An Extract from The Myth of the Yellow Kitchen

Today we are having an “almost” blizzard. The snow began falling last night and the reports indicate that we may have up to twenty inches of snow by tomorrow. My son needed to fly home from California, and scheduled a flight for today. When I heard the weather report, I began to worry how he would get home. Fortunately, he changed to a flight last night and arrived this morning, but with a fever of 102 degrees. So I am still worried. Why didn’t he take the flu shot? If the fever turns into pneumonia, it would be his second bout in five years.

No wonder I worry.

My oldest grandson came home last night because his girlfriend’s father is suddenly in the hospital. How will he get back to school for his finals? He didn’t bring boots, will he catch pneumonia? His brother, Justin, stayed overnight with a friend from school. Marian, my daughter and his mother, drove to Hamilton to pick him up. That is the area which, so far, has the most snow, almost eight inches already. This causes me great worry.

At six in the morning, my other daughter, Beth, opened the health club she and her husband own. She is going to close the club at noon, but then how will she get home?

“Don’t worry Mom,” she says, “I know what I am doing, I have it all under control.”

And how come she is opening the club? What about him? I worry that I can’t help her. She is, after all, forty-five, and can take care of herself.

The woman upstairs is away, and her daughter left at 7:30 a.m. to take the SAT’s. How will she get home? She was wearing a skimpy jacket. Did she have boots? I couldn’t convince her that the test might be cancelled or repeated. I seem to worry about children everywhere, mine, my grandchildren, and other people’s.
Jonathan, my-fifteen-year-old grandson, has his second bout with strep throat in less than a month. Do I need to repeat how that worries me?

I read in the Boston Globe that people with H-Pylori can get stomach cancer. I had H-Pylori. Should I also worry about myself? Do I have time? Do I have the energy to worry about my own health?
When I am ninety and my children seventy, will I still worry? Probably. And I can’t give up my last worry. Is this writing any good? I have no way of knowing and worry that I don’t know.