Wild Crazy

L, my 13 yr old is taking French. The Spanish classes met at the same time as the Jazz Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra. He plays the cello.

And he says “Mom, what would really help me is if we went to France.”

And I say, “Ok, wanna go this summer?” This is not a bluff. I have spent the past three weeks deciding where we will live (Chamonix region). I have checked out vacation homes in that area and I have posted on yahoo traveler groups for insider tips. And honestly, I think we may stay a little longer like a year or ….three.

My living room is devoid of furniture, having sold it all a few months ago. Last week, I spent 3 hours in a furniture store. I made the sales person drool as I choose a rug, a coffee table and a cool comfy chair and then inquired about someone who could go to my mom’s garage…in Connecticut (I live in LA), measure the furniture that is being stored there and then make arrangements to ship it out here.

Tonight, I am standing at a party, talking to a man, looking at his lips and I open my mouth to say “I’m sorry. Can you just kiss me right now? I want to see if your lips are as soft as they look and if you are as good a kisser as I think you may be.” I pause before I say anything, then don’t say anything at all.

I feel crazy.

Wild crazy.

The kind of crazy that lately let’s me buy two pairs of jeans for more money that most people’s monthly car payments. The kind of crazy that almost has me purchasing a new piece of art work for 3 months of rent. The kind of crazy that has me longing for physical touch that I considering leaving my kids alone, knocking on “this” guy’s door at 12 midnight just so I can be held and caressed and can fall asleep in a man’s arms. In a man’s arms. In a man’s arms.

It’s the kind of crazy that will make my friends and family whisper to each other “Well, obviously, she’s still grieving and hasn’t thought this through.”

I remember the day I came home from the hospital after Art died. I remember having the need to COMPLETLEY rearrange my house so that it too would be as changed and different as I felt. I was wild crazy with grief.

It is all I can do to keep this wild, crazy in check.

I am wild crazy with “Why the fuck not? Huh, really why the fuck not?!!!” I can’t afford to spend a month in France. Hell, my French is on the level with a two year old.

And everyone knows the way to get a man is not to, in the middle of a conversation, stop him from talking and challenge him to kiss you to see if he kisses well.

But it’s what I want to do. I want my habits to reflect the crazy wild I feel.

I want my kids to have ‘those” kind of stories that they share with their college friends and beyond. “One year, my mom lost it. She took us to France for the summer and we stayed there for four years!” “She dated this guy who……” “She wore these hot pink jeans and …..” I want them to know what if feels like to be wild crazy and to survive it and to look back and say “Wow but cool!”

And here’s the thing, while it feels wild crazy, there is a part of me that knows I make more sense than most people on the other side of death. There is piece of me that understands that after death

“Fuck it”

is a really good answer.

There is part of me that really, really wants to let loose, to live large, to worry later cause I have spent the last 46 years of my life worrying. I have spent the last 4 years of my life watching my husband recover then die from cancer. I have spent the last 1 year and not even 7 months finding my feet, my hands, learning how to breath a whole new kind of air. And I know I will spend the next 45+ years (I will live well into my 100s) missing the man I see in my children. So why the hell, not!

So, I’m gonna stop writing because ya know what? Chamonix is amazing in the summer. I still have my rock climbing shoes and harness. I hope our babysitter is willing to come. I wonder if she speaks French.

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"What do I do now?"

"Where do I go?"

"How do I live?"



These are just a few of the many questions so many of us ask after the loss of our counterpart...our soul mate.



These questions helped fill my overactive brain from focusing on the reality that I needed to stop living in a nightmare and do it...venture into the wild and find the answers for myself...find life.



But I can say now, that the search needed little manpower, for in reality we cannot live life in questions....In search of some bigger picture. I think the only thing we can truly do is what Rainer Rilke said herself..."live the questions themselves" and hope...madly hope....that in the midst of living them they answer themselves. And that we are too busy living life to even care that they've been answered, for our life has become nothing but an outward expression of those answers.



For when it comes to it, the only questions worth answering are those that have a simple answer..."I did it for love."

deja vu....again

Photo from Background

A local stable burnt down last week. Now as I drive past the ashes where the barn once stood, I see the surviving horses milling around their paddocks...looking slightly lost.
When I read an article in the local paper about the event, I could imagine the throat choking smoke, the flames licking the sky, the sounds of crashing timbers and sirens. I thought of the horses wild and wide eyed screaming their fear into the night. I imagine how terrifying it must have been for them as something so new, fearful and unexpected happened to and around them.
It made me think of Jeff and his last moments of life.
It brought me back, yet again, to the moment of his death. His wide eyes. The shock and fear exposed within. My screaming. The confusion and the finality.
I imagine what he must have felt like. I torture myself with the question of whether he felt comfort in the fact that I was there and trying to save his life. I worry over whether his death was physically painful and just how much pain was felt - tooth ache amount? giving birth amount? Did he lose consciousness with a floaty cottonwool head comfort that I have experienced when passing out after exposure to too-graphic surgeries on television?
It makes my heart race and my stomach contract everytime I remember these surprisingly short last minutes with him. It seems that I use these trips back in time as a barometer with which I measure my pain threshold and my 'recovery'. Like checking if an element is still warm a few minutes after boiling a pot of water, I don't know that this practise serves any 'real' purpose...but I do it anyway.
Although the fire took hours to burn out, I do so hope that Jeff's fear and pain was short. And for me, I so hope that eventually every news story involving death does not bring me immediately to that place again.

unfinished.

in a drawer.

in a bag.

some yarn.

a notebook.

on one page:

"chunky baby sweater"

on another:

"cable knit baby hat"

in her handwriting.

those words

followed by

a bunch of

numbers that must

have meant

something to her.

eyes scanning the

pages, finding different numbers

at the top

of one page:

11/7/07.

at the top

of another page:

12/(something)/07.

a bunch of

numbers that mean

something to me.

dates.

projects started

(never finished)

for our daughter.

i held the notebook.

i turned the pages.

nothing after

those two dates.

blank.

empty.

i pulled out the yarn.

knitting needles

right where she

left them,

mid-project.

but which one?

sweater?

hat?

and where is

the other?

i wish she would

have taken me seriously

that one time

when i asked her

to teach me

to knit

(i probably should've asked with a straight face).

maybe i'll learn

you know,

to fill up those pages

for both of them.

Who Would've Thought ....

There are way too many widowed people around.

Way.

And is it just me or do there seem to be more and more all of the time?

It's as if our "club" is growing by leaps and bounds.

And that, my friends, is one of the worst/best things in my world.

Last week I met three newly widowed people and two who are not-so-newly widowed.

It broke my heart.

As if my heart could break any further.

I hate meeting new people on this path.

And yet I instantly love them, too.

I hate that they have any reason to meet me .... and yet I'm so relieved that I can be here for them.

Who would've thought that each of us could be so unhappy to make new friends?

Who would've thought that you could cry just by meeting someone?

Who would've thought that you could bond instantly with a total stranger?

Who would've thought that you'd give up everything in your life to not have a reason to meet these people?

Who would've thought that, in spite of not wanting to be in the same "club" with all of you,

I don't know what I'd do without you?

Who would've thought ....

A long distance dedication

Tomorrow is 5 years. Impossible to comprehend, but true nonetheless. Today's blog will be a long distance dedication from Daniel to his friends and family. I think if he'd been given the choice (or if I'd had more time to think of it myself), he'd have had this played at his funeral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I_0C1ltMRw

Jimmy Buffett - Lovely Cruise

Drink it up, this one's for you
It's been a lovely cruise
I'm sorry it's ending, oh it's sad, but it's true
Honey, it's been a lovely cruise

These moments we're left with
May you always remember
These moments are shared by few
There's wind in our hair and there's water in our shoes
Honey, it's been a lovely cruise

Ohhh, these moments we're left with
May you always remember
These moments are shared by few

And those harbor lights, lord, they're coming into view
We'll bid our farewells much too soon
So drink it up, this one's for you
Honey, it's been a lovely cruise
Yeah baby, it's been a lovely cruise
Oh darlin', it's been a lovely cruise

Contradictions

Over the past month or so I have introduced Michael as my husband in a variety of circles. The responses to the word "husband" have been fascinating to me.

When we are out with a group of friends or new acquaintances, the response is enthusiastic and congratulatory. These folks are just happy to see love in action.

When in the company of people who have walked with me through loving and losing Phil there is a sense of wonder that life has made a turn for the better and that somehow I have survived the blinding glare of grief.

When at a training for bereavement teams in the Los Angeles area the response to announcing that my husband was sitting at the back of the room caused a group head turn.

When using Michael's new title one on one when meeting other widowed people there is a brief moment where our eyes meet and I silently assure them that love never dies. The feeling between us is almost electric.

I was stopped after the presentation I mention here by a man who was going to be working on a bereavement team in his community. He first congratulated me on my marriage. Next he let me know he is not a widow. Then he asked the million dollar question, "So, how can you talk about your dead husband that way in front of your new husband? I mean, I understand that life goes on but how does your husband feel about the fact that you are here tonight telling us how much you miss your other husband? Does that bother him? I mean, it must."

Well, believe it or not...it doesn't. Because Phil is dead. There are no two ways around that fact. I didn't choose to be widowed, and I feel confident in saying I'd still be married to Phil today if it weren't for the accident that took his life. But he did go out on his bicycle that day, and he didn't come back. So here I am five years later creating a sculpture from the ashes of one life that will speak to the love, the pain, the courage, the determination, and ultimately, to the eternal nature of love.

I have written on this blog in years past about my vision of Phil as a hawk. Over the years I have been visited by hawks at odd times, in odd ways, over and over again. My heart is certain that there is a message in these visits, and I usually have a chat with Phil whenever a hawk flies overhead. Michael and I saw a huge hawk on our first hike together in Australia, and since that time Michael also has a word with Phil when a hawk drops by. So the other night Michael and I went out for a walk after dinner. High up on a telephone poll sat a gorgeous red-tailed hawk. Michael pointed the hawk out to me and asked me if he'd mentioned that he has a stalker these days. No, I said you haven't. What kind of stalker? Michael answered, Phil. Huh?

So he went onto describe a moment last week when he was stopped at a traffic light. His eyes were drawn to a nearby street light, and there sat a very large hawk...opening and closing its very sharp talons as dirt and grass dropped to the ground. Michael got the message.

And though there are a million different ways to make the moment described here insignificant, I felt loved.