weddings

My it has been a long day.

I revealed my marital status to a new friend. It had become so awkward, all those silences, the gaps from my side of the conversation. The last couple of times we've talked, it's sounded like I'm divorced, so that was weird. Not saying something was awkward. Saying something also felt awkward - not exactly a small-talk comment to just drop in casually. Revealing something like this can go so badly, can divert even the most normal of conversations into strained territory. But today, the awkward scale tipped, and I went with the awkwardness of saying "my husband died" rather than just feel like an idiot. If a relationship is going to continue, I can't keep evading such a large part of who I am. At some point, things get stuck and can go no further without feeling false. So there was that.

I told my new friend about my marital status because we were discussing my upcoming delivery of wedding cupcakes to city hall this evening, in honor of the equal marriage legislation that went into effect at 12:01 on the 29th. City Hall was open for marriage licenses and weddings. Some friends of mine were giving out free boutonnieres. I, of course, made cupcakes.

Not just any cupcakes. I baked for a few days, and C. and I spent the afternoon frosting. 10 dozen pretty wedding cupcakes, infused with the blessings of widows. It's late and I'm tired, but I really like the blessing of widows, and I got to silently give it a bunch of times tonight. I got to say it out  loud once when asked why I was there. The blessing of widows is a little like the 13th guest in a fairy tale, the guest who wants to give an uncomfortable beauty:

 

Tonight, we're bringing wedding cupcakes to honor your wedding.

We hope you have a very long life together.

And when one of you does die, we are so glad

that you will be legally honored as widowed.

Because to be widowed is hard enough.

To be widowed and given no legal or social

 acknowledgment is unconscionable.

 

Congratulations. Sorry it took so long.

We wish you long life and good deaths,

with the ones you love beside you.

 

 

 

 

Not wanting to be a downer on other peoples' wedding day, I didn't wander around repeating the whole blessing out loud. The closest I came (except for the time I was asked) was when I offered cupcakes to a couple who asked what they could give me in return:

                          You can have a long, happy life together. A very long life.

 

 

 

 

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And on that note, I need to get to sleep. It is way, way past my bedtime.

 

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semantics

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I don't suppose we can have a moratorium on the
words "drown" and "drowning" can we?
Seems a large percentage of posts and things I have read in the last month
have used those words to describe - well, you know - the things
"drowning" is so found of describing. Just - I am ever so tired of
seeing the words again and again, and saying outloud again and again -
stop it. Stop it. Stop it. You have NO IDEA what those words mean.

That is all. Word tired.



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pie

The other night, I dreamed my friend Jim died of a heart attack before I could bring him his pie. In awake life, we'd been trying to find a time that would work with their schedules and mine, and it hasn't happened. When I had the dream, I decided I would make his over-due birthday pie and just show up with it. Wednesday seemed the day meant for delivery.

I started the process last night, failed twice, started again. I woke up after a long night of intermittent nightmares, wakefulness, stress. Woke up with money shortages on my mind, time shortages, needing to write and accomplish and fit in two hours of driving to deliver a pie I hadn't finished making yet, which needs to be done and cooled and ready before I have to leave. And what about all those self-care things, the yoga I needed today, the time to process the image of Matt in my dreams last night, the TIME to do anything. grouch grouch grouch. I decided this was no way to make a pie, or to deliver a pie, and put it on the schedule for tomorrow. Ah. A bit more ease. Then I went for a pre-dawn walk with the dog, light rain, singing Gaelic prayers out-loud because it stops my grouchy mind.

Coming back home, I stopped to check the mail. Inside, a check from the woman I garden and herd-sit for, an expected check for a few honey sales. Every little bit helps. My mind is already starting to tick as I open the envelope - right then: yoga, tea, write, study, break at ten.... the envelope is thicker than it should be. A card, maybe.

A card with a hundred dollar bill in it, a card with "thank you for all your work this year. A little something extra to show my appreciation of you."

I am instantly on my knees, thrown to the floor - this time with such powerful knowledge that I am cared for. I am always, always cared for. So intensely. So perfectly. Every.single.month since I left that job that was destroying my body and mind, money has shown up. Not a lot. But enough. Every single time. Usually right at the last possible moment. I am loved. I am cared for. All the time. It stuns me every single time.

Darn right the very first thing I did getting up off that floor was begin again with pie. Expansion. Goodness. There is time for everything today. There is certainly time to be my point of love in this world, to randomly show someone else that they are cared for. All the time. Always, always cared for.



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evidence and odd bits

So last week. Second week of a rather large cold. Coming off of travel and challenges particular to that. Blah blah. Anyway. Tired and missing and sore, I left home to do some errands. Along the way, I asked for evidence: show me it's really you, okay? Parking outside the library, thinking this again - actual evidence would be nice. Inside the library, I picked up a book I had ordered. The library attendant brought me two books: the one I ordered, plus one I ordered and meant to cancel, because it wasn't the one I meant to order. Surprise book number two, at the hold desk that morning?

Proof of Heaven.

I stood there at the check-out counter, giggling. Nice one, babe. Just as I started to dismiss it as "a stretch," I walked outside and found a discarded tissue on the sidewalk, clearly in the shape of a large heart. A big tissue heart on the sidewalk next to - Matt's truck. Not the same truck (though it is in town sometimes), but the same model and uncommon color. Ha.

Back in the car now, heading to the post office, I am chuckling at this "evidence," wondering if it really is evidence, or if I am searching. Thinking how frequently these things happened so soon After, how I never questioned them: their random precision so precise. Parking the car, getting out, walking to the post office, I am thinking these things, wondering, asking in my mind - where are you now babe? Is there a you here? Can you even give me evidence from where and when you are?

I got the mail from my box. On the counter is a current copy of Harper's magazine, left behind by someone. I glanced at it. Start to laugh again. On the cover, a male face is filled with galaxies, stars and planets. On his finger rests another man, a small human. The star-man peers at the human on his fingertip. The two titles in bold-face beneath this illustration are:



 

Our place in the universe

I am your conscious, I am love.

 

 

That was a really nice trifecta.

 

Even with the slightly odd grammar up there - I just looked up "conscious," to see if it can ever make sense with that usage. Not really, no. But the definition of "conscious" is really lovely here, too. You are in my sense of myself. You are in my sense and sensing of this world. Our place in this Universe is love, is sense, is awareness. Our place is conscious.

 

Well now I am crying, and hadn't meant to be. But there it is.

I will take this. I will take this as evidence

and carry it around with me.

I carry your heart with me.

Conscious.

 

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