LA TRAVIATA

LA TRAVIATA It is absolutely incredible. I sometimes think I have died and gone to heaven. Life in this nursing home is that good. It is probably the best place that I have ever lived. And I am 79 years old, having extended eye surgery, and still recovering from a lifetime of addiction and dissolute behavior. I was recently in a public shelter for four months. I was lucky or blessed to get into here. No one else wanted to take me. It is in an alternative culture neighborhood. I am Caucasian. I have fallen in love with black culture. These people have been so good to me. I fell asleep watching an opera on DVD, on my laptop…a marginal unit that was given to me. I may be the only resident here who has one. The opera was LA TRAVIATA, Puccini’s grand masterpiece about a fallen woman, dying with tuberculosis, comforted by her grieving lover. It was the only one of the six I own that I could get to play with English subtitles. Earlier, I watched Jim Carey in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS with my lady friend who is in her 90’s and deaf. I turned on the closed captions, and she could read. She is another miracle in my present life. I have never married, been engaged five times, lived with two different women in California (I am in Texas.), was in love with a woman I met when young, for all of my life, but have not seen or talked to in 50 years. She is married, in Palestine. And I was bisexual. All of that has changed now. I am in love again, miraculously; and I am no longer a radical liberal. I believe in the Bible, rightly understood. So, I woke up from my sleep with the opera ending. It was the death of Violetta, the heroine. The room was otherwise dark. My roommate had been watching basketball when I fell asleep. Now, all but my laptop was Dark. My friend was long gone to her room across the hall…and sleeping, I feel sure. I checked my bank balance which is marginal, and bought a root beer and cupcakes from vending machines. I am writing this down separately from my usual journal so I can send it out and post it. It is one o’clock in the morning. I don’t know if I will get back to sleep. I should. I have an eye doctor appointment in the morning. Gerald Allen George gageorge0245@gmail.com