statistical anomalies

There is an old joke by some stand-up comedian about religious intolerance that goes something like this:
First person: So. I see you're wearing a cross. Are you a Christian?
Second person: Why yes I am, and I see you are wearing one too. Where do you go to church?
FP: Second baptist.
SP: Me too! Second Baptist east end or west end?
FP: West.
SP: Me too!
FP: Second baptist west end 8 o'clock service or 10?
SP: 10.
FP: Me too!
SP: Second baptist west end 10 o'clock service. Do you sit on the left or the right side of the church?
FP: Right side.
SP: Me too!
FP: By the choir or by the doors?
SP: By the choir.
FP: I sit by the door.
silence.
Both: HERETIC!

I know, and know of, a lot of widows these days. Hundreds. In those first months, I searched all the blogs I could find, discarding most, landing and remaining on some. I kept a bit of a tally in my head: age, cause of death, kids or no kids, whether the one left still living was present at the time of death, whether they seemed "like" me or not "like" me - all sorts of things. Being widowed under 50 is statistically uncommon. Widowed due to an accident, also statistically unusual. Widowed in an incident the two of you shared, but only one survived? In all those hundreds of blogs I read, I found one person whose partner was killed in an accident in which they were also involved. One. Later, I met one other person who was there in the water when her husband drowned. Two. Two people, not including myself, who were involved in the same accident that killed their love. Two out of hundreds, both online and in person. The window of same-ness, already quite small, felt smaller. No one was like me. And I felt like saying it was akin to shouting "heretic" in a roomful of people sharing very similar pain.

My closest widowed friends are close because of who we are and who we were before we each got here, as well as who we each are now. I'd like to think we'd be friends anyway, if somehow our paths had crossed. Manner of, and involvement in, death is no guarantee of connection. One form is not better than another. When and where the flowchart of badness splits into two different paths matters in some ways and absolutely doesn't in others.

But I will say, now, today, that there is a kinship there, way down on that cosmic flowchart. There is a kinship in the sound of search planes. A kinship in the swarming of rescue crews. A kinship in a particular anomaly. I hadn't realized I still needed that until just lately.

I don't know how to end this without sounding somehow like I am glad someone else died, and that someone new is in pain. You know I am not. It is beyond bizarre to be thankful to recognize myself in someone elses' pain, to be thankful for our similarities, to be glad they have shown up in a place that I could see, so that I could have a need in myself answered. Our accidents were not the same, our lives are not the same. But there is kinship I needed echoed, and I am glad for that.

back.

Hi.
I'm back, kind of.
In that, well, here I am.
The stomach-flu/food poisoning is over. The allergy/flu is lingering. The bruising and such from the fall down the stairs has faded. The sucker-punch grief, well, she's still here. There will be goats to milk this week, and impulsively purchased snowshoes to break in. Taking a lot of solace in a new widow's blog, though that feels awful to say - that I am glad she's here, though horrified that she needs to be. But it's helping, so there is that. So here I am, looking for the road that might eventually appear. Stumbling along and singing best I can.

I really don't have much to say. Thanks for checking, thanks for reading, thanks for listening.


When Lovers Die

When Lovers die in their journey,
The spirit's king runs out to meet them.
When they die at the feet of that moon,
They all light up like the Sun.

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

away.

I just cannot cannot stop crying.
I have been quite sick, so there is that. And being responsible
for other peoples' animals - so there is that, being outside of my routine
and away from my cocoon. It has been a long couple of weeks of depletion.
But I just cannot stop crying. Cannot stop, today, feeling like
I have failed and am failing - failed to notice when he needed help, failed to
save him or stop it from happening, and failing now, in not - doing something or somehow
or whatever. All I know is I feel like a horrible failure to god and to love and to matt and to me
and I just cannot stop crying today.

Our dog and I are going to camp out at the farm tonight in case there is a lot of snow. A kindness to myself so I don't need to stress out if my landlord hasn't plowed the driveway in the morning by the time I need to go feed the animals. Just sleep there, and be done with trying to get there. It will be couch sleeping, but still. Certainly slept on my own couch more nights than not.

That I am online so much is adding to my surreal sense of life right now. An overnight without internet access is probably a good thing. Just going to be away from the computer for a bit - maybe just a day, maybe many. Maybe none at all. Clearly, I don't know anything at the moment.

movie landmine warning.

Why do I go to the movies anymore? Lordy.
Without giving the story away, but in the interest of fair warning:

In case anyone is planning to see the movie I Love You Phillip Morris,
there are death scenes.

Based on the previews, I was not expecting this movie to have death scenes.
Just as I was not expecting death or widowhood when I went
to see Nanny McPhee, Inception, or most of the films I have seen in
the last 18 months. I think I have blocked out most of them, because I
can't remember them now.

I will say that I recently saw The King's Speech, and not only is it a
fantastic film with great acting, there was no dea... oh, shoot. I just remembered.
There was a death in that one too. But it wasn't an emotional death scene, at least for me.

So there we have it. The best movie review I can give you, and all I can say is -
the death in it isn't that bad.

a wee call out

A wee silly call out, just because - I'm totally fine, but took a rather large tumble down surprisingly ice-covered stairs last night. Nothing broken. Gigantic bruise and some soreness making it challenging to wander around and challenging to be still. Plus, an allergy stirred up that has me slogging through some molasses. I've been largely camped out on the couch ordering seeds* and watching episodes of edwardian farm, but I can't get at all comfortable, and seem to be getting more sore for the sitting. So, though it kind of goes against my nature to be public about such physical things (and I may just post then delete) - if you feel so inclined, send some good mojo out my way for at least getting comfy on this couch. Apparently, I am in a reaching out mode.

*2 to 1 flowers over vegetables, J., and even a flowering grass.

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:

"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.

too much

there's a lot of flooding and drowning going on in the world right now, and it is too much for me. I'm hiding my head in the sand as much as I can (though I feel like a bit of a lout for not being present to it). I also made the mistake of reading about the tuscon shootings, and my mind went immediately to all the new widows, and what those first moments are like. This week is also the 1 year and six month mark. I am rather losing what is left of my mind. As I was leaving the farm, the older farmer I work with gave me a long, sweet hug yesterday (prompted by nothing other than when I got there, he asked how I was, and I just shrugged, and went about my chores). I had to make him stop, because if he kept up holding on to me I would not have been able to drive home. There is no one really to hold onto me, in this - how insanely stupid is that. The most hideously horrible painful experience in this life, and the one I need to hold on to me is gone. As it was, I made it home without intentionally crashing by reminding myself that I didn't want to accidentally take anyone else out with me. I also found out that I don't have health insurance any more, which caused issues in some other things  - just adding things on my to-do list that require my being a grown-up, and advocating for myself, and all sorts of things my trauma-addled being just no longer has a capacity for. I pushed myself too far with making phone calls and fixing things and even trying to explore things that might possibly be to my own benefit. I can't sit still, and I can't take action. Nice. Lovely. I looked at a few photos of matt yesterday, and that did me in, too. That I can't bear to see photos of the man I love is extra super excruciating.

Anyway. That's it.