After staring at The Luminaries on my bedside table for a few minutes, realizing as I did so that it might be the last book Sarah ever recommends that I read, I avoid picking it up. I need to make it last.
I instead flip through my phone but can't find much of real interest there. Reading news, watching sports highlights, playing phone games - all seem a silly pursuit at the moment. But I need a break from the stress, and I'm far from ready to sleep.
We'd reluctantly purchased a small television for our room last year, when it became a regular circumstance that Sarah would be recovering from chemotherapy for a couple days every other week, and needed the distraction that Netflix could offer. So I decided to try this method of distraction, and dove into my Netflix queue. It didn't take long as I scrolled through the list to realize it was a mistake.
Shows we had watched and loved but never deleted from the queue - Versaille, The Americans, Portlandia, Stranger Things, Vikings, The Magicians.
Shows we never got to - The Badlands, Peaky Blinders, the last episodes of Parts Unknown.
The third season of The Expanse that we started watching shortly before her hospitalization. The series finale of Sense8 which released 2 weeks ago. We were so excited.
The Marvel shows that she never cared for that I watched when she was crashed out from chemo.
Yes, they are just TV shows. Not even documentaries. But dammit, something we shared - the anticipation, the interpretation, the discussion, the "just one more before we sleep tonight" thrill of shared experience. Knowing that we'd be letting the challenges of our careers, our parenthood, the stresses of daily existence float away for 30 or 60 minutes before we slept and readied ourselves for another day.
I have another book on my table, All The Light We Cannot See; which I planned to pass to her side of the bed when she was ready to consider her next read. (She never took my word for it, my literary tastes were always suspect). Always the scientist, never single-sourcing any input, I always had to work to sell a book choice to her. If it was worthy, she'd devour the 800 pages it took me 3 months to complete in a matter of days. She would have liked this one. A tale of the human spirit and it's ability to persist regardless of obstacles. Sounds like someone I know.
I can place this on her table tomorrow. She may pick it up and hold it; turn the pages, look at them through tired eyes. But it will not be reading. There will be no shared experience from this.
Her clicking away at her computer next to me as I read before drifting off to sleep. Talking about the next day's plans and hopes. A moment stuck in the frame of the past.
We've been fortunate to have travelled over the years. We've been spending time with photo books we've made from trips - Disney, Vermont, Italy, Florida. In lucid moments this brings joy. Which turns to talk about where we will go next, from Sarah. Iceland? Ireland? California? And we discuss the details, and how wonderful this will be. Making lists of things to do. How wonderful this will be.
The queue. "[Items] awaiting their turn to be attended." It's an unfulfilling concept. We'll never have enough time. It defeats us before we can begin. Relive the moments in conversation. Escape into the photograph. Wrap the experiences of life around your heart. Delete the queue. Hug tight the memories that are real and part of you for a lifetime. It's all we really have.
