television to distract me.  Grandmother has some less than pleasant neighbors whose children climb her wall, steal the fruit from her trees and anything they find in their paths.  They leave trash on her stoop and constantly break windows and fixtures.  Grandmother is afraid that if she did have a television or even a radio they would surely break in to take it and so she manages without both.  I however have been programmed to need and some television, I crave the drama of reality TV or even the sadness and fear that comes with the daily news.  So I am at least comforted when the silence is broken by the yelling of grandma’s neighbors.  Part of me is curious as to what is happening on the outside.  I hear three or four men yelling at each other and I want to open the window and at least take a peak but I don’t because fights aren’t want they used to be and two grown men with differences no longer simply “duke” it out and let it go.  Now weapons are brought into an argument and it’s the innocent and the bystanders that always get hurt.  Instead I turn off the lights and pray, hoping that the fight will soon be over and that I can sleep through tonight so tomorrow will be another day closer to taking me home.