,,, and Loma Linda has the jewel

Leon came up to LA with his dad today
and explained all the paperwork so nicely
and his kind papa, so proud at the purchase of the
12 cylinder gas guzzler by his ample son
sat quiet , reciting psalms under his breath, while
we finished the paperwork,
Leon Tuppence, and there is a name,
handed me lots and lots of 100
dollar bills and that was that.

the perfect spot for the JAG really.
with Leon in Loma Linda
there dwells the same good heart
the same belief that there is salvation
in a sleek white ride
he says he will send me pictures.

and so it goes and it went.

and the balance of the day reconnecting with
a man i haven't seen in over thirty years
and then tonight my new play festival
and those kids trying to act so cool and
really so deeply surprised and delighted
that they have a place to
be heard
to get the words on a stage and into the world

not a bad day all in all

the next mountain to climb is placing the ashes
in a plastic canister
into a bautiful box and slipping them in the ground
with no one noticing
i choose dawn alone with a cuppa
and a quick slide into the earth before the sun is up
while the fog still embraces us and i can pretend that the
ashes in my hand are not the body that i embraced
that held me and warmed
to the way my feet fit under
his arch
and the bent finger that won my heart
that finger, damaged in the ceramic studio-- like so much else--
that finger bent
when i first saw it caused me to exclaim sympathetically--
' no worries" said t,' it let's me point around corners."
and that, that finger that was the reason i married the man.

so odd this insistence that we are up to the reality of such reality
a wife to hold the ashes of a husband
a husband to scatter a wife at sea

not for me. i never wanted ash to be poured from plastic to urn
and have me pretend not to wonder where is eyeball and where is bone.
i prefer the other fantasy of boxes lowered and earth tossed
as that ritual at least connected me with ages of ritual i understand
i don't think i was ever an Indian on the Ganges in any life.

so i choose dawn, solo and the mist softening the edges and
then a run far away until next year when the stone is set and
then, again , there i have a ritual to follow,
a script, an expectation and
understanding...

and yes, i know i am setting ritual for my daughter
but the whole exercise leaves me pitless and limp
and not happy to contemplate

sat kaddish , says the rabbi
magnify and sanctify His name
to avoid the idea that the dust between my fingers
once held my hand and laughed with me in the shower.

but no dawn for me.
bright sunday sunlight and bulldozers near by
and the sweet latino jardineros waiting on the side for me to say the words
place the box and be gone

no, rituals help. i highly recommend them
a treasure map of familiarity to help you thru the days
when these days come to you
as they do to and for us all.

but that's a few weeks from now
and life is waiting between now and death

they say it's your birthday..

.. and so it is.
flowers and emails and wishes and greetings from many
many remembering
and reaching out to us and so many thanks for that.
my daughter even sent flowers
with a note to crush any wall of toughness
any scab that might have settled on the wounds.

oy vey
i have hesitated to write as
the ache and moan of the everyday
become wearing for all of us
but


i started the day strong, with posters of love from my sweet girl
mamacards on the breakfast table and my bedroom door

and sprigs of orchids from cautious friends wanting to ache with me
but respecting my need to isolate
then the club for lunch with perfect friend and
more perfect niece and the phone rings
to introduce me to Leon from San Bernadino, a
large black round lovely
retired real estate developer
who drove 90 miles into
town to check on the JAG and want to take it home with him.
and he loves it
the car purrs, says Leon, and I weep for the joy of it
for the purr fect fit of it
for the sweetness of the buyer and loss of the driver
and we sit at Baja Fresh, big Leon and smart Dennis
and caring niece to balance me as I sign agreements to
let the JAG have a new life

tho the roof is broken and yet more and more
and there are cracks in its grill
but Leon assures me he LOVES the JAG
and will pet the JAG
and make the beast beautiful and whole and
so the JAG will go to San Bernadino
in a week or two and another palpable piece of planet Tony
will move away from us.

tonight i will gather with heart filled friends
and we will be bathed in the sounds of a sweet cello
the perfect man found to play for me
for us
so we can hear ourselves tonight of all nights

the blessings abound

and i read the book that tells me the primary and only
relationship that will sustain is that of oneness with the universe
where all love lies
which i understand-- that is stand under and look up to comprehend
and yet have trouble elevating
when the door does not open and
the bell does not ring and
he does not walk back in to our house and
tell me that he is come from yet another screening
and speaks too loud on the phone.
still it is relief to see his exhaustion gone
but
to feel his presence fading, mutable
that differently hollow
such is widowhood month one

so many solo people in the world
the luxury of coupling is much respected
and perhaps meant to be enjoyed in cycles of instruction.
and destruction
and construction.

my garden is in full blossom
oh the joy of it
i enjoy the print by meinraad craighead on my wall
'come gather my ripe harvest
in all it's many colors'

blessings
amen

so it's been a week....

...since i've written and was wondering
when i would get back to this
very public very private display
of this very private and yet quite public event.

it has been a month now,
since he's gone and
new tragedies have started crowding the landscapes-
parents with strokes
children with cancer
and the flowers blooming anyway

T told me he checked the blog to see how it was all going


to see how he felt
and what was next and inside ourselves
and he is gone now
and i realize that this blog was his
an expression of him and the way in which he
intersected with his world
and experience.

and i am not him
i am what's left of a part of him

my gash is more gaping perhaps than most
but as i inch along the snail-y trail of tears
i move more and more from him
into myself and

so my words, revelations, abilities to share
discoveries to acknowledge become
more focused and more mine
less, ours


i am not sure of all the ways i will be me
separate from Tony
it is all in the mix at the moment

but it is figuring out the new voice that stops me from
flippantly reporting on internal shifts and
magic elixirs applied as in the Hogwarts infirmary-
poof! you have a new leg.

my new legs, arms, heart are not yet buds
only yet stumps, amputated--bloody, coagulating

and though i look down the hallway toward the light
i am still in the corridor looking backward and forward
paralyzed by then, now and maybe and
the galloping galloping as fast as i can

all of this is to say

hello
i'm getting new

and not sure who will come out the other end of this tunnel
and if walking the damp corridor makes sense
in silence or with friends

so stay tuned if you like
but know the voice is different now

the birds do sing in the dark, thru the night around here
that i do know from the many nights i was up with them
blazing through the night in my garden office

but i am sleeping now
curious
and i just an not sure what i am hearing
and what i have to say

xxoos

am off for the weekend

so sof is off to sf for her choir weekend
and i am off to school and then a spa weekend

walks thru the huntington gardens today
wine and cheese and trying on new patterns
on the patio
at the end of the day

am still not getting phone messages
so email remains best way to be in touch.

sh-h-h-h-hh

what to say

not sure how to report in on the day to day
of living from here to there
to report on the rewiring of the heart
and the way music finds its way underneath
the cellular structure of the heart
and how strong i feel in the house and
how the strength drains away the
farther from the energy base that i go.

not sure how to write about grief
and quiet and the sound of the wheels on
the road when NPR is off and there is nothing but the sound
of the Audi, T's Audi, car moving along the road.

the tasks of transition almost done
death certificates sent out
money on its way
taxes being attended to
and most closets cleaned

and then taking up the tasks of
everyday
rewired
that is probably the best way to describe this time
a time of rewiring and shorting out
and replugging and unsure about where the unused wires are supposed to go.

certain things are true
conversations are heard in a different light
talk of minor illness, the illness that is comforting somehow
as it defines our time of life
that kind of illness seems welcomed by many
confused and unsure how to accept the next stage of life.
an old concern, different for me now

there is a certainty about what connects
listening to the music and prayers in a shabbat service
is like having my skin peeled
in a weird ritual of relief kind of way

there are new awarenesses about
spirit and slotting growth

there is a quiet and a boring into the heart
that is both painful and liberating i suppose

there are still the details of loss to handle
choosing the plot
wording the stone for my husband
and moving from place to place to place

my turn pushing the wheel
omigod

yes yes fine

things come in waves
standing at the rail of santa monica pier and
telling a re-newly in love friend of
T's passing and watching the waves as my friend
stood strong and connected so rooted by his new love
and watching the waves as they washed the pelicans off
their dives and dared them to dip in again.

business stuff coming clearer
that good
and the rest comes and goes

not allowed to write about my daughter
but always good to check in there

blessings

a poem by James Wright

this came from my friend Richmond Hoxie today:

A Blessing
by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the youg tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
---------------------------------------------

I am moving furiously through my days
cleaning, shoving
hacking up old memories and cleaning out cobwebs
it is alternately invigorating and nauseating
and soon there will be nothing more to clean
and nothing more to rearrange
and he will still be gone and
that time of our lives gone and over.
That is enormously difficult
and I long to break into blossom already..
and be done with it before I have even begun.

so what are we too too mortal flesh anyway

in the mitzvah log
we write
candace today
and barbara
who came to my house and
scrubbed and organized and rearranged and honored and helped me to open
just a little bit more
the heart chakra
stiff

(and then pryed open by my chiropractor- yikes the tears float like a river)
and we--candace and I
we opened boxes and looked at old pictures
and found images of the beginning and middle and then the end
we looked at the beauty of our youth--T's and mine--
the people we looked like when we met
before we met
how we held each other and looked at each other in the thrall of love.
i discovered the notes that i had secreted to my sweetheart so many years ago
a note from our honeymoon i didn't know he had kept
a strip of hot pix from the photo shoot I did the week i met him
the notes and cards i had slipped him thru the years
wishing love, asking forgiveness, pledging adventure,
trusting him with the bluebird of happiness... all these notes he kept
and had squirreled away in small corners, beneath piles of too many tee shirts and
behind stacks of old magazines.
i found all those notes and images that we shared and
he valued.. we valued and shared and are palpable, small reminders of the
human state we shared.
so lovely
loving

and so difficult to show up to enjoy it when you're living it.

we often joked that Tony had a great honeymoon and
i wouldn't know.. 'cause I didn't go on the same trip.
And sometimes I think that happened.. often during our years.
But then, that is marriage and that is loving and pushing and scraping toward
the next stage of living.

and i look at those pictures and i recognize myself still
though I guess others don't see the same person.
that is the luxury of longtime loving.
T saw that young person, the soul behind it
and I saw him the handsome beauty man always.
that is good,
that is what our partners hold for us-- the image of our beauty that
the skin and flesh hold for a while but then
the image goes into the soul and the aura of the loved one and
that is what we see-- that aura we carry with us and that's a great thing
because things aren't quite as cute on the flesh level as they once were.
ah well--
i have been seen. at least once and that is such an honor.
may you all have the same joy.
and may that beauty follow you all the days of your life.
me, too.

xxoo
s