May 1 – Fifteen Years Later

Neil in Bosnia
Bosnia 1992

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.

Tuesday Morning Chill

A grey morning but for the glow of the newly green trees visible from my window. I peek out through half opened eyes but the desire to keep sleeping overpowers me and I slip down against the pillows. It’s tempting to go under for another dream but I allow myself only a few minutes before getting up to walk Rufus. I pull on a hooded jacket over a sweatshirt. Rufus pulls on his lead. The birds are singing Spring songs but my breath lingers as a visible cloud. It’s cold and it rained last night. I think of my garden plot across town and am glad I got the cardboard and newspaper down in time to capture this stretch of wet weather. I hold the memory of that work in the ache of muscles in my back from pulling the wheelbarrow through mud. I hear a woodpecker in the trees two blocks over. I love that sound as long as it’s not my house they’re drilling holes into. Rufus does not like a wet day. We turn and go back home. A short walk and glimpse of Tuesday morning.

Filling Emptiness

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.

Walking the Blog

I left this late – procrastinating with a lot of nothing and a little reading on a cold and dreary day. Then when I tried to get into my usual blogging portal I received an error message. Even after multiple tries, I couldn’t get in. Well that’s that, I thought, can’t write anything tonight. All day (well…every once in awhile) I’d thought about writing so part of me felt disappointed I’d be breaking my streak. So I’m in from another window.

The lazy sloth part of me thought, oh good, I’m off the hook – I can’t blog today and I didn’t know what I was going to write anyway. In truth, it almost always starts that way – staring at this blank screen with a big question mark. And that’s one of the points of this practice I’ve assigned myself: getting it done, working the muscle. So many excuses I can conjure here and for anything I don’t really want to do. This space is like my dog making me get up and out for a walk on a rainy cold day when I’m inclined to stay in my pajamas all day. Instead, he and I walked along the river bundled up against the cold and I was happier and healthier for the jaunt just like I am with little bit of yammering on here. Good night!

The Plot

A rain-free Saturday so I went to check out the plot I’d signed up for at our city’s community garden because there’s not enough sun at my place and I like the idea. Community. And dirt. It’s windy with gusts moving clouds through the sky so fast that one moment it looks like it’s about to rain and the next, the sun is bright.

My plot is in a lower field that right now is very very very wet. Please note puddle behind me. (thanks, Judith, for the great snap!) And it’s wet where I’m standing too. Lucky I wore my rubber boots because the water is over my ankle in places. When I’d imagined my little garden-to-be I envisioned a nice raised bed in need of a little soil and compost. Ha! It was a shoulder high weave of thick weeds. (to my right is the plot before) After attempting to yank and pull the plants out, I recalled the joys of lasagna gardening. I went home and retrieved cardboard and all those newspapers I was telling you about. I filled a few bags with the leaves I’d raked against the hedge in a bern and drove back to the garden. I spread the paper and a layer of leaves, (I should have brought more – please note the exposed cardboard still left to do) and then compost and some soil. There are more layers to add but it looks good, don’t you think?

Navigating the wheelbarrow full of mulch and soil through the thick puddles of mud was a challenge. I had to pull, not push, the wheelbarrow through the worst of the muck. It was quite a sight. Especially when one foot got stuck quicksand style and I almost landed on my ass. So close! I knew it was time to quit. Still, not a bad days work, eh?

Friday and Plans for the Weekend

Friday’s are lovely. While I hate to hurry the already quickly passing days along even more, I’m always glad to see the weekend. My job is great but days when there is no claim on my time are the best. This weekend is one of those. It’s even supposed to rain freeing me up from garden guilt. The grass is almost up to my knee but it’s wet so there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess I have to read the Mueller Report. (free download at B&N btw) I’m kind of joking. I do think it’s important to read it for ourselves rather than trust a 4 page assessment so I will give a shot between the blackened lines.

I’m also reading a book my friend recommended written by someone she knows who lost her brother to addiction who came back to speak to her. I never stop wondering and looking for insight about my own addicts and losses so I read on although I am not completely drawn in to her story. Death and beyond (or not) interests me and who am I to dismiss any of it? Light energy is certainly a recurring theme in religions and supposed reports. I’ll take light.

On my longer drives for work I am listening to Rachel Cusk’s Outline and find it beautiful although I sometimes get distracted by the different accents the reader adopts with mixed success. I find Cusk’s writing evocative of Virginia Woolf who I read obsessively in my late teens. I’d tried reading Outline when it first came out but didn’t have the appetite for it – nor would I for Virginia Woolf right now – but listening to it while driving through the streets of Connecticut is lovely.

Knocking on my guilt-door on weekends is always the New York Times. I never get all the way through it and have the magazine sections piled up from months. I keep thinking I’ll cancel and then decide I must support the important work of journalism while it’s taking a beating so I keep at it. And I do like seeing that blue bag at the end of the driveway on Saturday and Sunday. When I’m done with the newsprint I use it to start my fire in the wood stove when it’s cold and to layer over the weeds in the summer.

Forecast is rain all weekend and since I already cleaned my closet it looks like I can read. Are you reading anything good?

 

A Waking Ramble

In moments of almost-waking what a stream of images I recall! Sometimes a kind of story line with drama, emotion and characters. What’s going on in there? Where is this stuff coming from? Our subconscious is wild. Don’t worry, I will not tell you about my dream. Other people’s dreams are not interesting.

I did clock some hours with a therapist who found dreams rich fodder and asked me to remember and tell her mine. During those months I got pretty good at recall and would write them down but I am lazy about trying to interpret them. I just wanted her to do it and give me my insights. We are the author of our dreams, she would say. In fact, I rarely remember mine and since I stopped seeing her, I don’t much. But there’s no doubt, there’s a lot going in the night and it’s not a bad idea to cultivate value. At the very least, the freedom and imagination.

As if I were in a new exercise regimen noting my slimming and strengthening body (that’s next!) there are changes I see in just 4 days of this practice. Room has been made in my psyche that was previously filled with mostly thoughts about work or worry or food. I don’t want to jinx a good thing so I’ll stop there.

But the richness of slumber and how to roll into wakefulness without shutting out the crazy creativity, imagination, memories, spirit of those sweet hours of being checked-out of this world. Where do we go when we close our eyes to sleep?

First Dog Walk of the Day

Our little black pup Rufus, sleeps in Molly’s bed. As I’ve already told you, I don’t share my bed easily although when my daughter is away for the night I allow him to sleep at the foot. He tries to sneak under the blankets because Molly lets him snuggle under hers but I’ll have none of that, thank you.

I’m on morning dog-duty. By 6:30 or so I hear the double scratch and thud of his paws hitting the wood floor as he jumps off her bed. That’s my cue to get up fast and open Molly’s door before he leaves a puddle by the door of her bedroom. He can be a little bratty like that.

Thus I get out in the early hours of the morning. And a little bit out of myself as well. I appreciate stepping  into the breaking day. I look at the morning light, the new growth, taste the air and in a sleep daze, watch Rufus explore the same old shrub. This morning, off in the sky to the South I saw a large bird that glowed white in the sunlight or maybe it actually was a white bird. Perhaps it was an egret.

This morning I was wearing pajama bottoms with ducks on them, my bare feet stuck into really ugly old UGGS, a belted black jacket and a scarf wrapped around my neck although it was not cold after all. My hair was unbrushed but there are just 3 houses facing a wood on the street we wander down and all of us neighbors have seen each other in every mood, hour and season over the years. I don’t feel self-conscious. A perk of getting old.

Rufus knows the morning jaunt is a short one and turns back towards the house after taking care of business. By then, the kettle is boiled and I make tea.

Spring View From My Windows

It happens so fast. Only days ago my three bedroom windows framed bare branches and sky and just across the way, houses and flashes of car passing between them were still visible. This morning in the early light, all that has changed. Blurred by a range of new-leave-greens, I barely make out the houses. I watched the woody limbs of my trees grow thick with buds and now the Maple tree closest to my window drips spider-like flowers. The cars in the driveway will soon be dressed in pollen.

The privet hedge is filling in and I remember the daunting task of pruning the damn thing. It’s messy, exhausting work taking a full day and then more to pick it all up. I don’t hate it and always feel accomplished and strong when I’m done although my arms ache for days after. The lush length of wall it creates between the street and our yard is worth the effort. We sit on our porch in privacy, summer into fall.

There’s an insidious ivy that pops up everywhere and creeps over everything. I imagine it will swallow all of this when I am too feeble to yank out the vines. The patch besides the driveway is mostly cleared of it after a day of pulling it out this weekend. I transplanted day lilies, hosta and other tough perennials in the bald spots hoping they’ll spread and beat out the pesky stuff. People buy this plant – I see it for sale at the garden center. Don’t: I have plenty – come and get it!

When I climbed into bed last night, it was cold and rainy and I kept my socks on. This morning, I kick off the blankets and open the window. The sky is clear and the day promises to be warm and sunny, speeding up this Spring business even more. Not only the view but the sounds are changing too. The almost comforting white noise of highway traffic will muffle and breezes will become audible in the rustle of leaves. I’ll miss easily watching the birds in the bald branches but they are such vain things, wanting to be noticed, they’ll sing louder to let me know they are there.

Cleaning Closets

It’s easier to get up early now that the weather is warming up and the light starts breaking by 5:45. That’s when I woke this morning, limiting myself to only one hit of the snooze button. The winter cold disappeared last week so when I sit up in bed I don’t have to pull blankets up around my neck and can’t see my breath.

I used to get up and out of bed to sit downstairs and write, settling in at my desk with a cup of tea, then hammering away at the computer keyboard. I didn’t want to disturb Rob by writing in the room. I am happy to stay put in bed now, fluffing up the pillows behind me and even turning on the light if I need to.

I sometimes miss having a man I love beside me in life – but not so much when I wake up in the morning. Certainly I miss the good times, when the guys I loved were healthy and their breathing or sleep-twitching didn’t seem suspect. While it would be nice one day to fall so in love again that I want to share my bed, it’s hard to imagine actually liking someone so much I’d want them in my queen snoring beside me every morning.

And share my closet? How did I do that for 20 years? Especially with Neil. He loved and had more clothes than me. I spent part of the weekend purging and organizing my closet. I have before and after photos but they’re not loading so you’ll have to believe me that I had a lot of stuff plus more in there. It’d been years – or forever, I can’t remember which, since I pulled everything out. Then I washed the crevices and even vacuumed the ceiling. If I really had my act together, I would have painted but I decided not to get crazy. Why did I think I had to keep plastic bins of tax papers in my closet? That shit’s now in the basement! Get moldy, I don’t care. Twenty-two years of sharing my limited closet space with tax returns and supporting documents. Marie Kondo, I need you! Did you read her book? I didn’t find it compelling enough to get beyond a few chapters but the gist of it is helpful and I still swear by her folding techniques.

What got me into the closet was the need to swap out seasons. I always prefer the winter to summer swap. I have way too many of both seasons’ clothes even after purging the no-spark-joy pieces. Maybe I need to read another chapter or two. Yes, I still have the book years later even though it doesn’t particularly spark anything for me except maybe guilt. It’s a book I may want to look at again so I kept it. Along with the other hundreds I have all over this tiny house. That might be where Kondo-san lost me.

I did purge some clothes channeling the Queer Guys. Have you watched that? I’m a fan. I want them to remake my life. Although I don’t think I’m that much of a mess, I did add my capri length pants to the Goodwill pile because I heard their voices in my head chastising all of us older women who still wear them, not too. They’re right: it’s not a good look. Be-gone! Besides, they were a little tight. The thing about all the clothes hanging in my closet now is that they all need ironing. Cotton and linen. The need to iron is the only downside to what is otherwise for me, the preferred seasonal wardrobe change. I have to now allow for ten extra get-ready minutes required in the morning but I’ll take it over woolies and cords.

What do you keep in your closet?

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