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My basement has stacks and rolls of moldy drawings, walls are covered with collages framed for past exhibits and peeking out of corners of my small house are dusty wood sculptures carved long ago in Kyoto. For years, I wanted only to make art. But I was never obsessed nor particularly good, and eventually writing became a more compelling creative outlet.

Words take up less physical but still claim psychic space – and it’s time for me clean house. I worked on my memoir for years, religiously waking at the crack of dawn and putting in almost an hour before work every single day, writing and re-writing. Driven perhaps by the desire to understand what happened, to answer my own questions. To remember.

August 25, would have been the 25th anniversary of my wedding in Sarajevo. Neil wanted me to write our story although we both hoped for a different ending. Molly has read and approved. I’ve gotten lazy about trying to flog this in the traditional publishing world and rather than have all this work languish in my Mac, I thought I’d start posting chapters here. A little bit more of letting go. As always, thanks for reading.

Sarajevo – January 1993

The day I met Neil at Sarajevo airport, staccato bursts of gunfire cracked the frigid air but we heard no mortar thunder. Seven years earlier international athletes arrived in droves for the winter Olympics but now only United Nations staff, relief workers and journalists scrambled across the artillery-pitted runways to board planes in and out of the besieged city. Military aircraft lingered long enough for cargo to be unloaded before lifting back into the sky. Sarajevo’s citizens remained trapped for almost four years while us foreigners hitched free rides on humanitarian aid flights for weekend getaways. Incoming, planes were loaded down with supplies but the heaviest weight on flights out of the city was the occasional dead body of an international peacekeeping soldier or civilian. Sharing one such ride with a fallen colleague, I spent the hour-long trip staring at my book, pretending to sleep, looking out the window – anywhere but at the body-box tethered to the center of the plane.

On a late January day, stepping through filthy slush, I followed a wall of sandbags to the airport’s makeshift arrival and departure building. A young blond soldier greeted me from behind a metal desk, spitting tobacco juice over his shoulder before stamping my blue UN passport with the clever “Maybe Airlines” logo. I peered into the waiting room. Frozen clouds of breath and cigarette smoke hung in the air like cartoon bubbles illustrating the cacophony of languages spoken by the two-dozen or so waiting passengers. British accented English of the BBC crowd in the corner drowned out the hum of Italian, French and Spanish occasionally punctuated by shouts from the Norwegian soldiers manning the airport.

A towering man with an ascot knotted around his neck stepped out of the shadows and walked in my direction. I’d seen him earlier in the week smoking cigarettes in a hallway in the abandoned factory where I’d been at a meeting taking notes for my boss, Victor. We nodded at each other as I hurried out to the next appointment. “There’s a handsome guy,” Victor whispered, elbowing me, as if I hadn’t noticed. Now that handsome guy was sauntering towards me like he was at a cocktail party. He flashed a grin of straight white teeth and offered me his hand, “Hello! Neil Hamilton. Didn’t I see you a few days ago? You’re with the UN, right?”

I put my frozen fingers in his warm grip and he held onto them until I reluctantly pulled them away.

“Yes, I remember you from the other day. I’m Tricia with Civil Affairs UNPROFOR – based in Kiseljak. Are you’re with the ICRC? I know you were at that meeting at the Coca Cola factory in Hadzici.”

“So you remember me!” He winked and sounded pleased. Surely he knew he was memorable. He was gorgeous.

“Are you with the ICRC?”

“Yes. I was brought on as the transportation and security guy. Part of the package with the British Red Cross. The Brits donated an armored Land Rover that I drive for the Swiss. And I do – I drive them mad!” He laughed at his own joke. “You’re on your way to Zagreb too?”

“Well, unfortunately I couldn’t find any flights to the Bahamas from here.”

Why did I have to be a wise ass? To make up for it, I gave him what I hoped was a fetching smile as I ran my hands through my helmet-flattened hair, trying to fluff it back to life.

“Ah, wouldn’t that be lovely! A beach!” He leaned in towards me. “Anything special planned for the weekend?”

“Not really. Good food and lots of hot baths. I just need to get out of here for a bit.”

“You’re bloody right. I’m dying for a good soak and decent nosh. I’m based at the Holiday Inn here and the food is awful. How is it in Kiseljak?”

“The Danish Battalion runs the place so there’s good bread and lots of herring. I’ve had worse. You should come try it.”

“Is that an invitation?”

We were definitely flirting. I needed this.

January had been an endless routine of hopeless days. Speeding through ravaged villages in our armored car, I took copious notes for Victor as he negotiated with men who later ended up convicted of war crimes at The Hague. Meetings were held in a haze of cigarette smoke and usually in unheated schools and defunct factories like the one where I’d met Neil. Afterwards, Victor and I went back to our sandbagged office and drafted reports we faxed to UN headquarters in Zagreb, that sometimes were used to draw up agreements they warring sides mostly ignored. At first, I imagined we were making progress towards peace and found the work compelling. But nights I returned alone to my freezing flat that often had neither electricity nor water. As the war escalated, I began to feel like I was being swallowed up into the abyss of darkness and evil around me.

That morning in the airport, leaning against the frozen cinderblock wall, I shivered with a sense of possibility. Maybe this guy was the man of my dreams. In any case, he seemed a damn good prospect for the weekend.

“UNPROFOR flight is leaving. Please, make your way to the plane!” the soldier called from behind his desk, “Be quick!”

The Antonuv engine roared on the runway ready to lift straight up and out of range of bullets and mortars. Strapping on my blue helmet, I scurried through the tunnel of sandbags, sure Neil was behind me. Heart pounding, sweat trickling down my back in spite of the cold, I sprinted the open stretch of tarmac, imagining a drunken soldier about to take a pot shot at me. I jogged up the ramp to the plane, the metal rattling with each step. Setting my pack onto  webbed bench, I pulled off my helmet, shook out my brown hair and turned expectantly and immediately felt foolish. He wasn’t there. I peered out at the runway beyond the plane’s tail where he stood talking to two ruddy-faced men out on the open tarmac. Finally, they shook hands and Neil strolled to the plane.

“Sorry about that,” he said, leaning close to my ear so I could hear him over the noise of the engine. “They’re mates I haven’t seen in ages. I was an ODA convoy leader for a few months before taking the ICRC job and they were my drivers. Great lads. We had some laughs.”

The bellowing engine grew even louder. He reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a pack of Benson and Hedges, offering me one.

“No thanks!” I grimaced.

“Right, it’s a shit habit but I can’t quit now. Do you mind?” Without waiting for an answer, he shook the cigarettes, pulling one out with his teeth.

“No, but I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke on the plane.” I yelled, pointing to the international signs and Cyrillic letters that I surmised meant “no smoking” in Russian. He shrugged and lit up, motioning towards the cabin, “The Ruskie’s don’t care. Look at them up there puffing away.” Sure enough, cigarettes hung from the lips of the crew standing in the cockpit. Neil turned to me. “Are you married?”

I leaned back in mock surprise. “My! You get right to the point don’t you? All right then – no, are you?”

“Well, there’s no time to waste, is there?” He smiled. “I’m not married either. I was once – as a kid – barely eighteen. I have two beautiful, grown girls in England. I also lived with a bird up until about six months ago. It’s over now. She wanted to get married but I knew she wasn’t the one.”

Did he give me a meaningful look? I turned away to fuss with my backpack so he wouldn’t see me blush.

We looked out the same window, his face inches from mine. Thick eyebrows grew out in straight tufts over his hazel eyes lending a dash of seriousness to his gaze. He shifted closer and a scent of tobacco and cologne filled the shrinking space between us. The plane lifted off the runway and over the destroyed homes, blackened-walls of caved-in kitchens once full of warmth, bedrooms with love, now brimming with frozen snow. Our heads nearly touched as we watched the battered city disappear behind the clouds. How easily we get to leave the suffering behind, I thought with a pang of guilt. I stole a look at Neil’s handsome face as he peered out at the wreckage as if searching for something.

During the hour long flight, Neil told me jokes, did goofy magic tricks with a rag he found under his seat and probably would have done handstands to keep me laughing. By the time the plane landed, my cheeks ached from smiling and we’d agreed to rendezvous the following day. I couldn’t remember when I felt so hopeful about a date.

Nine months earlier I’d departed New York City with a broken heart, anxious to get far away from the man I loved who married another woman. From my position as a Public Information Assistant at UN headquarters, I applied to UN Peacekeeping Operations and was accepted to UNPROFOR – the mission in former Yugoslavia. As June temperatures cranked up, I felt glad to escape the heat and the subway’s relentless press of sweating humanity. And the mission took me far from reminders of my lost love.

It worked. The change of scenery and abundance of swaggering young soldiers from around the world not to mention my front seat to the woes of war, quickly put the pain of my failed romance into perspective. For the first few months I buried myself in work. But three seasons had passed and the harsh winter felt like it would never end. I longed for a little action not to mention some warmth during the frigid nights. Of course, I wanted more than a fling; I yearned for a bona-fide, monogamous relationship. For many years I’d been happy enough with my bohemian life, including almost 4 years of living in Kyoto, Japan. But baby longing changed everything. I wanted children. Preferably with a soul mate – if such a thing existed. But time was running out and I could not ignore the urgency of my diminishing fertility.

Yet I wasn’t ready to shut the door on adventure. I still wanted an interesting life. I imagined myself on a European street stepping out of my sun-filled flat for good coffee and bread, baby strapped against my heart. Peacekeeping Operations seemed as good place as any to connect with a man to fill in the blanks to make this dream come true. A war-zone may not be the first place most women would look to start a family but I thought it made sense for my fantasy future. Besides, the pool of men had to be better than the shark waters of NYC where I’d been swimming for the past four years.

I enjoyed flirtations with soldiers from the ranks of British and Danish battalions but imagining them sharing tales of conquest with their troop was enough for me to keep my distance. UN’s Kiseljak headquarters, a 70s style hotel designed to accommodate 200 guests now packed with over 600 soldiers, was too much of a fishbowl to mess around in. This handsome British man staying at the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo a half-hour drive away held promise.

My little old house is not air conditioned and this weekend was very hot. We have window units but they’re ugly and I don’t like the noise. Molly installed one in her room so if I get miserable, I can go in there and cool off. But I’m okay with heat most of the time and am content with the breeze of a ceiling and window fan. Besides, these scorchers make feel like I have permission to slow down. Yesterday I spent the whole day reading – something I never allow myself.

These hot days make me a more enthusiastic morning person. I always wake pretty early but rarely get up and into the world beyond a walk down the street with Rufus. But one day last week I was out early enough to take him for a longer walk along the river before work. I met the early morning scullers – few women my age and two men instead of the usual group of private school kids I see goofing around in the evenings. One of the osprey I’ve been watching since they moved onto the big industrial machine in the gravel pit, dove into the river and scored a fish. I stood and watched him deliver the flopping creature to the nest and then call to his family that breakfast was ready.

This morning Rufus got me up at the usual 5:30 hour with a bark from Molly’s air conditioned room. I took him for only a short walk, anxious to get to my plot in the community garden before the sun got too high. It’s a 5 minute drive on the highway with no traffic. Usually there are other gardeners either in the lower or top level plots but at that hour it was only me. The sun had yet to rise above the tree line. Perfect for weeding, fertilizing and harvesting the lettuce, the leaves breaking off with satisfying snaps. The crazy rains of last week followed by the heat were great for my plants. So gratifying after trying to do this at home for years with not enough light and too many greedy creatures.

My bag loaded with lettuce, a few peppers and exactly 3 cherry tomatoes, I drove to the beach to suss out whether I wanted to load up the kayak and get a paddle in before the Sunday crowds descended. No. Instead, I walked the almost empty length of it encountering other walkers – every single one greeting me warmly as if to welcome me to their morning parade all beating the heat and the crowds. And I thought (not for the first time) I should get up and do this every morning!

As I headed to the pier, a few fisherman were leaving. I asked one man pulling a cart loaded with his fishing gear behind him if he got breakfast. Just one, he said. And we wished each other a good day. I walked to Shady Beach (it is that and it’s called that) where you can rent a table. $5 for residents, $25 for non-residents. Some were already claimed with paper tablecloths weighed down by chafing dishes stacked and ready for what incredible food, I wondered. From past experience I conjured up the good food smells, sounds of music and laughter that would fill this space within a few hours.

Chairs in a circle set up for a party or maybe a religious service. I didn’t stick around to find out. I took the shady path back rather than walk along the beach and across the stretch of grass, there was a group of 5 older men talking loudly in Italian as they made their way along the sand, the joy of their friendship echoing across. I passed the volleyball court where a group cheered and jeered each other in an East Asian language I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet – how had they managed to muster the bodies and energy at this hour?

One man with a metal detector paced along a grassy knoll near the parking lot, searching for treasure. Further down the beach, another man was one bin ahead of the garbage truck behind him, dove in and rifled through for cans and bottles, lugging his black plastic bag.

I adore my rich and varied city on this early Sunday summer morning.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about something I saw about a week ago on BBC News. On a hill in Japan there is a  white telephone booth where the grieving go to call their deceased loved ones. The phone is located in northeastern Japan near to where thousands of souls were lost in the 2011 tsunami. Lives, whole villages, were wiped out in that nightmare wave. The booth is white and looks to be on a hill in the middle of nowhere and the phone connects to nowhere and nothing except the hearts of the grieving.

You can watch it for yourself here  but grab a tissue first. It’s a brilliant, poetic idea. A universal, non-denominational but literal space and ritual for the grieving. For those of us without a clear faith or physical grave to visit, it’s a beautiful notion.

I’ve been thinking about who I would call, what would I say? Of course, I sometimes ‘talk’ to those who I loved who died – mostly Rob and Neil – usually when I see something around the house or yard that sparks a memory of them. It’s not all sweet words, I assure you but I am heartened that my memories become more loving with the passage of time. But neither left unintentionally, gently and they both left some lingering havoc behind.

I am writing this on Father’s Day and Instagram and Facebook is filled with images of both living and gone dads captioned with proclamations of love and appreciation. I hate to be a spoiled sport since I was lucky enough to get this sweet treatment from my daughter on Mother’s Day and loved it, but these holidays can be hard for many of us with problematic relationships. I hit the jackpot on that – especially with the departed men in my life beginning with my father. Yes, obvious connections there and endless opportunities for the couch.

So what would I say into the telephone on the hill? I have questions. I don’t think I’d be like that dear, sad man calling his lost son, lovingly speaking speaking into the receiver. I imagine myself uncharacteristically quiet on the end of that phone line, waiting, listening and hoping for explanations, maybe apologies. And there would be silence or maybe the sound of the wind. Still, I’d try it.

The complaint is always that Spring is short – sometimes only days of freshness before the temperature sky rockets into Summer. I am not moaning. Nature does its thing magnificently and I feel exhilarated by the shift out of winter whenever it happens. Mornings are now a pleasure of light and bird song.

A quick walk with Rufus just as the sun begins to light up the street. He tugs the leash to reach his preferred corner of the hedge where he lifts a leg not noticing the chipmunk scurrying off into the wood pile. To my right I see a rabbit on the patchy lawn. They’re all over the place this year and seem very bold lingering like house cats on lawns in the neighborhood, their marble eyes almost haughty as we draw closer. Just try and catch me, they seem to say before turning to flash their cute white tail. No chance with this dog who’s no bigger then they are. The ground hogs are laying low so far this year although Molly spotted one she thinks lives below our back deck.

It’s the birds that thrill me most. My favorites are the catbirds – the crazy songs they come up with. And the wrens are sweet- so teeny with such an earnest song. A family returns every year to the same back corner where we once had a house for them – since rotted away. There are too many trees for a good vegetable garden here but it’s a bird paradise.

Rufus is obsessed with the squirrels. Included in our morning ritual, post early walk, feeding, quiet time for me and then up again to start the day, while I’m making my food for the work day, I put him out on the lead in front. At the door he turns into a screaming little banshee, so crazed to get out to chase the squirrels. He leaps off the porch and scrambles up between the trees, barking, barking, barking. I’ve asked the neighbors if he disturbs them and they say no – perhaps too kind to complain – but I’ll take it. It’s usually only a few minutes of crazy joy as he watches the many squirrels, my peach and pear thieves, scurry and chase each other through the branches and away from the annoying little dog. He will always try but never catch them.

 

Like a miracle, yesterday the sun appeared for a few hours in the afternoon and I seized the opportunity to mow the knee-high grass. The only problem was my lawnmower was barely functioning last Fall and had been sitting in the garage all Winter. I know there’s Spring maintenance necessary – out with the old gas, in with the new, etc. but I don’t do mechanical very well. I knew that since the thing is a bitch to start at the best of times, there was no way I’d get it to start up for me. But tucked further in the back of the garage was what I call the Barbie mower. It’s electric, very light and plastic like a toy- not a machine. Like if Barbie were to have a lawn mower. A kind neighbor showed up with it a few years ago when I’d asked for help in getting the gas one going. It’s not as powerful as the gas one and the whole extension cord thing is a real pain. But Barbie mower works. In fact, it works very well for my purposes. It’s basic and barrels over everything.

I wanted to mow my lawn is because I needed to add to my ‘lasagna’ plot but don’t want to ask for grass clippings from someone else as most of my neighbors and friends fertilize and use chemicals on theirs. I do not. I am not ashamed of my patchy lawn. You can eat from mine. And that’s what we plan to do.

After mowing, I did something I don’t ever do: I raked up the grass clippings. I usually leave them on the grass as mulch but I bagged yesterday’s bounty and took it to my plot to add another before the rains came. Today it’s been torrential and I don’t mind, imagining my lasagna garden cooking up nicely with yesterday’s added ingredient.

Shhh!

I came home from work and started binging on the Netflix Series, ‘Dead to Me’ – a dark, funny, thriller. It’s smart and on the mark about complicated grief, relationships, forgiveness.

“If he did, I didn’t see it.” Boy does that line ring true. Deception is also a theme. Oh, so much deception! I’m ruined for writing anything tonight. Beware of losing many hours of productivity – but seriously- watch it!

There’s a crabapple tree in full bloom at the end of my driveway. Out with Rufus for our morning walk, I pause under the white petals just beginning to fall like snow. The daffodils are mostly shriveled but the few tulips that survive the squirrels are sticking around a little longer this year due to the chilly days. But it’s these delicate blooms completely covering the tree that give me a pang, a sense of time moving too quickly. I could spend a day just watching, inhaling the pink tinged blooms. Is The fragility moves me and how their disintegration is so visible. By the end of the weekend I suspect fallen petals will carpet my cracking driveway.

I feel sentimental about lilacs too. My love of that flower inspires me to be a thief. I am planning my flower heist. Neighbors I don’t really know who live across the street have a wall of lilac shrubs. They are out of the country and the tenants they are renting to have yet to move in. I can see from my window they aren’t quite ready but in a day or so I’m going to wander over with my clippers and grab an armful of those beauties. I don’t think they’d mind, do you?

I am grateful it is a dreary morning on this May 1. Such a different day than fifteen years ago. That morning the temperature was warm and the early light, spectacular. And that morning, I found my husband.

May 1 – a day celebrating workers, over the hump into a month that really feels like Spring with the promise of flowers from the April rains. A happy day but for those of us who lived, laughed, fought with, prayed for and will always mourn, the loss of Neil, it will always be a sad day: the day he gave up and left broken hearts behind.

I woke from a dream somewhere in France to thinking about the blank page. I spent years studying, thinking about, staring at empty spaces – canvas, paper, blocks of wood and stone. Waiting for magic. Whether working from a live model, landscape or still life, I rarely made a mark until I felt the piece inside me, with a sense the mark, the chisel stroke, I made was already there. I aspired to this state of creativity but sometimes I was lazy or distracted and worked mechanically, just ‘making’ shape, light, dark with shallow results. But working from a deeper state – sometimes called ‘flow’, my teacher called ‘being’, resulted in my strongest work. Writing, I realize, is no different. What interests me is is still what comes from deep within. The mechanical difference for me is that I cannot stare at pages or my computer screen, waiting for words to appear. With writing I must dive in and start. Still, the meditative state is key. And these days, with this practice, I’m finding it easier to carry with me throughout the day like a sweet secret. This is the closest I come to a spiritual practice – writing begins to feel like a kind of prayer.