Notes from the Shrine: January & February

~ johnbrandall

2.28.25

Last day of February and a beauty. Warm and windy, blend me some of that balm.

He's taking a shower. Or getting a bath. Per Karin. She saw me coming and intercepted. Not just to tell me about the shower but to tell me that, "He's more confused than usual today." She wanted to let me know so I wasn't blindsided.

Many of the days he's been here he's been confused so this should be interesting. Not a surprise to hear, per a text from my mom, and another a couple of days before that.

I haven't seen him in six days. I went to Farm this week. Two nights and a whole lot of bliss. Last time I saw him I wrote nothing. This writing, I fear, has gotten redundant.

I hear him moaning...

Farm, 2.24.25

They wheel him in.

"They got me, John," he tells me in a high-pitched voice. "They're gonna put me down. I been up too much."

"You know where you are?" I ask him.

"Dammert."

"You lookin out the window," I ask him.

He nods.

"Birds," he says. Rubbing his index fingers together, hands clasped, lying in bed now. Karin and another nurse laid him down, with the Hoyer. I could see his red and purple bottom. The other nurse put some cream on him. I'm not sure what her name is. She's not new but newer. Hell of a nurse. Dresses nice sometimes. My dad seems content but he is looking past me, out into the beyond.

"Anything new?" I ask him. "Anything going on?"

But he doesn't answer; just taps his fingers together. Is it Morse Code? Tap tap tap, tap tap dash.

"You hungry?"

No answer. Then he says I already asked him that, which maybe I did.

Now I hear the hairdresser reaming out the nurse for giving someone a shower. The hairdresser is upset because she just did this lady's hair and her family is coming to see her. Cringe. Bless these nurses. They work on behalf of God. Who could ever fault them for keeping the residents clean? Who cares about what their hair looks like.

I turn on the TV. My dad says something about me watching the stock market channel but they don't have it here. A shame. I find PBS Create, for a cooking show, which is what I watched here one recent Saturday for three hours, my dad in bed the whole time. It's peaceful with the sound off. A beeping somewhere in the background on this hall, not insistent, a slow pulse.

I had him up in the solarium 2.14.25, the only time we've ever been up there.

I know he wants me to stop asking questions but I don't know how else to talk to him, and this is all of him I have left. I ask him if he remembers his career, what he used to do.

"I used to, I used to...." he says.

I ask him if he remembers using his phone. He used to use it a lot. He doesn't remember doing that. Printing articles, I tell him, sending them out to people through the postal service, sending out lots of emails. He claims he never really sent out much.

He watches the cooking show intently, left index finger to his lips, rubbing slowly back and forth.

"You know how long you been here, in Dammert?"

"A couple weeks, " I think.

Which might be correct, if dating back only to his trip to the hospital on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, my sister's birthday, a day I was headed to Farm when my mom texted to say he was in the hospital with an illness.

I ask him if he's been having any dreams or premonitions. It's not the first time I've asked him about dreams. I've been having some strange ones. Strong and vivid. Odd. One last night that didn't feel like mine. About a kid worried about his gambling debt. I thought about it and told this kid that he might not have to pay the debt because he was a minor and never should have been allowed to place the bet anyway. Unclean hands on the other side, laches; other party estopped from collecting. I don't know who this kid was. And, no, I don't think he was me. B mentioned crazy dreams the same morning I woke up after some doozies Monday night at Farm. After feeling like it had been a while since I remembered any dreams at all. Stopped writing them down. This is as close as I'll get.

Footprints of a dream

The TV transfixes him. I don't know what else to do. I'll go out and get my salad out of the car whenever his food arrives. Could be half an hour, easy.

I listed to voices from the hall. Evelyn's daughter. Or granddaughter, who knows. I only had one interaction with Evelyn. Her chair was at a chokepoint in the hall. I wanted to move her. Asked nicely then just tried to wheel her a few feet but she put her foot down, literally.

"No," she said, "I don't think so. I'll stay right here."

Another time she didn't want CNAs to take her out of the lunch room. I look back and my dad has fallen asleep, his left index finger still trying to stay awake, to stay up, still pointing.

Evelyn played basketball in college. My dad snaps back, left hand back up to his face. It's her granddaughter that's visiting her, pretty sure. How am I the age of so many grand-kids here?

Earlier I asked him how he felt, overall.

"I feel good," he said.

It might be Evelyn who'd had her hair done—yesterday!—and then got the shower today. A whole $28 down the drain. The shower my dad got seemed to have revived him, definitely worth $28 to me.

Evelyn still has some lucidity. She still talks. I mean, I'd take pure gibberish from my dad. I'd take nonsense, non sequitur, monolog. Anything not hateful, anything not ugly. He said something to the nurses when they wheeled him in after his shower but I couldn't hear it.


For the full write-up, click here...

House Complete: More Photos from Tijuana 2025

~ johnbrandall

Scratch coat, looking north
Before he started eating the almonds right away.
Before the first coat of stucco, tar paper and chicken wire.

Down the hill they were jackhammering into the side of the hill/mountain to create the space for building a new church. They are another couple who will utilize the house we built. Currently they are living in a minivan.

Looking uphill from the new church site. That’s their minivan. And a baño they had delivered there. It is apparently easy to get one delivered. Jason called one in for us on the first day and it was on site in ninety minutes.

These puppies were too much

For the full photo essay click here…posting from phone from TJ so please bear with me…

Notes From the Shrine: Visit with Your Dad

~ johnbrandall

by Ray Wisdom

I had called the Shrine the day before to make sure there wouldn't be an issue with my visiting. The person I spoke with was lovely and gave me very detailed directions on how to get to the memory care facility.

As I was driving around the main building, I had this lightning bolt-type remembrance of visiting the exact same place when my grandpa was there. It was eerie. I rationally knew it wa =s the same place, but I guess that memory was buried pretty deep. The last time I saw him, he didn't remember who I was. He thought my mom was his wife. It was all so sad. I guess I had repressed it. 

After I was buzzed into the building, the woman at the front desk said that your dad was in B1, and as I turned to go down the hallway, your mom had just entered at the other end. When she saw me, she stopped-short, like she had seen a ghost. She recognized me immediately and was so happy. She said 'Ray, is that you? What are you doing here?' The best way I can describe her reaction was that she was both dumbfounded, with a look of both disbelief and happiness on her face. She was getting ready to leave, but offered to take me back to see your dad. 

We went into the room and your dad was watching CNBC (or one of those channels. It was the one with the guy who rolls up his sleeves and gives financial advice. Jim Cramer?) on the TV. Your mom went to his side and said 'Brian, you have a visitor'. Your dad looked at me and I said 'Carpe Diem, Mr. Randall. It's Ray.' He looked at me and said 'Ray'. 

Your mom then asked if he had just said something and I told her that he said my name. It was then that she told me about his recent issues with swallowing and speaking and how she had to call for hospice care. That he had only started verbally communicating again that day. He looked at your mom and said 'who called hospice?' She said she had. He then continued to watch TV. 

Your mom stayed for about 10 more minutes and we chatted. She relayed how hard it has been for her. How she visits most days. She started crying as she told me this and then reiterated how happy she was that I was visiting. She said I could pop by the house any time I wanted. If she wasn't there, she was probably visiting your dad. I told her that I had started writing a letter to her, but I couldn't find the words. We had a long hug and I told her that I was happy to have run into her. I let her know that she could leave and I would stay with your dad for a while.

After your mom left, I pulled up a chair and sat next to your dad. He was watching TV and would occasionally look over at me. There wasn't much that would lead me to think he recognized me. I asked if he still followed the market and he said 'everyday'. I asked if he still followed any other news but he didn't respond...


Read Ray's full account here...

Notes from The Shrine, Late May 2024

~ johnbrandall

The other thing that my dad said that surprised me because of the cognizance it showed was his identifying an old towel I had grabbed from out of the car in order to wipe down the chair I wanted to sit in.

"Looks like one of our old towels," he said.

It took me a moment to process what he had said but he was correct. It's an old Ralph Lauren beige hand towel from what is now his old house, Rockingham. The towel is about a third of the size of a bath owl, much larger than a square washcloth. Something like a foot by two feet.

That towel must be thirty years old, which is part of why I like them so much. They're useful. Wiping, drying, cleaning up, covering up. They can serve as your only towel if you happen to— Sneeeeeze!!! My dad rips off one of his patented loud sneezes and the pen jolts in my hand, skittering across the page. My dad is still one of the loudest sneezers around.

"Have any memorable meals lately?" I ask him.

"Fish with tartar sauce, two tartars," he tells me.

"Last night?"

"That could have been."

He's sharper today, no doubt. Down the road I could see myself working here. I'd volunteer or maybe take a part-time job. If they wanted another groundskeeper on staff who would also work as a porter, transporting Dammert residents to lunch and back. I'd fill in this pock-marked concrete. Do some hedge trimming. Sweeping...


Read the rest of this post here...

Blinkers

~ johnbrandall

The horses were talking in the paddock
one was nickering, one was answering

One more run, one last race
the horse with a green cap
and a white blaze down his nose
fitted for blinkers

Nine races down, one left at Saratoga

The dirt, the gate
the first mile, the far turn
the stretch, the wire

The test in the morning
the morning in the notebook
the handlers smoking quietly in the barn

Sunken Zinc

~ johnbrandall

It started early in the morning,
when the whip-poor-wills 
whistled for love and
strawberries shed their tiny hairs.

It was the time of year when
mud daubers went in search of 
soft dirt and cucumbers unfurled
their curious vines.

Frogs sprang with song from the creek
and cows looked past fence lines for
any sign of their kidnapped calves.

The bull was ripping
grass from dewy ground while trees
sorted wind with their leaves
and the skin of a red onion
floated like a petal to the patio.

Wherever possible, weeds filled cracks
with stubborn roots and buntings spiced
sunlight with their riddles.

A jet thronged with speed in the heavens and
a phoebe sung its name like a jingle while
farmers began rounds in unlicensed trucks.

News trickled like a leak from the speaker
while a skunk settled into its hole behind the house
and kitschy windmills erupted with each gust.

As fresh clouds unrolled their thick gray tarp
a cowbird squeaked like quartz in a vise
and Mr Coffee gurgled like a gremlin.

A hawk screamed its mind from the sky
and a column of ants swarmed a beatle like photons.
The forecast called for a storm or two and the
mousetrap offered cheese with a catch.

Ticks waited for flesh to pass through the brush
and vultures sat like statues on the dormers 
while lizards crawled like children over rocks.

Tall grass blushed at the stroke of an unseen hand
and the cardinal sang, “It’s weird, it’s weird, it’s weird.”
As rain began to fall on the fields, grasshoppers hushed
their summer ceremony and a fly skittered across this page.

The cuckoo knocked its dull chime from a hidden branch
and yarrow held tight in clusters of white and yellow
while a spider sped between drops on its octagon of legs.

Mullein welcomed the rain into its fat rosette 
of velvety leaves and thunder arrived like
something heavy falling down a hillside.

Raindrops hit the windows, washing them of their dust
and lightning lit up the darkened land like an x-ray 
as the ghosts of prospects past
plumbed the valley for veins of sunken zinc.

Farm Cats

~ johnbrandall

The star that exploded was way too dim. I became nothing but gravity but then I knew my soul.

Archery season for deer opens today, halfway through September, freight rail facing a union strike. You gotta get them data together, gotta get them in the same room, negotiate with them, get them on the same page. This data, that data, get them to shake hands.

I left my flip flops somewhere out there, walking around barefoot, grounding. Shards of acorn shells hurt when stuck to my soles but when clean my feet could grip better against the rock face compared to when their were sheathed in flippers.

In a shower with unheated well water. The body adjusts but the portion against which the water feels most cold is the middle of my back, along the spine, so many switches in there, skin the most naked. Need: white paint, pink paint, Naples yellow. Such a solid state of matter, ailing hospital, corrupt politician needs no rehab. You're fine, said the doctor. Get back down to the waterfront and cast that vote.

It's nice to have a little extra light. Cattle swindle, waterfront development. Notes gone the wrong way, jobs buried in the Meadowlands. A cigarette walks into a farmhouse. The metal is loose on the barn. Your teeth are decent tweezers, and other facts you might as well know while you're still human.

Farm Cat reappears. Where time is irrelevant. She's a jumper, bounces around between worlds...


Follow this link for an amalgam of various Farm writings from 2022 and 2023...

Fescue-footed Cow

~ johnbrandall

White-faced cow's got red in it somewhere. Breed two white-faced cows, that's how you get a red one. Some people think Angus meat marbles better, I don't know. Older people said Jerseys or Guernseys were better. To me, you take the skin off the cow, nobody would be able to tell the difference.

There's salt in the feed. They cut it with that or else they'd eat it all at once. It's a protein feed, 20% protein, from the MFA. There's one in Meta, one in Vienna.

Cows can live as long as twenty years. This one here's twelve years old, you can see her belly's getting pretty big. The older cows they call short and solid. Because their teeth get short and square. If a cow has a broken tooth, they call them broken-mouthed cows, and if they have a broken tooth, they're probably old cows. They break a tooth on a rock, eating dirt. When the grass is eaten down to the ground. We keep our grass pretty tall so that won't happen...


A short Farm sketch after talking to Kevin Carmack one morning a few years back...