in between

.

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


.

a car is not a car

Cleaning my car today - more thoroughly than ever in the time it has been mine - getting ready to sell it. Cleaning out the inside, scrubbing off old dirt, I was imagining the kind of ad I might place:

Sweet, much loved car for sale. Most of its miles were earned on adventure: crossing the country from east to west and north to south, piling down dirt roads in search of quiet fishing spots or unmapped hikes. It got a number of its dings going places it wasn't ~quite~ designed to go, whether down steep river plains in the red lands of Utah, or trying to make a three point turn at the edge of the deep woods.

It has barreled down long farm roads, and pulled over to watch pronghorn antelope. It has sheltered its owners on surprise sub-zero nights when they were supposed to be sleeping in tents. From out of its trunk, it's offered the makings for tea on the side of the road at sunrise, even when not far from home. It's safely transported birthday cakes shaped like castles, and trains, and unicorns. It's carried groceries and seedlings, held countless cups of tea, heard many, many songs belted out by both drivers and passengers. It has heard so much.

This car has seen more births than deaths, though it has seen them both. It has carried its fair share of raucous laughter, peaceful silence, and screaming cries. It has held it all. And then some: wet dogs, kids being taken to prom, unhappy cats (in carriers). Mundane and ordinary, unique and beautiful.


What I wouldn't add - what I wouldn't add:

That I began to cry as I erased your fingerprints and the scuffs from your shoes. I know they're in there. I've never cleaned the car like this, so you are still in there. I found greasy smudges from the dog on the head of the seatbelt cover, and a flood of words and images came back to me: how Boris always wedged his head between the driver's side headrest and the window when you were driving, wanting to be as close to you as he could, how he'd done this that day, before settling down in the backseat. You said he knew where we were going, and was content to lie down a bit.

He does this now, still - his head between the headrest and the window, but not as much. He is more likely to climb into the passenger seat, laying his head in my lap.

We took this car so many places, you and I. Had countless - and not enough - adventures and road-side tea. We. We. We lived so much in this car, had so much life in here. I can still feel your hand slip under my thigh as you drive, even though I am the only driver now. You drove us to the river that day. Someone else had to drive me home. This car. This car has seen so much.

And it's okay to let it go. It doesn't work for driving cross-country with one big dog and two unhappy cats. Like so many things, once the practical news occurred to me, it became okay to let it go.

But still. But still. Today, at first filled with love for my car I don't think I've ever felt, giggling at how I might write the ad that sells it, adventure story and all, and then filled with so much longing, so much pain and melancholy. It isn't just a car. I find myself saying - if you were here, this wouldn't bother me at all. If you were here, this car would've been sold long ago, in favor of your truck and my alleged Vespa. But a car is not a car, and it is not just dirt I wipe away.

Anyway. This car has a few more adventures left for me, and I must get to them. 




.


.

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.

.


.

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.


.

evidence and odd bits

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

Proof of Heaven.

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

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

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



 

Our place in the universe

I am your conscious, I am love.

 

 

That was a really nice trifecta.

 

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

 

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

I will take this. I will take this as evidence

and carry it around with me.

I carry your heart with me.

Conscious.

 

.

 

 



 





and again...

.

Three years, one month, twelve days, and I seem to be in a strange loop again. A loop of nightmares, middle insomnia, and almost every morning waking up thinking - wait. What happened? What? Shaking my mind, questioning it. Are you sure?

Dead. Really? That man. That one. Really. Jesus. That is insane.


.

rain date

Oh I was hoping to be done with honey harvest today.... but it is raining, and you can't pull honey supers in the rain. Or when it's cloudy. Bees do not like cloudy.

It's funny how sway-able I am. Some farm owning friends of mine offered to let me move my hives out there, so when tending time comes, there are more hands on deck. For a moment, I thought this was great. A family! People care! It will be fun! And then I remember - I really don't enjoy beekeeping anymore. I don't plan on living here for much longer, so starting a new bee-yard relationship is irresponsible. I don't need more encumbrances. I do not like the version of me that comes out when beekeeping is intense. As another friend said yesterday, "I think there are things you can do that feel connected with matt that don't involve you being stung repeatedly."

I am just such a try again, and try harder person.

And this is the thing - sometimes, if something is stressful or hard, I think: sweet me, you witnessed matt dying randomly and accidentally. Compared to that, this is nothing. Relax. You can do this. And then other times, faced with something hard and stressful, I think: WTF am I doing? I just watched matt die, randomly and accidentally. Why am I wasting any time at all doing sh*it that makes me mad?

Certainly a context change in there. It comes down to what is worth it and what is not. What is hard, but will help me or be satisfying in the end, and what is hard but not worth the pay off, if there even is any pay off. Will confronting this ease my way at all? Or bring me closer to peacefulness? Or even just create something that I will actually use? I feel like I am walking this line repeatedly in big things and small. Streamlining.

On that note, I am off. Refinishing furniture, finishing a project matt had started. Unlikely to be stung doing it.


.

morning

 .


"...the world of “acceptance" is a whole new world of suffering in its own right."

Again with the good words. Much needed on this crabby at-war-with-myself morning.

I am a strange morning person. I love the very early morning. And - early morning is often when I am the most inwardly crabby. Little wars. Things need changing.


.

by date

sometimes
as we read the paper
you would point out obituaries
of elderly couples who had died
within tight orbit of each other.
I would nod my head
and say - makes sense to me.
of course they do.


We will not be one of those couples
neither elderly, nor dead within close range.


I was not one of those people who wondered
if I would survive
I knew
with resentful certainty
that I would live.
though I kept waiting


Buying half and half for my tea
I would glance at the expiration date on the carton
saying half out-loud
"I will be dead by then."
Every time
Every time
Every week, buying again,
saying I will be dead by then.



Sometime over the last several months, I have stopped saying this
Have stopped thinking it.
I reach into the stacks
see the date
and think -
pretty unlikely I'll be dead by then.
It is not a relief,
just acknowledgment.


Now, how I can be fine, in the hours before the last calendar date
Fine, even relieved,
until it sneaks up behind me
clobbering
smashing parts of this body, this me,
veins opened I have not seen or felt
flashing scenes of the soon after
slamming me back to the day
bruised and screaming
that I do not want to do this anymore


the place of retching will pass, I know
it does
The day itself was beautiful, this week
intense
and beautiful
but this is not that day.

the kettle is boiling
tea needs to be made
the date on the cream
just is.


.

another

...

Another person drowned. Not in my life, no. But the news got me anyway. Another woman watched her love die, thinking he was fine. Another woman was doing something they had done a million times before, not giving it a second thought. It all seemed normal, except that he was dying and she didn't know. I didn't know. Neither of us had any reason to even think it. It is inconceivable that someone so experienced would be in any danger at all.


And it smashes me so hard, brings it all slamming back to me. Maybe even more because I have been there not realizing what was happening, been there looking for help when it is too late. I have been there. And it's my reaction I can tell here; her story isn't mine to share. I'm both surprised and not surprised by how it knocks the wind out of me. I know I am helpless in the face of it, both for her and for me. All I can do is send love, to her now, to me then. And even that hurts a f-load to do.

Man.


...

some good words

.


http://gillianb-journeying.blogspot.com/2012/07/circles.html


and


"Help each of us prepare our hearts for these days away. I know we need to pack our bravery...it is needed...and courage....to go and be present to the sorrow and grief." (here)

.

orbit

.


It's coming in close again. July. Honestly, I can't say that I've felt it any differently. I'm not sure. What I do know is that year three has not been good and I am glad to see it end.

I don't know what to write here anymore. I'm working on things, trying to make this life suitable for my inhabitance. Feeling immensely frustrated. Restless. Life feels inordinately vexing.

There isn't any tenderness, and I know that is a large part of the "problem." A severe lack of belly laughs, of adventure, of feeling at home, of being loved and cared for. Of being a team. A catch-22 - what I need I am in no state to receive. (Ha - I can mean that quite literally too, as we were moving out of this State we'd lived in because we wanted a new adventure, more things to do. Anyway.) That the physical details of this life are rough right now is made worse by knowing I'm in it alone. I think I am tired of hearing myself say that.

An unsatisying post in an unsatisfying time. At least I'm congruent.

.

And then I found this video, below. Water imagery: painful. But worth it for the words.


                     

.
DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

.

     ...mumbling to yourself while you hold position and wait....
.

dass

This morning, I was thinking of the movie Fierce Grace. It's the story of Ram Dass in his post-stroke life. I was thinking of the a-hole behavior he showed in one of the scenes, what a jerk he showed himself to be. But then I remembered a letter he wrote that was also part of that film. I saw this a couple of years ago and had rather forgotten about this part. Oh how I needed this today. Awesomeness.

http://www.kotapress.com/section_articles/healingArts/altTherapies/rachel_ramDass.htm

Hope it helps for you today too.

.

!

Today has been a pretty darn good day.

First, I posted some old writing of mine (see below), and it felt nice. I miss writing. I mean, writing about things other than this.

I quit my job. Finally. It went well. I will need to reiterate it most likely, but that is nothing. No problem. It's the initial "I quit" that was tough. Clarifying the whole "I'm done now, which means I won't be coming in after next week" thing I can say a hundred times a day if need be.

I also got in touch with the licensing board to see about getting my clinical license back. I have no interest at all in sitting with clients again, and frankly, I don't know that I could even do it. But if I have to do something for income, it is going to be well paid and not destroy my body or suck up all my time.

The demo cd is done, delivered, and I have just now heard that round one is completed - I got an "I like this a lot, and would like to share it with my team."  It has now gone on to phase two. I am so freaking excited about that. And, massively massively proud of myself.

And. And.

And I so much wish you were here my love. I so much wish you were here.




.

non sequitur

posting this,  fiction written in the far Before, because I just need to step out of the After for a moment.


It was always the same. Driving this regular route, broad highways to brick lined streets, day in, day out, delivering: papers, notes, cards. The same boxes, same people, same rhythm, just me and the truck at the end of the day. Life in monotone. Then, in that straight white routine, a ray of sunshine, of brightness, blazed through. The first time was the best, the most amazing. It changed everything. There I was, unloading boxes in the regular way. I looked up because the light had moved, and there she was. Electric. Blue eyes – such blue eyes – and she smiled so brightly. I’ve never fumbled with boxes before. But that first time, all the towers of my world came crashing down, electrified by her. I thought I was sure and steady, but she has shown me that I am not, that I really never have been, it’s all been waiting for her. Waiting for the colors to change.

Later, that same first day, I watched her through the window as she sat in a cafe on my route, curled on the couch with her tea. Again, that same light smile, the same blue eyes, bursting through the contours of my life. Listen – I don’t even sound like me. She makes me think in poetry. I don’t even recognize my mind when I see her sitting there. She hasn’t seen me every time, but I’ve seen her. I’d like to say I don’t know how many times, but that’s a lie. It’s been thirty-seven days, before today. I’d even like to pretend I don’t dream of her and her electric blue, but the truth is, she wakes me up. Just last week, driving the velvet wet roads in the night, I heard her whisper, saw her face pull up behind my eyes. It was only then I realized I’d been drifting, letting the long lanes lull me into sleep. She saved me. Her vision kept me alive. Like she already loves me. Why else would she smile that way, show up in my dreams? She has to love me. It’s in her eyes. And she smiles, not like a stranger, but like a friend, a long lost part of me I hadn’t known I’d lost.

Every day, I walk past, glancing at her spot on the couch. Today it is empty. Steadying myself in her absence, something makes me look, makes me turn around. There. Sitting alone at a table, she looks up just as I look in. My face breaks into a huge-ass grin, the blue of her eyes fills the world. Before I can stop myself, I’m in, through the door, crashing past the glass that keeps her from me. I rush to her, arms extended, hand extended, reaching out. She clears her throat, looks up from her pot of tea. She reaches her hand out to mine and I stutter, stammer my way through hello.

“Intimate strangers,” I say when my tongue calms down to clear. “Sean,” I show her, pointing at the name patch on my jacket. Dork. Oh my god, I’m such a dork. Of course she can see my name. But there’s that smile again, the deep blue eyes alive, I’ve never seen such eyes. Like the sky at mid-day in Spring.

“It’s snowing down south. That’s where I’m from. I mean, everyday. I live in New Hampshire, but my truck is in Mass and it was covered in snow, so it’s coming.” Wow. Brilliant. Crap.
She smiles. Says she’s excited for snow.

“Well,” I hop from one foot to the next. “Uh, it might get slippery, so be careful walking, when you’re walking or wherever.”

How can I not laugh? How can I not lift her up and kiss her, hold her smiling face next to mine? Thank her for the many nights she, herself, has kept me alive, kept me company. Doesn’t she know? She must send herself to me. No one smiles like that except on purpose. She’s smiling at me now, waiting. I’ve been quiet, grinning, no idea how long. What should I say?

Someone has come in behind me, I can tell by the way she moves her head, how she shifts in her seat. She looks just past my ear and smiles again, that splitting searing blue. I flinch and look over my shoulder. Another man, small, non-descript, nothing special. Not like me. But he gets my smile. My twinkling blue. Without changing the look in her eyes, without shifting her smile, she looks back to me. I’ve lost her. How many weeks I have wanted her, longed for her, kept myself warm with her eyes, the secret smile only for me. I thought she knew me. It isn’t true. She isn’t mine. My blue life-line is a lie.

A slithering violence crashes in my chest. Politely I cough goodbye, and maybe even “see you around.” The world goes dark. I have to escape. The boxes. I’ll go back to the boxes. White, clean, square. Solid. Back to the towers I’ve built. It’s all okay it’s all okay it’s all okay. I will speak no more poetry. She beams that same shattering smile as I back out stuttering, pushing past the man who has stolen her, the man who receives her eyes. Outside, the snowstorm has begun. Cold pellets burn out the sun. Stumbling to the truck, I am blinded; there is only white, and there has never been blue.



.

back

.


Noticing this morning how it feels like I have you back. I mean, not literally, though I would love to wake up and find this was all just a dream. But I mean - and there aren't really words for it - but I feel like I used to with us. Lighter. Goofier. And being that, I feel like I know and feel and remember You. You as you were. Our life. Somehow, you don't feel so removed from me.

Walking our dog in the rain this morning, I was singing the zombie love song we were working on. It's a good song. Thought - ha. It would have been a great song to sing at your funeral; very fitting and funny. But then the thought on the heels of that one: I couldn't have done it, of course. I think my comment about being invited to your death was the better one. A sucker punch today, but I keep on singing anyway.

Progress, change, differentness. That I can feel humor and light, and that it brings me even closer to you.


.

sweetness

I wish you were here to celebrate with me. To be proud of me. Yes, even to tease me a little, and you totally would. I wish we had visited my friend K in the Before. You two would have had so much to talk about. His wife and I would have been off talking about plants and medicine, and the two of you would have been out in the recording studio. You would have learned so much and loved it.

K is doing the sound mastering on the demo program. We haven't actually spoken in 24 years. But there are some people who are just always your friend, you know? Right. Like your friend who I called the day After, and she answered the phone, "MATTY!" and I had to say no. No. I am so sorry. I am so sorry to have to tell you this. I told her how you'd said that if you didn't see her for ten years, you'd still consider her a good friend, that your relationship was just like that. I'm glad I had something to share with her. For everyone I called, I tried to have some memory to share with them, some time you had mentioned them to me. I don't even really remember that blur, the people I had on my list, your son having the other half of your phonebook to call. I only remember her, and now don't even remember her name. But anyway, I think of this as I am talking to K, when I tell him how we are always friends, even 24 years between hearing the others' voice.

You would have loved him babe, and he, you. But for now, he is the first person I have shared this project with. It is so sweet and so good to feel loved like this, to have such tangible, actual support. So often, I am in my own mind, finding my own way, garnering my own support. It's interesting to hear his feedback about me, about my voice and my words, to hear some things echoed that I heard in the Before. It is weird to know I'm still here, even in this, with this.

Well, now I am just rambling. Normal for me, I know. I wish you were here to celebrate with me, be proud of me, tease. And I wish I could hear the recordings you and K got to make in the recording studio and give you that same pride and celebration. I never was much of a teaser.


.

restraint

Just beginning week three
of the new job
Was already looking for escape by the second day
Last week
I screamed in the car all the way home
and seriously considered checking into kidney donation
as a source of income
rather than this
I could not hate it more and still be there

What is rather funny to me though
is the bizarre macabre nearly
delirious
feeling
while I'm there
realizing the restraint it takes
to not actually start laughing maniacally
pointing and laughing
cackling at how seriously people take things


Dutiful, though
I am trying to not be reactive
wondering if I can make it long enough
to rack up the money to buy a couple months of freedom
though that might be insanity,
not restraint.


.

tapes

Do you mind if I post these things? These little occurrences that happen? Mostly, I need them for me. Anyway -

So I am working on a project. It has come to the stage where I need to produce a demo recording, and I've been letting fear and procrastination masquerade as lack-of-technology to produce said demo.  If I tell myself I'll figure out how to get my computer to record, this will never happen. I know I have a tape recorder somewhere. I found the external mic easily. Checked a few places already where the recorder is likely to be - no.

But this morning, walking with boris, I had a sudden flash, a memory of your voice, of something, and I realized right where the recorder is. In the box of your things from the last days. Just where I left it after recording your last voicemail to me, frantically trying to save your voice before it was erased by the cell phone system.

At home, I open the box. Carefully. There is your handwriting. A list you made that very morning in July. I see the things I saved. And right on top, the tape recorder. And a brand new blank tape. I would never have found it in my ordinary search. Whether this was my mind doing a stellar job of memory retrieval, or it was you, or something else - I am humbled, and I know I am helped.

Love is beside you, everywhere.



.

exerpt

from donald hall's book of poetry, "Without," written about the death of his wife:

...when they prayed, "grace was evident / but not the comfort of mercy or reprieve /
The embodied figure / on the cross still twisted under the sun."


Just matching the thoughts in my mind today.


.