.
Yesterday
at the giant Asian market
I only missed you.
Instead of finding it all so cool
aisle after aisle of fascinating things,
instead of being amused and annoyed
at your narrow culinary skills
or how unmatched our palates are
I only missed you.
I only missed you.
Grief was comfortable
I missed it. I've missed it.
It hurts, and it clouded my joy,
but it brought you here to me
so close
When can I unpack you
what box are you in?
With the knives, with the baking trays
With my running shoes.
Not just the wooden box packed close with special things
You're inside all of it
when I can cook again
even foods you wouldn't eat
when I can cook in my own space again
you will unfold from hiding places
stretch out on the new blue couch
when there is room
you will well up beside me
while this new and different life begins
.
Showing posts with label lyric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lyric. Show all posts
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
green river memorial
.
Day number 5 on the road. I'd hoped to be there by now. But the road has what the road will have.
Today, leaving western Nebraska, a late start. My planning mind was off a day, and what I'd thought was the short day was, in fact, not. But it's alright.
This land is beautiful. So clear, the geologic record: I always feel like I am in a submarine, a submersible, not an over-land car. I am driving in the ocean, driving under the ocean. Saw my first herd of pronghorn antelope just outside of Elk Mountain, Wyoming. I stopped at the same rest-stop we did back in 2006. It wasn't a hard day.
And then. And then, the soil began to change. From yellow and brown to streaks of red. The land changed from ocean bottom to sand cliffs. The mesas rose in the distance. I switched the stereo from dance music (to keep me awake) to Robbie Robertson, because it seemed appropriate. I am singing Ghost Dance, thinking of our trip, of how we talked about the history of this land, what it's seen, what happened out here. And then.
And then, before I realize I am this close, I am on top of Flaming Gorge. I am here, where we were, exactly where we were, and Robbie Robertson's "Golden Feather" comes on the stereo. I am crying. I hear. I hear the stones you picked up, all those years ago, the ones beside your box of ashes here on the passenger seat. I hear those stones begin to sing. They do. They sing to be so close to home.
I do not want to stop. I do not want to stop. But they are singing. I have to give them back. They want to go home, and I have to let them go. I pull off the exit, crying, resisting. I do not want to go. This is wrong. Wrong to be here. But I drive. Past the place where we got gas. Past the place where we ate Mexican food, grouchy from too long on the road. I pull over as I hear (yes, I hear) your ashes beside me begin to speak. Ask to be released here. The stones have kept on singing. Your ashes, what is left of you, an excited impulse. I open the passenger side door. The pot of my one houseplant falls out, cracks on the pavement. I remove the stones. I remove the small bag of your ashes, and shake you out into the palm of my hand. Shaking. Shaking. There are big pieces here, not dust.
The stones are singing. We have been here. This is where we turned off. Where we drove off down into the winding gorge, where we cried over slaughtered skinned coyotes, where you drove the car over too-steep embankments. Looking for a place to camp. Where you spent hours the next morning finding just the right stones, the two heavy, white stones we took home, another 4000 miles back, to sit on the bookshelf, holding words.
And now - they want to go back.
I scatter you. A small handful, here on the grass between road and sidewalk. I scatter. And then I place a stone. Oh.
Oh, I see now. This is a gravestone. A headstone, a marker you yourself picked out, painstakingly searched for, the last time we were here. It is right. It is right. To scatter you here beneath a stone you chose yourself.
The other stone - offers to stay. To stay with me. One with you, one for me. A pair of matched stones, broken, but connected.
As soon as the ashes are sent, the stone placed, I am fine again. Calm. I feel you. For the first time this trip, my love, I feel you. I know you here with me.
And I drive down through the mountains, as rain begins again, down a road we did not drive. A path we did not take. You are buried here, my love. And I continue on.
.
Day number 5 on the road. I'd hoped to be there by now. But the road has what the road will have.
Today, leaving western Nebraska, a late start. My planning mind was off a day, and what I'd thought was the short day was, in fact, not. But it's alright.
This land is beautiful. So clear, the geologic record: I always feel like I am in a submarine, a submersible, not an over-land car. I am driving in the ocean, driving under the ocean. Saw my first herd of pronghorn antelope just outside of Elk Mountain, Wyoming. I stopped at the same rest-stop we did back in 2006. It wasn't a hard day.
And then. And then, the soil began to change. From yellow and brown to streaks of red. The land changed from ocean bottom to sand cliffs. The mesas rose in the distance. I switched the stereo from dance music (to keep me awake) to Robbie Robertson, because it seemed appropriate. I am singing Ghost Dance, thinking of our trip, of how we talked about the history of this land, what it's seen, what happened out here. And then.
And then, before I realize I am this close, I am on top of Flaming Gorge. I am here, where we were, exactly where we were, and Robbie Robertson's "Golden Feather" comes on the stereo. I am crying. I hear. I hear the stones you picked up, all those years ago, the ones beside your box of ashes here on the passenger seat. I hear those stones begin to sing. They do. They sing to be so close to home.
I do not want to stop. I do not want to stop. But they are singing. I have to give them back. They want to go home, and I have to let them go. I pull off the exit, crying, resisting. I do not want to go. This is wrong. Wrong to be here. But I drive. Past the place where we got gas. Past the place where we ate Mexican food, grouchy from too long on the road. I pull over as I hear (yes, I hear) your ashes beside me begin to speak. Ask to be released here. The stones have kept on singing. Your ashes, what is left of you, an excited impulse. I open the passenger side door. The pot of my one houseplant falls out, cracks on the pavement. I remove the stones. I remove the small bag of your ashes, and shake you out into the palm of my hand. Shaking. Shaking. There are big pieces here, not dust.
The stones are singing. We have been here. This is where we turned off. Where we drove off down into the winding gorge, where we cried over slaughtered skinned coyotes, where you drove the car over too-steep embankments. Looking for a place to camp. Where you spent hours the next morning finding just the right stones, the two heavy, white stones we took home, another 4000 miles back, to sit on the bookshelf, holding words.
And now - they want to go back.
I scatter you. A small handful, here on the grass between road and sidewalk. I scatter. And then I place a stone. Oh.
Oh, I see now. This is a gravestone. A headstone, a marker you yourself picked out, painstakingly searched for, the last time we were here. It is right. It is right. To scatter you here beneath a stone you chose yourself.
The other stone - offers to stay. To stay with me. One with you, one for me. A pair of matched stones, broken, but connected.
As soon as the ashes are sent, the stone placed, I am fine again. Calm. I feel you. For the first time this trip, my love, I feel you. I know you here with me.
And I drive down through the mountains, as rain begins again, down a road we did not drive. A path we did not take. You are buried here, my love. And I continue on.
.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
countdown
.
So many countdowns.
It's been quiet here, in this space, largely because my internet connection is spotty here. But also, there is so much going on. So much of everything. And today, it is - a lot. Today, as I finished recording the run through of the audio program I'm making, exactly then, I realized it is one week, by day. One week by day, not by date, to the last time I saw you. That day. At the river. Four years ago, next week.
Four.
I have to check to be sure that is right.
I have made it through this whole last year without claiming that number. Without saying it out-loud. And now it is here, and I will have to answer, when I am asked: it has been four years now. Four years. And so much has changed. Is changing.
Within just a couple of months, I am leaving New England entirely. Leaving the places we lived, the places we explored, and I am so ready for that. I feel like I will be myself again, though differently. It is a weird broken-heartedness, to face this new adventure without you.
In just three weeks, I am heading to see my old friend from high school, to record for real. Headphones and microphones, business receipts and background music. He and I across the sound-board from each other, as we were way back when we were kids. Things move from gestation to creation to out inside the world.
With a new website, and new things I've created, this place is changing too. Feeling a little overwhelmed with it all right now, all the decisions and writing, all the designs and meetings. It's all good. It is all for love. It is a lot of change.
And for now, right now, I just need to be with that. With the nearest, soonest countdown. In just seven days from now, my love, we will have reached that four year mark. Four years.
I miss you.
I miss you here with me.
.
.
So many countdowns.
It's been quiet here, in this space, largely because my internet connection is spotty here. But also, there is so much going on. So much of everything. And today, it is - a lot. Today, as I finished recording the run through of the audio program I'm making, exactly then, I realized it is one week, by day. One week by day, not by date, to the last time I saw you. That day. At the river. Four years ago, next week.
Four.
I have to check to be sure that is right.
I have made it through this whole last year without claiming that number. Without saying it out-loud. And now it is here, and I will have to answer, when I am asked: it has been four years now. Four years. And so much has changed. Is changing.
Within just a couple of months, I am leaving New England entirely. Leaving the places we lived, the places we explored, and I am so ready for that. I feel like I will be myself again, though differently. It is a weird broken-heartedness, to face this new adventure without you.
In just three weeks, I am heading to see my old friend from high school, to record for real. Headphones and microphones, business receipts and background music. He and I across the sound-board from each other, as we were way back when we were kids. Things move from gestation to creation to out inside the world.
With a new website, and new things I've created, this place is changing too. Feeling a little overwhelmed with it all right now, all the decisions and writing, all the designs and meetings. It's all good. It is all for love. It is a lot of change.
And for now, right now, I just need to be with that. With the nearest, soonest countdown. In just seven days from now, my love, we will have reached that four year mark. Four years.
I miss you.
I miss you here with me.
.
.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
goats.
You know what got me today? Goats. A sweet little video of goats.
Out in the woods this very early morning, following the creek, hearing the thought only after I thought it - "Boris won't drown in those rapids, they're too shallow. It's alright." Feeling it again, how pervasive this is, how deeply entrenched in me now, a reflex not requiring thought. The light through the trees, finding a stand of trillium and jack in the pulpit, remembering our last day at the river, what words you said to me. How much you'd love this little spot, out here in a narrow stretch of woods. All of it.
And then we came home. Boris slept and I planted.
A morning of planting and pruning, thinking how beautiful this garden is, these gardens are, and how they are not mine. How I will be leaving them soon, onward to find my own next home, my own new gardens to build. Intermittently tearful.
And then I came in, and a sweet little video of goats destroyed me. Because it was beautiful. Because I can see and feel how close it is to mine. Because this life of mine will be beautiful again. And I will stand in my yard, lean on my shovel in some kind of gorgeous light, look out over galloping little goats, and know I am home. It will be beautiful. And you will not be here. My life will be beautiful again, without you.
.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
comes around
I really did not expect this one.
Yesterday, a friend of mine had daughter #2. Her first child was born 3 weeks after matt died. I pretty much missed it. Daughter #1 turned 2 years, 7 months, and one week two days ago. I know this because I gauge her age by the age of this After of mine.
So yesterday, I went to see said friend in the hospital, met the newest member of her clan. Getting home, I suddenly felt exhausted. Depleted. Just Wrong. I laid down on the couch, smelled the coming-rain air, the windows open to warm wind. Laid down contemplating a meeting I want to schedule with my former boss. As I fell asleep I realized - it could be July. It could be July 2009 right now, with all these things. And I will wake up and he will be here. All of this has been a dream. All of this has been a coma I have been in, some incorrect and parallel world I fell into and now I am coming out. The elements are here - the new baby, the warm wind, the coming rain, the same work-place. E's first baby shower was July 12th, so clearly it has come around again, like Groundhog Day. I even woke up wondering, testing it out. With my eyes closed, I listened for his voice, waited to hear the truck in the driveway, or hear him singing under his breath somewhere close-by. I waited for the silence to be disturbed by a teenage boy bursting in to tackle his father. None of these things happened. None of these things happened.
The grief train roared into this house and I had no idea it was coming. I am dropped.
I am down. It is early again, like the last time a baby was born.
.
Yesterday, a friend of mine had daughter #2. Her first child was born 3 weeks after matt died. I pretty much missed it. Daughter #1 turned 2 years, 7 months, and one week two days ago. I know this because I gauge her age by the age of this After of mine.
So yesterday, I went to see said friend in the hospital, met the newest member of her clan. Getting home, I suddenly felt exhausted. Depleted. Just Wrong. I laid down on the couch, smelled the coming-rain air, the windows open to warm wind. Laid down contemplating a meeting I want to schedule with my former boss. As I fell asleep I realized - it could be July. It could be July 2009 right now, with all these things. And I will wake up and he will be here. All of this has been a dream. All of this has been a coma I have been in, some incorrect and parallel world I fell into and now I am coming out. The elements are here - the new baby, the warm wind, the coming rain, the same work-place. E's first baby shower was July 12th, so clearly it has come around again, like Groundhog Day. I even woke up wondering, testing it out. With my eyes closed, I listened for his voice, waited to hear the truck in the driveway, or hear him singing under his breath somewhere close-by. I waited for the silence to be disturbed by a teenage boy bursting in to tackle his father. None of these things happened. None of these things happened.
The grief train roared into this house and I had no idea it was coming. I am dropped.
I am down. It is early again, like the last time a baby was born.
.
Monday, March 5, 2012
donation
.
I rang the doorbell
as requested
for your assistance with my donation
I am going back to the car to get more bags
you do not need to yell at me to stop
you do not need to yell
that this better be something you can sell
Do you treat everyone this way?
Even as I bring you more
you keep yelling.
Even after I am crying
and ask you to please stop giving me
a hard time right now
I understand that people often leave you trash.
Do you know what is in these bags?
My husband's shoes.
The shawl I wore to his funeral
Four days after he drowned.
I do not think you need to yell at me
today.
.
I rang the doorbell
as requested
for your assistance with my donation
I am going back to the car to get more bags
you do not need to yell at me to stop
you do not need to yell
that this better be something you can sell
Do you treat everyone this way?
Even as I bring you more
you keep yelling.
Even after I am crying
and ask you to please stop giving me
a hard time right now
I understand that people often leave you trash.
Do you know what is in these bags?
My husband's shoes.
The shawl I wore to his funeral
Four days after he drowned.
I do not think you need to yell at me
today.
.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
mixed.
Our dog was up all night, restless, growling at something outside, laying his head on the bed and wagging his tail hard enough to shake the cats off, hoping that would wake me up. We walked at 2 am under cloudy skies, no sign of whatever he saw scratching around in the brush. It is mid-february and 49 degrees, the daffodils are up, there are bug hatches and insectivores easily a month ahead of normal times. I spend my mornings dressing horses and collecting eggs. I see at least one hawk a day. Some part of me has turned towards a new adventure, and while it is not yet time to go, I can feel the traveling bone, the hobo gene as Jake called it yesterday.
Boris and I will have to see a surgeon soon about his injury, and he limps on his left front now too. The cyst that showed up soon after you left is larger now, and I wonder if it is messing with that leg, making him hobble up the steps. Your son told me how he wakes up sometimes expecting to be in his old room in our house, how it takes him a minute to realize he is not, and another to realize why. We talk about the sucker punch, how often it comes, how stunning and how hard. He has the closest thing to tears in his eyes as he ever has, which is almost none. I stand in the horse stable sobbing, yelling to nobody that this isn't right, that I don't understand. This is our anniversary week, the days of seven years ago laid over the events of 2 years, 7 months, and one week ago - both ending on sunday. I would do it all again, every second. I know you know I would. I don't know that you would let me, but that is how I roll. That is how I love.
There are hawks and horses and traveling bones, sore dogs who make me worry. There are new adventures which make me wonder if I will find you more in them, feel you more in them, as I am more like me. It's a mixed bag all this. I miss you. I miss you very much. Happy anniversary my love. I miss you very much.
.
Boris and I will have to see a surgeon soon about his injury, and he limps on his left front now too. The cyst that showed up soon after you left is larger now, and I wonder if it is messing with that leg, making him hobble up the steps. Your son told me how he wakes up sometimes expecting to be in his old room in our house, how it takes him a minute to realize he is not, and another to realize why. We talk about the sucker punch, how often it comes, how stunning and how hard. He has the closest thing to tears in his eyes as he ever has, which is almost none. I stand in the horse stable sobbing, yelling to nobody that this isn't right, that I don't understand. This is our anniversary week, the days of seven years ago laid over the events of 2 years, 7 months, and one week ago - both ending on sunday. I would do it all again, every second. I know you know I would. I don't know that you would let me, but that is how I roll. That is how I love.
There are hawks and horses and traveling bones, sore dogs who make me worry. There are new adventures which make me wonder if I will find you more in them, feel you more in them, as I am more like me. It's a mixed bag all this. I miss you. I miss you very much. Happy anniversary my love. I miss you very much.
.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Come Closer Still
In this house, there are thousands of corpses
You sit and say: "Here is my kingdom."
A handful of dust moans "I was hair."
Another handful whispers: "I was bones."
Another cries: "I was old."
Yet another: "I was young."
Another shouts: "Stop where you are! Stop!
Don't you know who I am! I am so-and so's son!"
You sit destroyed, astounded, and then suddenly Love appears.
"Come closer still," Love says, "it is I, Eternal Life."
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
- rather fitting, all that ashes talk, given that your son just got a tattoo with a wee bit of your ashes in it, and that the next day, I bizarrely stuffed a handful of those "leftovers" from his jar into my pocket, scooped up from where he dropped them, and cast them around the garden and off into the wind.
Also fitting, all that Love Appearing talk, given that I was just coming in the door thinking if I wrote a post today, it would be about how it is none of my business if I am in love again in this life. I could say No I Won't, I could say Yes I Will, but truly - I have no idea. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter. Clearly, what I want or don't want is not so much the way things go. I have a vote, if and when someone arrives and offers up. But whether that offer arises or not, whether I am loved and in love again in this life, is not up to me. In a way, it is none of my business at this time.
-----
You sit and say: "Here is my kingdom."
A handful of dust moans "I was hair."
Another handful whispers: "I was bones."
Another cries: "I was old."
Yet another: "I was young."
Another shouts: "Stop where you are! Stop!
Don't you know who I am! I am so-and so's son!"
You sit destroyed, astounded, and then suddenly Love appears.
"Come closer still," Love says, "it is I, Eternal Life."
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
- rather fitting, all that ashes talk, given that your son just got a tattoo with a wee bit of your ashes in it, and that the next day, I bizarrely stuffed a handful of those "leftovers" from his jar into my pocket, scooped up from where he dropped them, and cast them around the garden and off into the wind.
Also fitting, all that Love Appearing talk, given that I was just coming in the door thinking if I wrote a post today, it would be about how it is none of my business if I am in love again in this life. I could say No I Won't, I could say Yes I Will, but truly - I have no idea. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter. Clearly, what I want or don't want is not so much the way things go. I have a vote, if and when someone arrives and offers up. But whether that offer arises or not, whether I am loved and in love again in this life, is not up to me. In a way, it is none of my business at this time.
-----
Saturday, August 20, 2011
meat.
This post involves the slaughter of meat birds on a small farm. If you are sensitive to imagery involving animals, you may want to skip this one.
Before today, the only creature I have knowingly and directly killed was a severely injured flicker that was being euthanized at the bird rehab where I volunteered. With the exception of mosquitoes, ticks, and fruit flies, I do not kill anything with reckless abandon. I relocate spiders. I bring injured mice outside for the owls to eat. My laying hens will live out their lives long after they stop (sporadically) laying eggs. I was a vegetarian for a very long time, and now I eat meat. I like to know where my meat comes from and how it was raised. I knew if I was going to eat animals, I would eventually need to be directly part of their deaths. Today, I was.
I knew this day was coming. I'm signed up for a nose-to-tail hog processing in the fall. I thought maybe I should be involved in the deaths of smaller animals before I went on to the larger mammals. I've had several opportunities to help with small farm meat bird processing. Once was the week before Camp Widow, and I just felt too raw and sensitive to do it then. I almost backed out today.
I got up at 5 am to have some time to calm myself down before heading out to the farm. I kept panicking. I wasn't sure I was strong enough, or calm enough, to do this today. It wasn't until a brief text volley with a friend that I realized I was expecting to be traumatized. I was expecting to have matt's death come flooding back to me. I was expecting him to die again, there on that farm with the chickens. I was terrified to be that close to death again, and what it might do to me. It may be weird to say, but realizing he would not die again instantly relaxed me. I went from fighting back panic to being almost excited.
I drove the hour to the farm and found my friends just waiting for me to arrive. K and I went directly out to gather the ducks. Who were huge. I had my first wave of panic. Ducks are big. I won't go into deep descriptions here, as it is disturbing to me to recall and would likely be disturbing to read. Well, okay, it will still be possibly disturbing. I can't tell this story for myself without some graphic parts.
So in the barest of details, the slaughter of birds is not the calm and quick affair I had read it would be. It is graphic and visceral and loud and upsetting. I played the scientist and asked why there was so much thrashing, and why could it not be done more quickly. My friend (an acquaintance, really) said "they don't feel anything after the first few seconds. That's all just muscle spasms." Seriously? Have you ever been a bird with its throat cut? How do you, how does anyone, know whether they feel anything or not? That sure did not seem like 'muscle spasms" to me. That looked like struggling. Later, as the production line got going, there would be a bird struggling at one end of the table while people eviscerated or plucked cooling birds in the middle. It seemed so incongruous, to have this struggle happening and no one - I don't know - witnessing it. There was a prayer said before the first bird, but it was not enough for me. I felt like first dismissing, and then ignoring, the struggling was just a way of trying to make it okay for the humans involved. Now, mind you - these people take very good care of their animals. They raise them with respect and care. They are not cavalier killers. I think it is just a human tendency to mitigate what we view as suffering by telling ourselves it is not so bad as it looks, or by ignoring it altogether. I am a terrible liar, especially to myself. I cannot say that someone elses' experience is not so bad just to make myself feel better. I cannot pretend I am not complicit in pain or difficulty just so I can eat with less guilt.
Matt and I talked about raising meat animals and how that would be for us. He was a fly-fisherman. He hated killing fish. He did it with a prayer and a thank you, as swiftly and cleanly as he could. He refused to make it pretty, but moreso, he refused to close his eyes and pretend suffering wasn't happening. He did what he could to lessen the suffering, but he would not pretend it wasn't there and that he was not the cause of it. Once the killing was over, there was no sentimentalizing - we said thanks, and we ate fish.
I needed him there with me today. I imagine he would have come up with something to make the process more gentle, or more swift. I wanted to hear him talking to the animals, calling them "my friend," coming to them with his strong, gentle hands. He could be calm in the face of death. In the face of anything. But even more, I needed him to talk about all this with me. To talk about being open to death, to understand and witness it without making it pretty, to be present to our actions and still want to eat meat at the end of it all. These kinds of discussions were normal for us.
I want this now. I need this now, as my life comes closer and closer to the death of animals I have raised. I want to be able to stand there and calmly round up the meat birds, not turn away when they are put into the cone. Not stand there with my mouth hanging open while the bird thrashes around and everyone else just goes about the other tasks at hand. Not pretend that death isn't happening, that I have taken a life that was not mine. I don't know what I would do differently. Just - to do this, to be so close to death itself, to be the one choosing it, ordering it, dealing it out - I so much need him here. It would not make it pretty. But his perspective and his unshakable calm would change things for me. To do this without him is so entirely sad.
I have been in a daze since coming home. It's only when I sat down to eat (raviolis, thank you very much. no meat for tonight) that I really started to cry. I cannot believe I have to live this life without him here. That there will be more deaths, more meat, more days when our doing it together would have made everything alright when it is not. I miss how he refused to make things pretty, how he came to things with such a gentleness, such clear peaceful goodness.
And what I miss, what I miss what I miss what I miss is my love here to talk with about this. To hear his voice. To see that little light in his eye and that gentle smile. To see how it is that he leads an animal to slaughter. To see what this experience is like when done with him. I always knew this day was coming, if I was going to continue eating meat. But I thought he would be beside me. I knew he would. And he is not.
My mother cannot understand how I can do this. How I can, even in theory, raise an animal knowing I will eventually eat it. My mother eats meat. Grocery store, factory farmed meat. My argument - however unsuccessful - is that I would rather eat a creature I love, that I know has been loved, than eat one no one has ever cared a thing about. I cannot be complicit in a life unattended and unloved no matter how cheap that might make dinner. And here is the point, for me, in all of this. I want my heart open enough to witness this. To hold on to this. I want to love and care for creatures knowing full well they are going to die. That I am responsible for their death, as well as their life, and that this is part of love. I do not want to look at anyone I love, meat or not meat, and ignore the fact that death is part of us. I can't make that pretty, and I can't pretend it doesn't hurt.
.
Before today, the only creature I have knowingly and directly killed was a severely injured flicker that was being euthanized at the bird rehab where I volunteered. With the exception of mosquitoes, ticks, and fruit flies, I do not kill anything with reckless abandon. I relocate spiders. I bring injured mice outside for the owls to eat. My laying hens will live out their lives long after they stop (sporadically) laying eggs. I was a vegetarian for a very long time, and now I eat meat. I like to know where my meat comes from and how it was raised. I knew if I was going to eat animals, I would eventually need to be directly part of their deaths. Today, I was.
I knew this day was coming. I'm signed up for a nose-to-tail hog processing in the fall. I thought maybe I should be involved in the deaths of smaller animals before I went on to the larger mammals. I've had several opportunities to help with small farm meat bird processing. Once was the week before Camp Widow, and I just felt too raw and sensitive to do it then. I almost backed out today.
I got up at 5 am to have some time to calm myself down before heading out to the farm. I kept panicking. I wasn't sure I was strong enough, or calm enough, to do this today. It wasn't until a brief text volley with a friend that I realized I was expecting to be traumatized. I was expecting to have matt's death come flooding back to me. I was expecting him to die again, there on that farm with the chickens. I was terrified to be that close to death again, and what it might do to me. It may be weird to say, but realizing he would not die again instantly relaxed me. I went from fighting back panic to being almost excited.
I drove the hour to the farm and found my friends just waiting for me to arrive. K and I went directly out to gather the ducks. Who were huge. I had my first wave of panic. Ducks are big. I won't go into deep descriptions here, as it is disturbing to me to recall and would likely be disturbing to read. Well, okay, it will still be possibly disturbing. I can't tell this story for myself without some graphic parts.
So in the barest of details, the slaughter of birds is not the calm and quick affair I had read it would be. It is graphic and visceral and loud and upsetting. I played the scientist and asked why there was so much thrashing, and why could it not be done more quickly. My friend (an acquaintance, really) said "they don't feel anything after the first few seconds. That's all just muscle spasms." Seriously? Have you ever been a bird with its throat cut? How do you, how does anyone, know whether they feel anything or not? That sure did not seem like 'muscle spasms" to me. That looked like struggling. Later, as the production line got going, there would be a bird struggling at one end of the table while people eviscerated or plucked cooling birds in the middle. It seemed so incongruous, to have this struggle happening and no one - I don't know - witnessing it. There was a prayer said before the first bird, but it was not enough for me. I felt like first dismissing, and then ignoring, the struggling was just a way of trying to make it okay for the humans involved. Now, mind you - these people take very good care of their animals. They raise them with respect and care. They are not cavalier killers. I think it is just a human tendency to mitigate what we view as suffering by telling ourselves it is not so bad as it looks, or by ignoring it altogether. I am a terrible liar, especially to myself. I cannot say that someone elses' experience is not so bad just to make myself feel better. I cannot pretend I am not complicit in pain or difficulty just so I can eat with less guilt.
Matt and I talked about raising meat animals and how that would be for us. He was a fly-fisherman. He hated killing fish. He did it with a prayer and a thank you, as swiftly and cleanly as he could. He refused to make it pretty, but moreso, he refused to close his eyes and pretend suffering wasn't happening. He did what he could to lessen the suffering, but he would not pretend it wasn't there and that he was not the cause of it. Once the killing was over, there was no sentimentalizing - we said thanks, and we ate fish.
I needed him there with me today. I imagine he would have come up with something to make the process more gentle, or more swift. I wanted to hear him talking to the animals, calling them "my friend," coming to them with his strong, gentle hands. He could be calm in the face of death. In the face of anything. But even more, I needed him to talk about all this with me. To talk about being open to death, to understand and witness it without making it pretty, to be present to our actions and still want to eat meat at the end of it all. These kinds of discussions were normal for us.
I want this now. I need this now, as my life comes closer and closer to the death of animals I have raised. I want to be able to stand there and calmly round up the meat birds, not turn away when they are put into the cone. Not stand there with my mouth hanging open while the bird thrashes around and everyone else just goes about the other tasks at hand. Not pretend that death isn't happening, that I have taken a life that was not mine. I don't know what I would do differently. Just - to do this, to be so close to death itself, to be the one choosing it, ordering it, dealing it out - I so much need him here. It would not make it pretty. But his perspective and his unshakable calm would change things for me. To do this without him is so entirely sad.
I have been in a daze since coming home. It's only when I sat down to eat (raviolis, thank you very much. no meat for tonight) that I really started to cry. I cannot believe I have to live this life without him here. That there will be more deaths, more meat, more days when our doing it together would have made everything alright when it is not. I miss how he refused to make things pretty, how he came to things with such a gentleness, such clear peaceful goodness.
And what I miss, what I miss what I miss what I miss is my love here to talk with about this. To hear his voice. To see that little light in his eye and that gentle smile. To see how it is that he leads an animal to slaughter. To see what this experience is like when done with him. I always knew this day was coming, if I was going to continue eating meat. But I thought he would be beside me. I knew he would. And he is not.
My mother cannot understand how I can do this. How I can, even in theory, raise an animal knowing I will eventually eat it. My mother eats meat. Grocery store, factory farmed meat. My argument - however unsuccessful - is that I would rather eat a creature I love, that I know has been loved, than eat one no one has ever cared a thing about. I cannot be complicit in a life unattended and unloved no matter how cheap that might make dinner. And here is the point, for me, in all of this. I want my heart open enough to witness this. To hold on to this. I want to love and care for creatures knowing full well they are going to die. That I am responsible for their death, as well as their life, and that this is part of love. I do not want to look at anyone I love, meat or not meat, and ignore the fact that death is part of us. I can't make that pretty, and I can't pretend it doesn't hurt.
.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
home
I'm back. Boris had a lovely time with my father; the chickens and cats and gardens survived just fine. I think I may have spent an entire eternity on lay-over at o'hare. And, in other news, I have internet at home again.
When I picked up Boris, my mother asked if san diego was "worth it." I don't know that I can answer that, and certainly not in any words she would understand. I don't think I can create an equation where travel + money spent is < or > camp widow. I missed matt in new ways, found him missing in new ways. I took my first trip somewhere without him, and it was very wrong. The way we travel together, our rhythm of adventure, is gone. I am going to live, and I am not too thrilled about that. There will be trips and adventures, and he will not come. There are whole new places to explore, and we will not explore them together. I sat in a place I should not be, with people I should not know. I left more lonely and more sad than I arrived.
Walking in to the reception area on Friday was overwhelming. All these people. All these people, and every single one of them is widowed. Every single one. Usually, in crowds, I go into "city mode" - walking quickly with determination and focus, with a bit of the "fuck off" vibe so as to not attract the random proposals I seem to pick up from men with heavy accents. But then I realized, in this crowd, everyone is like me. This sea of people wearing green lanyard nametags, and not one of them deserves or needs the brush by or blank gaze. I kept thinking "but they're all so young," and then remembered - me too. I am one of them. There was a lot of that this weekend. A lot of reminding, as if I could forget, that I belong here. I am one of them. This is wrong. There was a lot of this is wrong.
I also got to spend long hours wandering around with a friend, sitting in churches and eating figs (figs. Local ones. My farmers' markets do not have figs. Or avocados. Or dates.) I did not get confused or pitying looks when I told Dan and Jackie about the confusion and stammering I caused my hotel's young check-in girl when I asked her to check where the widow conference was, and that I had to say the word "widow" more times in less than two minutes than I have in a very long time. I got to sit by the pool holding hands and crying with people I love (though studiously avoiding looking at the pool with all those flashback inducing people in there). I got to sit outside and discuss this life without the annoying need to translate and explain everything I'm saying, as I do with the non-initiated. I got to touch and hold on to people I already loved from a distance. I got to put my arms around people and just stand there, linked, talking within our group - a party I enjoyed, rather than tried to escape. I had hands on my back, arms around my shoulders. I got to meet other 'accident widows,' which is a rare and wonderful thing. The meeting, that is, not the accident. There is something that passes between us, unspoken and not needing to be said. Exhaustion kicked my butt, and I didn't get to spend nearly enough time out and about, but I feel like our connections will continue to grow. In that, it was exactly what I wanted - physical roots to take back into the non-physical world.
I also learned that my bed is not nearly comfy enough, and I need hotel-level amendments.
There are a few things I would like to see at future Camps - maybe an organized field trip somewhere, like the botanical gardens or something. To be out somewhere doing something, without needing to shout over music, would be great. (NOT the SD zoo! Good lord what an over-priced mass of ill behaved humanity.) I also found myself very much wishing you were there Amanda - to key out insects and plant life with me.
At the hotel itself, having a room set up with chairs and coffee/tea would be nice. A widowed-only space, like a cafe with exclusive membership. I know there were plenty of chairs everywhere, and starbucks did a brisk business, but a designated hang out place would be nice. In grand irony, we shared the hotel and conference center with a huge contingent of spandex clad "fitness supplement" people in town for their sales convention. Big banners outside read "STAY YOUNG FOREVER!" Poor dears. They also wore green lanyards. Big thick ribbony ones. They were all very perky.
In a macabre but totally within character way, I found myself wanting some kind of listing, with names removed, of causes of death, causes of widow-ment ~ was I the only drowning there? There was one widowed by fire, one by air; was the earth element represented? How many sudden deaths, and how?
I am a bit dreading the questions from people here - how was it? Did you have a good time? What was it like? I have no answers for this. I especially have no answers for anyone who has not gone through the hazing it takes to get here. That is one big thing I take from this weekend - how much nicer it is to not explain. To know that explanation is not necessary. I left San Diego thinking I wouldn't be back, that I don't need any more Camps. But then, I impulsively signed up to volunteer for the east coast event in 2012. It's still wrong, and I am apparently going to live.
Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are
Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words
Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you
Those who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.
— Rabindranath Tagore
.
When I picked up Boris, my mother asked if san diego was "worth it." I don't know that I can answer that, and certainly not in any words she would understand. I don't think I can create an equation where travel + money spent is < or > camp widow. I missed matt in new ways, found him missing in new ways. I took my first trip somewhere without him, and it was very wrong. The way we travel together, our rhythm of adventure, is gone. I am going to live, and I am not too thrilled about that. There will be trips and adventures, and he will not come. There are whole new places to explore, and we will not explore them together. I sat in a place I should not be, with people I should not know. I left more lonely and more sad than I arrived.
Walking in to the reception area on Friday was overwhelming. All these people. All these people, and every single one of them is widowed. Every single one. Usually, in crowds, I go into "city mode" - walking quickly with determination and focus, with a bit of the "fuck off" vibe so as to not attract the random proposals I seem to pick up from men with heavy accents. But then I realized, in this crowd, everyone is like me. This sea of people wearing green lanyard nametags, and not one of them deserves or needs the brush by or blank gaze. I kept thinking "but they're all so young," and then remembered - me too. I am one of them. There was a lot of that this weekend. A lot of reminding, as if I could forget, that I belong here. I am one of them. This is wrong. There was a lot of this is wrong.
I also got to spend long hours wandering around with a friend, sitting in churches and eating figs (figs. Local ones. My farmers' markets do not have figs. Or avocados. Or dates.) I did not get confused or pitying looks when I told Dan and Jackie about the confusion and stammering I caused my hotel's young check-in girl when I asked her to check where the widow conference was, and that I had to say the word "widow" more times in less than two minutes than I have in a very long time. I got to sit by the pool holding hands and crying with people I love (though studiously avoiding looking at the pool with all those flashback inducing people in there). I got to sit outside and discuss this life without the annoying need to translate and explain everything I'm saying, as I do with the non-initiated. I got to touch and hold on to people I already loved from a distance. I got to put my arms around people and just stand there, linked, talking within our group - a party I enjoyed, rather than tried to escape. I had hands on my back, arms around my shoulders. I got to meet other 'accident widows,' which is a rare and wonderful thing. The meeting, that is, not the accident. There is something that passes between us, unspoken and not needing to be said. Exhaustion kicked my butt, and I didn't get to spend nearly enough time out and about, but I feel like our connections will continue to grow. In that, it was exactly what I wanted - physical roots to take back into the non-physical world.
I also learned that my bed is not nearly comfy enough, and I need hotel-level amendments.
There are a few things I would like to see at future Camps - maybe an organized field trip somewhere, like the botanical gardens or something. To be out somewhere doing something, without needing to shout over music, would be great. (NOT the SD zoo! Good lord what an over-priced mass of ill behaved humanity.) I also found myself very much wishing you were there Amanda - to key out insects and plant life with me.
At the hotel itself, having a room set up with chairs and coffee/tea would be nice. A widowed-only space, like a cafe with exclusive membership. I know there were plenty of chairs everywhere, and starbucks did a brisk business, but a designated hang out place would be nice. In grand irony, we shared the hotel and conference center with a huge contingent of spandex clad "fitness supplement" people in town for their sales convention. Big banners outside read "STAY YOUNG FOREVER!" Poor dears. They also wore green lanyards. Big thick ribbony ones. They were all very perky.
In a macabre but totally within character way, I found myself wanting some kind of listing, with names removed, of causes of death, causes of widow-ment ~ was I the only drowning there? There was one widowed by fire, one by air; was the earth element represented? How many sudden deaths, and how?
I am a bit dreading the questions from people here - how was it? Did you have a good time? What was it like? I have no answers for this. I especially have no answers for anyone who has not gone through the hazing it takes to get here. That is one big thing I take from this weekend - how much nicer it is to not explain. To know that explanation is not necessary. I left San Diego thinking I wouldn't be back, that I don't need any more Camps. But then, I impulsively signed up to volunteer for the east coast event in 2012. It's still wrong, and I am apparently going to live.
Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are
Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words
Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you
Those who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.
— Rabindranath Tagore
.
Monday, July 4, 2011
man.
I was looking for something else in my email archives, and found a long interchange between a friend and I, from the two months After. Man. Here, my July people, and my Saturday people in this Good Friday world: it is sweet, and maybe it will help.
love, i find i have been looking up the etymological derivations of words like "faith" in hopes of finding any answers, any possible wisdom. but, as you can imagine, as you Know - the way in front is foggy. the dictionary does not yield gems for me today, nothing to pass on to you and make this more bearable.
it is unbearable.
and yet, you are Here. not 15 years ago, not 5 years from now - but, you, in your beauty and aliveness, are here. and so maybe faith isn't anything but a moving hand or a beating heart. it isn't out there. in the same way that dogs don't love because they ARE love, we can't have faith because we ARE faith. which is to say, one plodding foot put down after the other.
there is nowhere to go, just as you say. and even if i can't really make out what the fuck God was thinking to make all this happen, I thank God all the same for you.
______________________________
love, i find i have been looking up the etymological derivations of words like "faith" in hopes of finding any answers, any possible wisdom. but, as you can imagine, as you Know - the way in front is foggy. the dictionary does not yield gems for me today, nothing to pass on to you and make this more bearable.
it is unbearable.
and yet, you are Here. not 15 years ago, not 5 years from now - but, you, in your beauty and aliveness, are here. and so maybe faith isn't anything but a moving hand or a beating heart. it isn't out there. in the same way that dogs don't love because they ARE love, we can't have faith because we ARE faith. which is to say, one plodding foot put down after the other.
there is nowhere to go, just as you say. and even if i can't really make out what the fuck God was thinking to make all this happen, I thank God all the same for you.
______________________________
Sunday, June 5, 2011
*
I think I will start a new thing: when I read your words, and feel them, and have nothing to say, I am going to leave you a *. Like the Jewish tradition of leaving a stone on a gravestone, to tell someone you've been there, that you love them and you're there.
A description of that stone-leaving practice:
1) It is a sign to others who come to the grave when I am not there that they and I are not the only ones who remember. The stones I see on the grave when I come are a reminder to me that others have come to visit the grave. My loved one is remembered by many others and his/her life continues to have an impact on others, even if I do not see them.
2) When I pick up the stone it sends a message to me. I can still feel my loved one. I can still touch and be touched by him/her. I can still feel the impact that has been made on my life. Their life, love, teachings, values, and morals still make an impression on me. When I put the stone down, it is a reminder to me that I can no longer take this person with me physically. I can only take him/her with me in my heart and my mind and the actions I do because he/she taught me to do them. Their values, morals, ideals live on and continue to impress me - just as the stone has made an impression on my hands - so too their life has made an impression on me that continues.
So, no, you're not dead. I don't mean to imply I'm leaving asterix on your metaphorical grave. But when I read your words, I feel my love for matt in what your words bring out in me. I know I am not the only one who remembers. Through what you've written, I feel my kinship with you though we probably haven't physically met, and I can feel the love you have for your own love. If you have odd * show up in your comments, that is me ~ nothing to say, but you have made an impression, and I'm here. I put my stone down: your words have an impact on me. The impression continues, even though I do not see you.
______________________________________________________________***
A description of that stone-leaving practice:
1) It is a sign to others who come to the grave when I am not there that they and I are not the only ones who remember. The stones I see on the grave when I come are a reminder to me that others have come to visit the grave. My loved one is remembered by many others and his/her life continues to have an impact on others, even if I do not see them.
2) When I pick up the stone it sends a message to me. I can still feel my loved one. I can still touch and be touched by him/her. I can still feel the impact that has been made on my life. Their life, love, teachings, values, and morals still make an impression on me. When I put the stone down, it is a reminder to me that I can no longer take this person with me physically. I can only take him/her with me in my heart and my mind and the actions I do because he/she taught me to do them. Their values, morals, ideals live on and continue to impress me - just as the stone has made an impression on my hands - so too their life has made an impression on me that continues.
So, no, you're not dead. I don't mean to imply I'm leaving asterix on your metaphorical grave. But when I read your words, I feel my love for matt in what your words bring out in me. I know I am not the only one who remembers. Through what you've written, I feel my kinship with you though we probably haven't physically met, and I can feel the love you have for your own love. If you have odd * show up in your comments, that is me ~ nothing to say, but you have made an impression, and I'm here. I put my stone down: your words have an impact on me. The impression continues, even though I do not see you.
______________________________________________________________***
Saturday, March 19, 2011
spring training.
It's pretty out. Nice sunset. 70 degrees yesterday, snow and 32 today. Both our beehives died, I discovered yesterday. It upset me more deeply than you'd think. Without you here. The bees all frozen in place, like a photograph of a perfectly normal day in the world of bees, the cluster spread out, each bee doing their job, their wings still outstretched, still fuzzy, still perfect. They were alive a few weeks ago. Now they are not. Alive, and then dead. Like you.
Boris and I walked. We took the switchback path up the hill where you used to run, straight up, bisecting the pavement. You were a wonder to watch, my love, strong and powerful. I should be still running my old route through our neighborhood, becoming a runner, day by day. Disappointed and bummed out that you are faster and stronger with absolutely no effort at all. You should be coaching me on my push-up style, while hanging, one-armed, from the chin up bar. I should be spurred on by your crazy metabolism and natural form. I should still get to watch you move.
It is Saturday. Your friends are probably playing poker. You should be there, feeding them your secret recipe ribs. The same ribs I fed them at your memorial, where your friends did not mingle with our family, where weird Joan let her weird son ramble on and on through the microphone about freak storms and tsunamis, how hot he thinks his mother is, and how you shouldn't ever let anyone drown. He kept on until I realized no one was going to stop him for me, so I had Dean pull the plug on the power strip, and weird son rambled on into relative silence as your father walked away. Later, I did cartwheels alone in the rain, while everyone huddled inside the barn, listening to Bob Dylan, ignoring the same weird son and his rant about rainbows.
I looked it up because I had lost count: 88 weeks ago tonight, you were playing poker, calling me from the road on the way home to see if I am still awake, telling me about the hands you won, and how you split the pot. I had been running every day for 22 days, and you'd told me you were proud of me. In the words of a movie that tender widows should not see, "the night would have been ordinary, even commonplace, if not for the morning that it preceded."
I started running again yesterday, starting from zero, at the couch end of couch-to-5k. It was nice. I was proud of myself. I did not end with stretches and push-ups in the living room as I used to, with you being quietly proud of me for being so proud of myself. I'm no longer training to keep up with you on the trail, to be stronger and faster and more fit to keep up with our life, to extend our hikes and make for crazier climbs. Not training to look better, as I was before, though you always told me you thought I was beautiful.
Now it is just me, staring up at the sky, asking if you saw me running, if you know that I am trying, that I am taking care of this meat suit I still live inside. Trying to not make this worse by letting this physical form go soft and unyielding and stiff. I am trying my love. With our bees, and our dog, and our switchback paths, I am trying. I wish you were here with me, living our ordinary life.
____________________________________________________________
Boris and I walked. We took the switchback path up the hill where you used to run, straight up, bisecting the pavement. You were a wonder to watch, my love, strong and powerful. I should be still running my old route through our neighborhood, becoming a runner, day by day. Disappointed and bummed out that you are faster and stronger with absolutely no effort at all. You should be coaching me on my push-up style, while hanging, one-armed, from the chin up bar. I should be spurred on by your crazy metabolism and natural form. I should still get to watch you move.
It is Saturday. Your friends are probably playing poker. You should be there, feeding them your secret recipe ribs. The same ribs I fed them at your memorial, where your friends did not mingle with our family, where weird Joan let her weird son ramble on and on through the microphone about freak storms and tsunamis, how hot he thinks his mother is, and how you shouldn't ever let anyone drown. He kept on until I realized no one was going to stop him for me, so I had Dean pull the plug on the power strip, and weird son rambled on into relative silence as your father walked away. Later, I did cartwheels alone in the rain, while everyone huddled inside the barn, listening to Bob Dylan, ignoring the same weird son and his rant about rainbows.
I looked it up because I had lost count: 88 weeks ago tonight, you were playing poker, calling me from the road on the way home to see if I am still awake, telling me about the hands you won, and how you split the pot. I had been running every day for 22 days, and you'd told me you were proud of me. In the words of a movie that tender widows should not see, "the night would have been ordinary, even commonplace, if not for the morning that it preceded."
I started running again yesterday, starting from zero, at the couch end of couch-to-5k. It was nice. I was proud of myself. I did not end with stretches and push-ups in the living room as I used to, with you being quietly proud of me for being so proud of myself. I'm no longer training to keep up with you on the trail, to be stronger and faster and more fit to keep up with our life, to extend our hikes and make for crazier climbs. Not training to look better, as I was before, though you always told me you thought I was beautiful.
Now it is just me, staring up at the sky, asking if you saw me running, if you know that I am trying, that I am taking care of this meat suit I still live inside. Trying to not make this worse by letting this physical form go soft and unyielding and stiff. I am trying my love. With our bees, and our dog, and our switchback paths, I am trying. I wish you were here with me, living our ordinary life.
____________________________________________________________
Monday, February 28, 2011
rain.
Snow. Sleet. Hail. Now rain. Still pretty. Sure. I am so emotional. So completely wracked around. No! If it rains, then there is no more snow, and then Boris won't have snow to play in, and what if this is his last winter? What if it's mine? Have I given him enough play time? Am I giving him a good enough life? Oh, but all this snow and rain is good for the garden, and I really need the garden. It is okay that there won't be snow; don't panic. His leg has been hurting, and I wonder if it would have happened if you were still here. What is normal, what is because of this, or because of me? That I am ready for winter to be done and to have warmth in my bones again - does that mean I am "better" than last year, when I didn't want winter to end? I am not accustomed to being anxious. Not accustomed to fretting such tiny little nothing things, or questioning absolutely everything. I am not accustomed to finding no peace at all, and let me tell you, it stinks. I am protective of myself - I have nothing in me to withstand more trauma, yet I imagine it, and imagine not having anything left in me to stop it.
An unfamiliar truck just drove in the driveway, and I can see a uniformed officer in the driver's seat. This likely has a benign explanation, given that my landlord is a sheriff. But what is my first thought? Who Is Dead Now? The lingering aftermath of trauma - it just lives in me. I'm a tabloid news show waiting to happen. Panic takes me in odd moments, and I have no place to calm down. I can't say "everything will be fine," because it isn't, always. Not everything works out. The "everything will be alright" sometimes includes sudden f-cking death, and suffering, and still living with it when you would rather not. I used to tell me "no sense imagining terrible things. If something happens, you will deal with it then, not now." Good advice, and still true. But I just can't and don't believe things will be alright. Things happen. Bad things. Horrible terrible nightmare things. Nightmares you have to get used to, as they are not going away. I am tired of knowing I am alone in this, forever, until I die. That the one whose words and thoughts I would trust is not here to give them, and no one else can do. I am tired of surviving trauma. I am tired of all the ways it infects me and changes me and makes me not who I was. I am tired of being wary of every little thing because every little thing can bring me back there, to that day, and that water, and that life. I am tired of thinking how long I will be like this, and then horrified that I could not be like this, because then I have lived long enough to not feel. I am tired of feeling scared that I won't be who I was, because you are not here with me, and because trauma has kicked the shiitake out of me.
That is what I've got this morning. Rain. Trauma. Tired. Very tired that these words are about me.
_________________________________________
An unfamiliar truck just drove in the driveway, and I can see a uniformed officer in the driver's seat. This likely has a benign explanation, given that my landlord is a sheriff. But what is my first thought? Who Is Dead Now? The lingering aftermath of trauma - it just lives in me. I'm a tabloid news show waiting to happen. Panic takes me in odd moments, and I have no place to calm down. I can't say "everything will be fine," because it isn't, always. Not everything works out. The "everything will be alright" sometimes includes sudden f-cking death, and suffering, and still living with it when you would rather not. I used to tell me "no sense imagining terrible things. If something happens, you will deal with it then, not now." Good advice, and still true. But I just can't and don't believe things will be alright. Things happen. Bad things. Horrible terrible nightmare things. Nightmares you have to get used to, as they are not going away. I am tired of knowing I am alone in this, forever, until I die. That the one whose words and thoughts I would trust is not here to give them, and no one else can do. I am tired of surviving trauma. I am tired of all the ways it infects me and changes me and makes me not who I was. I am tired of being wary of every little thing because every little thing can bring me back there, to that day, and that water, and that life. I am tired of thinking how long I will be like this, and then horrified that I could not be like this, because then I have lived long enough to not feel. I am tired of feeling scared that I won't be who I was, because you are not here with me, and because trauma has kicked the shiitake out of me.
That is what I've got this morning. Rain. Trauma. Tired. Very tired that these words are about me.
_________________________________________
Saturday, February 19, 2011
I woke up this morning arguing with the imaginary person I often argue with who suggests I am dormant, like a winter bulb. Imaginary botanical analogies must be corrected.
*************************
There is a difference
between dormancy and death.
A tulip is prepared.
A field of daffodils in snow
knows winter is just that.
I am an orchard of fruit trees
clear-cut in mid July,
the ground heavily salted beneath me.
Not all green things grow back.
*****************************
*************************
There is a difference
between dormancy and death.
A tulip is prepared.
A field of daffodils in snow
knows winter is just that.
I am an orchard of fruit trees
clear-cut in mid July,
the ground heavily salted beneath me.
Not all green things grow back.
*****************************
Monday, February 14, 2011
anniversary week.
6 years ago today - even the same day of the week - Matt came in to our coffee shop, and very nervously invited me to dinner. Not because it was Valentine's Day - he had no idea. He was so nervous, when I said "yes," he ran out without his keys, saying, "Okay, I have to go start cooking right now then." We had been "courting" for over three months, first just sitting together when we were both there for tea, then short walks around the block, then gradually, a few trips to the art museum, some longer walks, long talks in the parked truck after he had driven me home. He cooked. We ate. Played Scrabble (a game which was still in contention when we were well past our 4th anniversary). He went out to start my car in the snow, and we stood, in the doorway, close but not touching, only to turn away and head home. We repeated the same scene on Friday, with me cooking at his house, another game of Scrabble, and another close but no touching goodnight.
The next day, Saturday the 19th, he invited me to a movie. An early afternoon matinee. Around 10 minutes in to the movie, he quietly reached over the arm-rest and picked up my hand. He laid our held hands in his lap, but his eyes never left the screen, and he said nothing. I missed the first half hour of that movie. I had so completely let go of the outcome of us by that point, after all of the "signals," and all of the "not yets." I let him lead then, as I let him lead all through our life together, and I let him lead now, still.
Your lead my love. 6 years, and I would do every frustrating, surprising, no touching, touching, beautiful moment all over again.
The next day, Saturday the 19th, he invited me to a movie. An early afternoon matinee. Around 10 minutes in to the movie, he quietly reached over the arm-rest and picked up my hand. He laid our held hands in his lap, but his eyes never left the screen, and he said nothing. I missed the first half hour of that movie. I had so completely let go of the outcome of us by that point, after all of the "signals," and all of the "not yets." I let him lead then, as I let him lead all through our life together, and I let him lead now, still.
Your lead my love. 6 years, and I would do every frustrating, surprising, no touching, touching, beautiful moment all over again.
Monday, January 17, 2011
multiple choice
The range of emotional and mental territory I can travel in a day is a wee bit staggering (to me). Every day is a marathon, and still I have no idea how I will fill each one as it starts.
I am, I have been, and still am, at the edge of my faith - not just in god or in love, but in anything. As far afield as one could possibly go, if one were me. Here is my current multiple choice thinking:
A. There is no god, and never has been.
B. There is a god, and she can be a cruel, indifferent B*tch.
C. There is a god, and s/he knew this was coming. Therefore, S/he put you as far into love and trust and goodness as S/he could, hoping it would shield you from the blast. Hoping it would be enough to carry you.
Now, the actual answer is probably more like the square root of duck sauce, multiplied by some integer of who knows what.
All I know is that when moments of C smash into me, I'm sobbing and I know I'm loved. I feel held up and sat beside, not fixed, but tended. This whole path seems possible. Not good, not right, but possible. Whereas A and B just suck, and I am sobbing and angry and alone and everything sucks and I soak myself in unwinnable imaginary hells. I mostly live in options A and B each day, with some forays into the unmentionable D: that there is a god, and Matt is here with me, but I am too dense/stubborn/addled/lame/lazy/bull-headed/fill in the blank to recognize it. Which then usually devolves into another imaginary argument between me and the god I no longer believe in as to whether it is understandable that I would be lost at this point, and not so good on the trusting.
So tonight, driving down the road, having shovelled out the barn and tended creatures, I am smacked by option C, option C, that who or whatever powers this universe knew this was coming, and so loved each of us that S/he or It put us as deeply into love as we could each possibly go. To give us something to hold on to. To have some memory, some visceral, beautiful thing to hold up against the living and imagined hells and wracking sobs and all the horrible mind crap that takes up my days and my dreams. Hold. On. To. This. A pre-emptive medicine. A tanking up on goodness for the long haul about to come. Because you are loved, sweetheart, and that has always been so.
How that works functionally, given that I still have to live this, well, I have no idea. That I am tanked up and full of love makes no difference to me at times. That Option C is true is often seen by self B and Self A as mere delusion. But even if I am making it all up, Option C is still a whole lot better than the other letters I have on my list.
And p.s., from Wendell Berry:
I am, I have been, and still am, at the edge of my faith - not just in god or in love, but in anything. As far afield as one could possibly go, if one were me. Here is my current multiple choice thinking:
A. There is no god, and never has been.
B. There is a god, and she can be a cruel, indifferent B*tch.
C. There is a god, and s/he knew this was coming. Therefore, S/he put you as far into love and trust and goodness as S/he could, hoping it would shield you from the blast. Hoping it would be enough to carry you.
Now, the actual answer is probably more like the square root of duck sauce, multiplied by some integer of who knows what.
All I know is that when moments of C smash into me, I'm sobbing and I know I'm loved. I feel held up and sat beside, not fixed, but tended. This whole path seems possible. Not good, not right, but possible. Whereas A and B just suck, and I am sobbing and angry and alone and everything sucks and I soak myself in unwinnable imaginary hells. I mostly live in options A and B each day, with some forays into the unmentionable D: that there is a god, and Matt is here with me, but I am too dense/stubborn/addled/lame/lazy/bull-headed/fill in the blank to recognize it. Which then usually devolves into another imaginary argument between me and the god I no longer believe in as to whether it is understandable that I would be lost at this point, and not so good on the trusting.
So tonight, driving down the road, having shovelled out the barn and tended creatures, I am smacked by option C, option C, that who or whatever powers this universe knew this was coming, and so loved each of us that S/he or It put us as deeply into love as we could each possibly go. To give us something to hold on to. To have some memory, some visceral, beautiful thing to hold up against the living and imagined hells and wracking sobs and all the horrible mind crap that takes up my days and my dreams. Hold. On. To. This. A pre-emptive medicine. A tanking up on goodness for the long haul about to come. Because you are loved, sweetheart, and that has always been so.
How that works functionally, given that I still have to live this, well, I have no idea. That I am tanked up and full of love makes no difference to me at times. That Option C is true is often seen by self B and Self A as mere delusion. But even if I am making it all up, Option C is still a whole lot better than the other letters I have on my list.
And p.s., from Wendell Berry:
"Sometimes our life reminds me of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house, an orchard and garden, comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed, provided we stay brave enough to keep on going in."
Option C: a pattern made in the light for the light to return to.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
tags
(this happened last winter, right around our anniversary, but I need some reminders of goodness and mysteries.)
boris lost his dog tags, just a day after I looked at them, with both matt's and my phone numbers on them, thinking "I hope I never have to replace them, get new tags without your phone number on them." I retraced our steps for hours; didn't find them. It took me 9 days to get new tags, just my number on them now. boris and I went to the beach, I needed to let him swim. I was standing at the edge of the surf, missing our life so much. I looked down. Just barely sticking out of the sand was the corner of a green metal tag: boris. Matt's phone number, and mine. Ten days after it disappeared, it is found mostly buried in the sand, exactly where I am standing. Ten days of high tides and low tides, and it was right there, with me.
Last fall, Matt was out of town, and I had both boris and jake to tend and check on. I'd come home from work, taken bo to the beach, and needed to get back to do something with jake, can't remember now what, but I was in a rush. bo and I were ready to leave the beach when I realized I had lost my car keys. The spare key was at home on Matt's bookshelf. Crap. I would have to walk all the way across town with boris, leave him home, then walk all the way back to the beach with the spare key, then still manage to do whatever else I had to do. I searched the beach awhile, had some people help me look, and was just about to give up, close to tears. I closed my eyes and said "I could use some help, please." I opened my eyes. I am not exaggerating at all: a beam of light came out from the clouds and landed on my car keys, half buried in the sand, at the edge of the water.
I called Matt and said "the COOLEST thing just happened!" I attributed it to prayer and a need for help spoken truly, without an actual expectation of help arriving. Or something. We just both thought it was amazing.
I was not looking for bo's tags. I was looking for us. Pretty much the same spot my keys were found, his tags materialized. I stood there sobbing and laughing, gripping those tags. My love. You are totally cool.
boris lost his dog tags, just a day after I looked at them, with both matt's and my phone numbers on them, thinking "I hope I never have to replace them, get new tags without your phone number on them." I retraced our steps for hours; didn't find them. It took me 9 days to get new tags, just my number on them now. boris and I went to the beach, I needed to let him swim. I was standing at the edge of the surf, missing our life so much. I looked down. Just barely sticking out of the sand was the corner of a green metal tag: boris. Matt's phone number, and mine. Ten days after it disappeared, it is found mostly buried in the sand, exactly where I am standing. Ten days of high tides and low tides, and it was right there, with me.
Last fall, Matt was out of town, and I had both boris and jake to tend and check on. I'd come home from work, taken bo to the beach, and needed to get back to do something with jake, can't remember now what, but I was in a rush. bo and I were ready to leave the beach when I realized I had lost my car keys. The spare key was at home on Matt's bookshelf. Crap. I would have to walk all the way across town with boris, leave him home, then walk all the way back to the beach with the spare key, then still manage to do whatever else I had to do. I searched the beach awhile, had some people help me look, and was just about to give up, close to tears. I closed my eyes and said "I could use some help, please." I opened my eyes. I am not exaggerating at all: a beam of light came out from the clouds and landed on my car keys, half buried in the sand, at the edge of the water.
I called Matt and said "the COOLEST thing just happened!" I attributed it to prayer and a need for help spoken truly, without an actual expectation of help arriving. Or something. We just both thought it was amazing.
I was not looking for bo's tags. I was looking for us. Pretty much the same spot my keys were found, his tags materialized. I stood there sobbing and laughing, gripping those tags. My love. You are totally cool.
Monday, November 15, 2010
swings and nightmares (and pigs)
Today has been kicking my butt. Not like it hasn't been kicked every second of every day for 70 weeks and a few hours, but I thought I could get some things done today, and I was wrong. I slept on the couch until 3 am, which I haven't done since I passed the year mark. I had a bunch of nightmares, including one in which I tried to calm myself down by reminding myself I could wake up at any time and snuggle in to his back, feel him pull my arms more tightly around him, and tell him all about the dream when we woke up. Still asleep, still inside the dream, I also remembered - no. No you can't. Instead of that realization making it worse, my dream self shrugged and turned over. The rest of the morning had more and more dreams; in each one, I told him how I dreamed I was having a nightmare and that I dreamed I couldn't tell him about it.
I was fairly alright this morning, planning on actually doing some of the many things on the to-do list that will actually benefit me in the near-ish future - things like heating assistance, and work on my website - but then grief just crashed into me, and I haven't moved from my seat most of the day. I was checking out some of my old bookmarks from the other computer, and found ferree's post of awhile ago. Her image: swinging happily, then being violently punched off her swing, while her best friend was lovingly lifted off his swing. He got to go off on his new adventure, while she was left broken and bleeding in the dirt. Yeah. Exactly. I've got that.
I think I've been having a serious backlash from last weekend's farmer to farmer conference. I won't say I had fun, but it was nice to be around people who, as one farmer said, "don't care much about being social but are really good at what they do." I learned about land aquisition and discovered a small, previously unknown interest in raising pigs. I also felt very aware of my presence as the 13th guest, the uninvited presence of death amidst all the happy people planning their lives. They were there to have fun. I represent a lot of peoples' nightmares, things they would rather not think about, especially while they are Having Fun. I didn't want to get into discussions with people only to have to answer "my love died unexpectedly, so I am farm planning on my own." I didn't want to bring - I don't know - death, I guess, to the table so manifestly, for me or for them. I managed to talk farm things with a few people, and only once started crying during a conversation. I excused myself, then felt awkward and embarrassed for the rest of the afternoon. But, I did it. And I learned things. And I missed him intensely, how he would most likely say "I'm happy to support your interest in raising pigs, and I'll eat them, but it's not something I'm interested in for myself." I missed being teased in that way he has, that way that made me laugh in a way no one else can, or could. I missed having someone to plan a future with, even if we never actually settled on any one thing.
And since I've been back, I've been sick with a cold, dizzy, tired, overwhelmed by the effort to live here at all, let alone make decisions about what I'm supposed to do with this life while I'm here, write web content, explore land trusts, formulate business plans, track down contacts, bake birthday cake, everything and anything that lands on top of the mess that I am, bleeding in the dirt having been so violently punched off my swing.
To throw in more analogies, I know I need an anchor. I had anchors, before. Good ones. Sturdy, useful, awesome ones. All those anchors, along with everything else, have moved to the moon, where they have no more weight than anything else.
I was fairly alright this morning, planning on actually doing some of the many things on the to-do list that will actually benefit me in the near-ish future - things like heating assistance, and work on my website - but then grief just crashed into me, and I haven't moved from my seat most of the day. I was checking out some of my old bookmarks from the other computer, and found ferree's post of awhile ago. Her image: swinging happily, then being violently punched off her swing, while her best friend was lovingly lifted off his swing. He got to go off on his new adventure, while she was left broken and bleeding in the dirt. Yeah. Exactly. I've got that.
I think I've been having a serious backlash from last weekend's farmer to farmer conference. I won't say I had fun, but it was nice to be around people who, as one farmer said, "don't care much about being social but are really good at what they do." I learned about land aquisition and discovered a small, previously unknown interest in raising pigs. I also felt very aware of my presence as the 13th guest, the uninvited presence of death amidst all the happy people planning their lives. They were there to have fun. I represent a lot of peoples' nightmares, things they would rather not think about, especially while they are Having Fun. I didn't want to get into discussions with people only to have to answer "my love died unexpectedly, so I am farm planning on my own." I didn't want to bring - I don't know - death, I guess, to the table so manifestly, for me or for them. I managed to talk farm things with a few people, and only once started crying during a conversation. I excused myself, then felt awkward and embarrassed for the rest of the afternoon. But, I did it. And I learned things. And I missed him intensely, how he would most likely say "I'm happy to support your interest in raising pigs, and I'll eat them, but it's not something I'm interested in for myself." I missed being teased in that way he has, that way that made me laugh in a way no one else can, or could. I missed having someone to plan a future with, even if we never actually settled on any one thing.
And since I've been back, I've been sick with a cold, dizzy, tired, overwhelmed by the effort to live here at all, let alone make decisions about what I'm supposed to do with this life while I'm here, write web content, explore land trusts, formulate business plans, track down contacts, bake birthday cake, everything and anything that lands on top of the mess that I am, bleeding in the dirt having been so violently punched off my swing.
To throw in more analogies, I know I need an anchor. I had anchors, before. Good ones. Sturdy, useful, awesome ones. All those anchors, along with everything else, have moved to the moon, where they have no more weight than anything else.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
songs
Honoria turned from her contemplation of the ocean. "Miss Mado, she got through the darkness. She knowed love has to work itself all the way through the dark feelings; you can't go round them they has to be gone through, all the way through." ~ The Other Side of the Sun
I didn't get to make cake until Friday, Matt's birthday. I didn't mean it to be that day, but it was.
It was pouring. The dog did not want to go out. We drove the tiny eighth of a mile to the dog park instead of walking, because it was so windy and he hates to get his feet wet in puddles. A man opened the gate for us, a very sweet man, who had apparently spent the night in the shelter at the dog park. He talked to me about his dogs, how much he loved them, how he was with them when they died. He asked about our dog, and I told him how Matt had crouched down in front of his kennel at the shelter and told me, "he's the only dog in here." I told him how we wanted an older dog, in order to give him a good last few years. The man said how important and kind that was, how special it was to adopt a creature knowing you are facing the end sooner than you'd like. He said, "you and your husband are good people." During all this, I managed to not cry at all. I was, however, trying to talk myself out of offering him a ride somewhere. I tend to pick up strays, and I've learned that a sweet, gentle homeless person is sweet and gentle until you get them in the car, when they become tenaciously resistant to getting Out of the car. Instead, I offered him the umbrella I had in my car, because he said he had to walk across town to meet his girlfriend. He said, "that's so kind of you. In return, I will sing you a song about your dog. I am really good at songs. I can make them up instantly." He told me that he would have a song by the time I came back from the car.
I came back. Handed him the umbrella. Left my rain-averse dog in the car. The man was standing inside the shelter. I was outside in the rain. He said, "so okay, tell me about your dog. What do you love? What makes him special to you and your husband?" I stopped. I stared at our dog, standing on the driver's seat, looking at me. I started to cry. The man said quietly, "Oh. We are sharing a moment here. Okay. You don't have to say anything. No. Tell me what it is about your dog." I didn't even think. I just blurted. "He is who is left. My husband died. And it is his birthday today."
The homeless man was quiet. He turned away, he turned back. He put his hand on my shoulder, "I mean this is all honesty: god bless you." He continued to say, crying now himself, "I am trainwrecked. How long has it been? How long ago?" He asked for Matt's name. He said, "Okay. I will mention the pup in your song, but this one is for Matthew. This song is for him, and for his wife."
He stood there, composing himself, steadying himself. He pulled a harmonica out of his bag. He started wailing away. Then his voice, clear and loud, as thunder started rumbling at the tree line, and the winds picked up. Man, he had an incredible voice, a raspy, blues voice. He sang a song for my love, directed to the clouds, to the heavens. He spoke for me. "Matthew, thank you for your life. Thank you for the love you brought to me. Thank you for being here. I know you are gone, but you are not. I know you wipe the tears from my face while I sleep. I know you are here, and you're gone. You are holding me, I know you are. You are gone, and you're not. Remember all the trips, and the days in the sun? We had such a good life, I will always be your wife. It is so hard for me here, but I will not go out, I will not let my light go out. I will try. The puppy and I will try. I am out here in the rain with him, for you. Thank you thank you for your life. I will always be your wife. This is hard and I love you, and I know you are free. I know I will be with you again. This life may be long, but I will see you. I will see you soon."
He sent up his words for me, words I could not sing, and I whispered, "Happy birthday babe. Happy birthday."
There were several verses. The song wiped him out. After he was finished, he told me that his best friend drowned 8 weeks ago. I'd read that story - "transient man found in the water off the docks." I had not, and did not, tell him how matt died. He talked about the shock, and how he found himself losing time, blanking out. He asked me to keep him, and his dear friend, in my prayers, and he would keep Matt and me in his. Then, taking the pause in the rain as his opportunity, he walked off for his morning coffee. I sat in the car with our dog, and sobbed.
Happy birthday, babe. Can you believe that man's voice?!
66 weeks ago today.
I didn't get to make cake until Friday, Matt's birthday. I didn't mean it to be that day, but it was.
It was pouring. The dog did not want to go out. We drove the tiny eighth of a mile to the dog park instead of walking, because it was so windy and he hates to get his feet wet in puddles. A man opened the gate for us, a very sweet man, who had apparently spent the night in the shelter at the dog park. He talked to me about his dogs, how much he loved them, how he was with them when they died. He asked about our dog, and I told him how Matt had crouched down in front of his kennel at the shelter and told me, "he's the only dog in here." I told him how we wanted an older dog, in order to give him a good last few years. The man said how important and kind that was, how special it was to adopt a creature knowing you are facing the end sooner than you'd like. He said, "you and your husband are good people." During all this, I managed to not cry at all. I was, however, trying to talk myself out of offering him a ride somewhere. I tend to pick up strays, and I've learned that a sweet, gentle homeless person is sweet and gentle until you get them in the car, when they become tenaciously resistant to getting Out of the car. Instead, I offered him the umbrella I had in my car, because he said he had to walk across town to meet his girlfriend. He said, "that's so kind of you. In return, I will sing you a song about your dog. I am really good at songs. I can make them up instantly." He told me that he would have a song by the time I came back from the car.
I came back. Handed him the umbrella. Left my rain-averse dog in the car. The man was standing inside the shelter. I was outside in the rain. He said, "so okay, tell me about your dog. What do you love? What makes him special to you and your husband?" I stopped. I stared at our dog, standing on the driver's seat, looking at me. I started to cry. The man said quietly, "Oh. We are sharing a moment here. Okay. You don't have to say anything. No. Tell me what it is about your dog." I didn't even think. I just blurted. "He is who is left. My husband died. And it is his birthday today."
The homeless man was quiet. He turned away, he turned back. He put his hand on my shoulder, "I mean this is all honesty: god bless you." He continued to say, crying now himself, "I am trainwrecked. How long has it been? How long ago?" He asked for Matt's name. He said, "Okay. I will mention the pup in your song, but this one is for Matthew. This song is for him, and for his wife."
He stood there, composing himself, steadying himself. He pulled a harmonica out of his bag. He started wailing away. Then his voice, clear and loud, as thunder started rumbling at the tree line, and the winds picked up. Man, he had an incredible voice, a raspy, blues voice. He sang a song for my love, directed to the clouds, to the heavens. He spoke for me. "Matthew, thank you for your life. Thank you for the love you brought to me. Thank you for being here. I know you are gone, but you are not. I know you wipe the tears from my face while I sleep. I know you are here, and you're gone. You are holding me, I know you are. You are gone, and you're not. Remember all the trips, and the days in the sun? We had such a good life, I will always be your wife. It is so hard for me here, but I will not go out, I will not let my light go out. I will try. The puppy and I will try. I am out here in the rain with him, for you. Thank you thank you for your life. I will always be your wife. This is hard and I love you, and I know you are free. I know I will be with you again. This life may be long, but I will see you. I will see you soon."
He sent up his words for me, words I could not sing, and I whispered, "Happy birthday babe. Happy birthday."
There were several verses. The song wiped him out. After he was finished, he told me that his best friend drowned 8 weeks ago. I'd read that story - "transient man found in the water off the docks." I had not, and did not, tell him how matt died. He talked about the shock, and how he found himself losing time, blanking out. He asked me to keep him, and his dear friend, in my prayers, and he would keep Matt and me in his. Then, taking the pause in the rain as his opportunity, he walked off for his morning coffee. I sat in the car with our dog, and sobbed.
Happy birthday, babe. Can you believe that man's voice?!
66 weeks ago today.
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