"Waiting is difficult only for those beset by the delusion of time."

I moved Dolly into a new place, out of the rehab ward into assisted living. The facility is smaller and is located on a lake with a beautiful bay window view from her room of trees and a walking trail. Soon we were sitting in the commons with ten other residents, all with "assorted quirks in their heads", as one old man put it, and I listened to the conversation go round and round to the exact same statements met with the exact same surprised responses over and over again. Dolly remarked on the scent of the roses in the centerpiece. Where are you from? What did you do there? When were you born? Each time was a revelation.

Dolly wanted me to spend the night, but I left, excusing myself with the thought that she would acclimate more quickly if I was out of sight. Lately she has the idea that she is going home. At the rehab facility, she packed her belongings, which now fit easily into a large basket, and told her fellow hallmates "goodbye". For several days they have been agitated with the desire to go home, all of them, and asked Dolly every few minutes, "When are you going home?" They would then declare, "I want to go home!"

I suppose Dolly will begin wearing a bra again. At her new home people are snappily dressed and proud. Dolly had begun to sink into that hole where the desperate man in the wheelchair, sitting alone at the dining room table calling for "chicken pot roast" for an eternity, resides. She flashed me one day when I asked if she was wearing a bra. Pulling her stretchy shirt over her head, she said, "No! See?" In spite of being slightly mortified, I was delighted. Dolly, liberated at last! Or was she simply growing slovenly from spending time with people who were institutionally insane? Would she soon be yelling out demands from her room for turkey ice cream and quietly shedding her clothes in public?

Last night I saw the new James Bond movie, which seemed to go on endlessly, like some fast-moving loop of super-human feats of strength mixed with what could be called sociopathic romance, I guess. I don't know what the movie was about, but moment by moment I enjoyed the colors and shapes. Later I went to bed and read a bit of Bankok 8. It seemed so familiar, and soon it became apparent that I was reading a paragraph that I had previously read. Last night? Last week? It doesn't matter. I enjoyed it all over again. It seemed utterly new and perfect. Like a revelation.

"And then, of course, there are my almost nightly conferences with my dead soul partner, which I've not told you about. These days, apparently, he is not in the least interested in matters arising from the destruction of his chemical body, which, on reflection, he is glad to be rid of. There are plenty of ways of getting in touch, he tells me mysteriously while we share the twilight zone between waking and sleeping."

Again.