The Cambridge Chronicles

Another day with lots of impressions and events of emotional significance, but no ability to form them into a coherent picture. I ask myself, is it the swirling about it causes in me or is it so chaotic that words haven't enough resolution to describe what goes on? I try to toss a coin to decide what it is. The coin keeps coming down on the side of chaos inside me and not the events. Just the writing of this causes the random tides of chance to fall into a pattern. But how to describe it?

We left late Friday afternoon to visit Simone's parents in New Haven. It gets more and more familiar. Strange combinations of food. Daniel laughs at his father. Simone talks to her mother about odd things. I read and watch television. Sometimes doing things with Daniel and his computer. But mostly withdrawn from the situation. What can I do with this, I keep asking myself. A family that is kept together only by the strength of the institutions around them and not wanting to get into something even stranger. Daniel very withdrawn and spending most of his time with the computer. He has asked indirectly about coming to live with us or stay for more time. Simone gets into a crazy argument with her stepfather about some furniture and will Dana take it away from him. She is equally disturbed retelling the story some number of times again that day. We give her aunt a ride from her place to the parents place. We visit Loris. She is now 7 months pregnant. She was three months pregnant when married. We went to the wedding. Anyway, we go to visit her in a new apartment. She has the look of someone who cries a lot. Its hormones, she says. Maybe, but she has plenty to cry about. She is alone most of the day. They live in a three family apartment. Her mother and father are dead. She has one brother. Tony, her husband is younger, works as a cook downtown. She wants Simone to move to New Haven and be with her. She does not seem like the sort who will do well when she actually has to take care of another human being. No experience, no help, no emotional support. We invite her to visit, but what she really needs is 24 hour a day support. It does not seem as though she will try to get what she really needs, but at the same time indirectly expressing it to Simone, by wanting her to be there.

Her face reminds me somewhat of Adele. And the situation. But I tried to be with her as much as possible, or have lots of people be with us. It was a difference in degree only. Adele saw it more, or so I think, as being related to our not being really married. It would have made a difference only for a little longer. The same difficulties would have come up.