Forever 51

I got to spend 32 of those 51 with you.

It wasn't enough, but I'm grateful beyond measure to have had them.

Happy Birthday, darlin'.

I'll always love you and I will always miss you.

You will remain as last I saw you...forever 51.

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween.

His favorite.

Memories of how he'd take the week off the decorate the yard.

I didn't even light a pumpkin this year.

I miss him and how Halloween used to be, feel and taste.

Is there a Bah Humbug for Halloween?

Brick Walls, Gnats and Gratitude.

What does one have to do with the other?


See that picture?

Pretty much my week.

Brick walls…everywhere…pounding my head…turning me sideways…drowning me in their persistent chomping at my nerves.

Nothing earth shattering…just a plethora of irksome annoyances likely to be as costly as they have been nagginly irritating, monotonously sleep robbing and emotionally draining.

Vehicles in need of expensive repairs…yes…vehicles…plural...family member in minor crisis…conundrums to be solved...nerves rattling...stuff…yanno...LIFE. Gnats fractiously swarming my eyes, nose and brain cells.

Then...as I jockeyed traffic for my position on the off-ramp to work late in the week...it hit me...I have a job...one that I wasn’t looking for when the universe brought it to my door. I get paid for doing something I don’t mind doing with people I don’t mind being around. I have a skill they need and the physical ability to show up every day, do my thing and then go home. Though I’ll never get rich from my labors, if I’m diligent in how I pick each tiny pest from my shirt, I can both help who needs helping and take care of my own nettlesome little gnats to boot.

Gratitude...I need to practice gratitude.

Things could be a lot worse.

Unwritten

"Unwritten"
Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten.
Flip the page to the next chapter that is the book of my life… empty…nada…nothing…a blank canvas waiting for the next stroke of fate’s pen.

Exciting.

Scary.

Yet…is it fate or the more purposeful plodding forward that will determine the tone of the scribblings placed there by the muses of the future?

What do I want my life to say about me…the woman who inhabits these bits of bone and skin…the being who takes up such an infinitesimal space in this magnificent, boundless universe?

Once upon not so long ago I did not care. It made not one whit of difference to me what the pages of my life might read. Jim’s death robbed me of the willfulness to chart my own map and I became nothing more than a bit of flotsam in the current of life.

Healing took time. Wallowing in pain, sorrow and self pity I buried that willful, outlaw child I once was among my husband’s ashes. Yet…somewhere deep within the scarred shell she clung to the small bit of hope that dimly lit the cavern in which she was entombed.

Without looking back into my journal I cannot say exactly when the shell began to crack. I do recall writing that I had to find a way to make Jim’s life mean more than his death. Jim loved life…I’ve written that many times in the last 5 years. Three heart attacks could not dampen his enthusiasm for this world and the people in it. How could I…out of my own love for him…do any less?

You’ve read my words in this blog…you know how I have struggled with finding balance…serenity…peace…and joy again. I still struggle at times.

The one thing I know for certain is that I do not want to look back on those pages and wish I had written something else.

Having said all that, I find I find myself still searching for the key to living a more creative life. Call it inertia…lack of motivation…plain old laziness…I have not taken one creative step forward in weeks. So many things pique my curiosity…photography…wire jewelry…simple mosaics…all of which I have some rudimentary knowledge but would like to learn more…perhaps even enough to make a humble, part-time living.

What is it that holds me back? How is it that I don’t seem to push myself beyond the basic research into classes that will teach me what I want to learn? Where is the stumbling block?

You will be surprised…maybe…that in the examination I admitted the answer lies within myself.

Fear…yes…fear…as much of succeeding as failing.

Now how whacked is that?

Time for one of those boot kicks I’m so famous for giving to others.

No more excuses.

No more “one day when I have time”….

I am now financially committed to 12 weeks of classes on jewelry making through the art school at our little Podunk art museum here in town.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2.

Keeper of the Memories

36 years

37 ½ if you start from the day we met.

Keeper of the Memories. The family historian.

It’s my job now to remember all the special days and keep them in my heart. No one reminds me...no one shares their own memories of those days special to the two of us unless I ask. It’s not so much they don’t remember or that they think it will hurt ME to remember them…it hurts them.

Don’t mistake that I am upset about that. I knew when he died it would come to me to remember and think upon them. Mine to look at the memories as if opening a treasured photo album and pour over the pages of our life together.

36 years. A lifetime as the clock ticks. An instant in the mind.

Two opposite and vivid memories stick in my mind from that day.

My father had started a fight with the Best Man, who in the end, only stuck around for the wedding and then left. I was furious with my dad as the processional started….right up until I looked at Jim’s face.

He stood smiling at the head of the aisle I was about to walk. Waiting for me at the other end, just as I imagine him doing now.

I clearly recall thinking…”this is it…this is the day I begin my life as me and our lives as us.” (along with “I can’t wait to get this man”…meaning my dad…”off my arm.”)

No nerves.

No fear.

Only joyous anticipation of the years we would spend together.

I regret not one day of it.

Through the good, the bad, the magical and the mundane I have not a single regret save the one that involves not having had enough time with him.

This is my 6th anniversary without him. While there is a sadness for what is lost, there is a fuller measure of great joy for the time we were gifted to have together.

He was a good man.

I would not have missed this dance for anything in this world.

Happy Anniversary, Jim.

Unexpected Anniversary

When Jim died I never expected nor dreamed I would want to be in a relationship again at my age.

Sometimes the universe has other ideas.

Today marks 3 years for the Handyman and I.

When first we met I had no idea love would come rushing in the door while I was busy looking elsewhere. At that point I had come to a place where being ME was beginning to feel very OK. I thought my life was headed in a different direction. (not the first time I have been deluded by that though, BTW) Then you casually took my hand to help me from that van and I realized I was headed somewhere else. I neither expected nor anticipated finding love again along this path.

Throughout these 3 years we have laughed, danced, dared to love, argued, adventured and worked our way together into a very comfortable space...like a favorite well worn sweater or comfy quilt. You are my friend as well as lover and partner and I am grateful for the gift.

I have learned a lot from you in processing my own thoughts about how we got here, looking at the world through a different lens and keeping my life in the here and now.

We have been through some interesting times between your children and mine. Blending them into a family is still a work in progress, but not one fraught with the angst that so many others of our kind have and still face. I am grateful that their wishes for our combined happiness have come to outweigh any concerns they may have had about it not being their respective parent who got to spend this fall and winter of our lives together.

I look forward with gladness in my heart to whatever future is meant to be between us on the rest of this journey.

 

I wrote these words not long before we made our relationship permanent 3 years ago. They are as true today as they were then.

I will be a rock for you to lean on

When times are hard and your heart is sad.

I will be a refuge from the storms

That life and past sorrows bring

In the course of the day.

My arms will hold you without reservation

And keep you safe and warm

When nights are cold and deep.

I give you my love without strings or walls

To keep within your heart

For the length of our days together.

I give you all freely and without doubt

To treasure and keep as you will.

I will regret nothing, for the choice is mine

To keep my heart or give it away

I choose to give it to you.

Thank you for the gifts you bring to my life. I will savour the love and companionship we share for what ever time the universe graces to give us.

Happy Anniversary.

Echos of the Past

4th of July

Independence Day

Families, food and fireworks

Nostalgia

A scrapbook collage piecing the present with the past.

Vignettes highlighting my Handyman playing ping-pong with my nephew’s young children…too young to remember Jim…side by side with memories of Jim laughing with my nephew and his friends 4th of July’s long past.

Scenes set with Himself chatting with Grandmonkey’s first real boyfriend introduced to the family in the time honored tradition of a holiday get together superimposed over Jim and our daughter’s first.

Images of the Handyman and my brother-in-law, heads bent towards each other across the patio table, deep in conversation etched beside the recall of Jim and Bruce on the deck smoking and talking.

Driving home through the night was as if entering a tunnel of time slicing through sights, sounds and smells of July evenings long ago. Children’s laughter as they scamper through the darkness lit by sparklers stinging their hands. Sulphur from the last of the fireworks sending bursts of starlight into the night sky commingled with scent of hot dogs, hamburgers and watermelon hanging gently on the summer air. Barbeque grills dimly glowing from the lingering embers of the day’s cooking…a flip book turned backwards to be viewed in reverse.

I’d be lying if I said there was not a mist to my eyes in the remembrance… a gentle, aching tug at my heart for all that is gone. Yet, there is a comforting gratitude for the love surrounding that past life that also hugs this present life…a solace in the replay and digesting of the truth that life continues a well worn path even through the tragedies of our hearts.

Remembering a time not so long past when it was not so, I am thankful for the memories of a love stored among the treasured relics within my heart and grateful for that which remains to be written.

“My cup runneth over.” (Gena Rowlands…Hope Floats)

Lessons Learned

Yesterday was our son’s birthday.

27

Gack.

When did THAT happen?

I had lunch with him today. I love having lunch with my son. He’s great fun to be around. He likes to laugh just like his dad. Life surrounds him. We talk of so many things including his life plans.

We spoke of his dad and how hard this 5 year thing seems to be…like constantly being poked by the Grief Monster with a pointy little stick.. (Daughter has said the same thing.)

We spoke of the lesson’s we’ve learned on this journey. Amazingly his are really no different than mine.

We decided:

Life’s short.
Death sux.
Tears are cleansing.
People matter.
Family is important.
Love lives on.
Laughter is healing.
Joy is there if you look for it. (this one takes time)

I will never take any of those things for granted ever again should I live to be 100. (which is a distinct possibility considering the longevity of my maternal genes.)

We made wonderful kids together. I’m glad they’re more like their Dad than me. He was a good man.

I miss him.

Beyond the Ridge

I swear I don't know where these are coming from.

Have I turned another corner, but am not yet aware of what it is?

Who knows.

Here's today's:

Beyond the Ridge
I wait just beyond the ridge for you

No matter where you tread

I’ve already been there

A step ahead to check the way

This road is long, filled with snags

To trip and cause you pain

Curved and winding, steep and jagged

To steal your breath away

Many feet have trod this path

This one so rocky and steep

Many tears have washed these stones

Same as the ones you weep

You are not alone along the way

For many walk here as you do

Seeking peace for a heart tired and sore

Company as the journey continues on

I do not leave a visible path

The way must be your own

And I will be there when at last

You find your way back home

Always

Poetry has come to me since Jim's death almost exclusively when I have been feeling sorrowful.

What I wrote today has come from a place not so dark and not from my own point of view. I find myself surprised.

Always

I am as I always was
Near unto your heart
Behind the chair
My hand on your shoulder
As always I was in life

I am as I always was
Loving you dear and true
Though my body left this place
My spirit is always within you.

I am as I always was
Your harbor in the storm
My light within in yours
To guide your path to mine

I am as I always will be
Alive within your dreams
Warm, breathing, strong
Holding you as you sleep

I am as I always will was
Are and will be
The compass to your ship
Upon this turbulent sea

Fear not losing your way
To land on stranger shores
My light lives within you still
To find the place where you will stand
Afraid to live no more.

Ruminations on 5 Years

May 24, 2007.

5 years today.

How did I get here?

Once upon a time I could not imagine 5 minutes without him let alone 5 years. Yet, today, I am grateful…for his life…for mine…for the ones we shared together.

5 years.

And, I am still standing.

His memory in my soul is as fresh as it was the day we met.

He survived 3 heart attacks only to be taken by the living thing he feared most in this world…

A snake.

He would find a darkly humorous irony in that.

5 years.

I still miss him more than there are words to express.

His own words, written at the death of his cousin/friend almost a year before his own, not found until at least a year after, live with all the other cherished memories of the man who touched my heart:

"Here is my wish for the family ~ Each morning as you look into the mirror may you see him looking back at you, for he is a part of each of you. Each night just as you drift off to sleep may you feel a gentle kiss on your forehead. May you feel his hand on your shoulder urging you on in life until the time he can hold you once again in his arms."

To my Jim…December 3, 1950 ~ May 24, 2002.

I will always love you and I will always miss you…you remain the better part of me.

Reality

Daily Horoscope for Sagittarius

It may seem like the firm foundation that you have been seeking is very close, even if it's still just out of reach. You nostalgically long for a lost certainty that could guide you through the choices ahead. But your potential growth may depend on your flexibility and your willingness to let go of your dream for stability. Be open to fulfillment in the present moment and not in some distant future. Monday, April 9, 2007

Yanno…it’s really inconvenient when my horror scope gets into the crevasses of my mind and ferrets out where my fears live. Even more inconvenient when it prints it out there in black and white making me look at it.

Since the world turned upside down almost 5 years ago a sense of firm foundation is something I have struggled find.

I liked my old life, dammit.

It was good…it was bad…it was fun...it was a pain…it was normal...it was crazy…but beneath it all was the foundation of me and him…him and me…Jim and Jo…Jo and Jim.

When Jim died, I felt as if what kept me stable had been vaporized from beneath the house that was our lives.

Despite my own frugality and eventual sound handling of ¼ of the salary I was used to living on…I lived in fear of making an economical mistake of such a catastrophic nature to land me on the streets with no home and no way of caring for myself. (Stephen King is alive, well and living comfortably in the confines of the sumtimes useless gray matter passing itself off as my brain.)

I used to tease my younger sister of being so tight with a dollar that it wouldn’t pass through an opening the width of a baby’s hair. I’ve come to regret that teasing with the unwelcome reality that I now emotionally live where she did for so many years as a single parent.

As much as I fancy myself a free spirited, fly by the seat of my pants, grab the brass ring kinda woman…there is also a sort of sea anchor behind me. While I continue to refuse to miss out on the joy that can be found in this altered life, I still struggle with the balance of living with abandon in the here and now and concern for being able to take care of myself in the nebulousness of time.

There is no longer the innocent, blind trust that there will always be someone there to catch me when I fall.

Welcome to Reality.

Happy Birthday, Lover

3 years ago you took my hand and haven’t let go since.

How do I tell you how much your presence in my life means?

How do I tell you the depth my love for you reaches into my heart?

How do I tell you how grateful I am for the joy you add to my day?
Your voice, your laugh, your smile, your soft blue eyes…they all speak to me each time I see you.

Perhaps these words will do.

Click the link below for the song:

Everything I Do: "1. (Everything I Do) I Do For You - Bryan Adams
"

I love you.

Evolution?

It has to be one of the great ironies of my life that my husband had to die for me to get what he tried to teach me for the entire breadth of our marriage…

I am a person, complete and whole unto myself…

Loving and caring for another person in your life is a compliment to the person you are…not the completion of it.

After 5 years without him in mine…I finally understand.

Sometimes I am such a slow witted, dumb fuck.

Memories

In the back of a dark closet a memory patiently slept for me to rediscover and unzip its contents this morning....

My wedding dress...

Sitting on the floor fingering the aging lace on the simple, high bodiced, oh-so 70's A-line dress my dearest aunt so lovingly made for me to wear that stereotypically sunny, Southern California Saturday afternoon, July 31, 1971 came flooding back as if it were yesterday...

sights…

smells...

sounds...

feelings...

memories...

such loving memories...

so many folks now gone who shared that day with us…

not the least of those the man for whom the reason existed...

and memories of another day nearly 31 years later for which he was also the reason…

memories…

20 years old...

I thought I knew so much about life back then...

sigh

So long ago and yet…

still…

yesterday…

The lessons learned since that day.

And, yet to not know the more to life at all.

Standing in the sunlight of those precious memories…I miss him.


The Way We Were (Barbra Streisand)

Mem'ries,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?

Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

So it's the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember...
The way we were...
The way we were...

I'll never forget.

Phases

Phases…I’m going through them again. Full moon…waning to the unseen New Moon…waxing again to that which is full.

Serenity flees when I don’t feel well. Unsettled and mentally disorganized.

I swear that little “germ” was driving a half-trac…all over my bones.

I hate being sick…it makes me whiny, wimpy and weepy…brings back shadows lurking behind unseen corners.

Even so…the visit is short…stronger for every fall back into the grey mists of memories, I look for that well worn path and come right again…or as right as I’m going to get at any rate.

Searching Rhapsody for some Outlaw Music to bring some bounce to my step…there it was…

A file named…

Grief Music

aka Music to Cry By…

aka Songs for Dark Nights of the Soul…

Guaranteed to drag me into the black, oily bog of the swamp of death’s misery much the same as an alligator submersing its prey into the watery deep until rot and bloat soften it for razor sharp teeth tearing into bits of edible fodder.

(sigh)

No need to open it…I know what’s in there:

I Grieve – Peter Gabriel
Angel – Sarah MacLachlan
I Miss My Friend – Daryl Worley
Grace of God – Keith Urban
You’re Still You – Josh Groban
To Where You Are – Josh Groban
Remember When It Rained – Josh Groban
Chances Are – Bob Seger
Against the Wind – Bob Seger
Ventura Highway - America

The list goes on…so many more…many, many more…

Hours of music for one demented enough to listen to them on purpose.

I was…I did…hour after hour…tear after tear.

Ending with the one whose video is guaranteed to put me on the floor:

Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way – Leann Rimes

I probably wouldn't be this way
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad
I never pictured every minute without you in it
Oh you left so fast
Sometimes I see you standing there
Sometimes I feel an angel's touch
Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much
God gave me a moment's grace
Cause if I'd never seen your face
I probably wouldn't be this way

Somehow feeling the pain helped me feel the love. I needed it to be connected to him in a way I could not seem to feel otherwise; swallowed in memories of a past gone in the space between heartbeats with no thought of a future in sight.

Looking back from the vantage of almost 5 years, I can only wonder how much mental health was truly found in those purposeful sojourns down that hall of horrors. Why did I feel the need to subject myself to the self-flagelation of that masochism when I was already haunted by the sheer absence of his presence in this house, in my heart, in my soul…in my life…at every turn.

Madness.

Pure…simple…grieving madness.

That folder has not been opened in well over a year…mayhap even two. I don’t feel that tug…the need to deliberately drag myself down that dark road…more to the truth of it…I don’t WANT to visit that place any more…there is nothing living in that place..

His life…his love…his essence…live right here…inside me.

I could toss it…but, don’t.

Yet, just like that cedar chest full of memories I know it’s there. In some shadowy and twisted manor I am comforted by thought that I can go to either if I am yet again willingly decided to torture myself.

It is fact that…

Life will never be the same.

I will grieve his loss the rest of my life. Yes...grieve...actively missing his physical presence here with me. Actively learning to live without him in my living, breathing world.

I am not the woman now I was then.

It is also fact that I live…I breathe in rejuvenating, living air…life has color, texture, richness to it once more…I’ve even allowed myself the daft decadence of thumbing my nose in death’s maleficent face and loving again.

I WILL survive…I DO survive.

All because he loved life…saw purpose in experiencing joy…loved me...and I loved him… always will.

Perhaps it’s time to make a file called Songs That Make Me Smile.

In the mean time I’m listening to Gretchen Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Bonnie Tyler, Annie Lennox, Emmy Lou Harris and every other strong minded, outlaw woman I can manage to find in my Rhapsody files.

(image courtesy of Royalty Free Images)