Trash - The Garbage Gyre

Where there's an island of garbage - The Garbage Gyre can easily be found at my mother's home. Her
thoughts of recycling each product's packaging overwhelm my mother now, who was used to separating her
trash throughout her life in rural living situations.

The process was:
* One for the burn barrel in the backyard,
* The other for the real garbage man to take away - cans, glass, un-burnables such as plastic.

How times have not changed. However, when one considers the trash gyre (a swirling vortex caused by
wind and water that created a floating island the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean made up of plastic), one
must consider that the human being made-up in some way of that same water and air.

I stand in my mother's kitchen watching her in the same similar reaction, that of the same circulatory
pattern-walking pattern in a swirling, torquing motion - away from the trash and into the recycle bin spin the
plastic goes.

It must be addictive, or religious, that a soul would venture the intention that this sorted trash won't end
up in the Ocean Gyre of trash. There is belief underlying all of my mom's movements to sort, wash, and
separate the metal lid from the glass that is founded in the faith in the local government. More specifically, that
when they say they are 'recycling,' they are actually hiring one hundred little fellows with hands and eyes to
part the confusion and carry on the duties of great responsibility given to them to separate the plastic, the metals
and the glass.

Sadly, the local news story making headlines today stated, 'that much of the sorted recycling was off
loaded at the general dump with all the other trash'. I never saw my mother look so sad, even with the passing
of a newborn kitten. She reflected back to her wasted efforts so easily disregarded by the city trash people. My
mom was a Gyre unto herself.

Sickness - Broken Bones

The son is wondering what to think of the hired caregivers that are to replace him while he goes out for
money as work, instead of remaining available to assist his mother.
The wonderful thing about a man and his mother is the separation of personal powers and privacy. In
opposition daughters share with their mothers the commonality of physiology. Between women it is a lifelong
discussion of private parts, acts, and outcomes. Yet, mother to son, or better son to mother is matter of a
different social beast.
A little accident can slide into broker ribs and limits for the female parent. The care-giving son
wonders about the limits, the unspoken rules of assistance in these matters. The son's gray hairs sprout up in
worry, not wisdom. The stress of compliance with all of the new demands and duties builds. Often the result is
stagnation of action on the son's part when it occurs to him to meet the hired help meant to fill the spaces and
social protocols of his limitations.
There is guilt, guile and gutless rage that walks out the door in worrisome wonder of the state of events
the son never thought he would be placed in.
Moreover, he is wondering about....
* What part damns the sister, commands the son to be present?
* What part seeks advice is shamed to ask?
* What skills are amiss that may become honed by query about private subjects with son to his
mother?
* What values that were unseen are now present?
* What is to be done will be handled, managed by the son, and alternatively by the hired help?
* Can the house son wait for healing and restored health to return, before loosing his patience with his
mother as well as his mind?

So, in service beyond the norm, the house son becomes impatience with soul-filled doubt lingering
underneath each daily activity. A son that was once possessed by the aspirations of the purpose and place in the
conquest of riches in the larger world of man, now can only to surrender to life as it is. Uncontrolled,
unprofitable, unfriendly, and needed.
Which comes first, the man or his shadow?