A question answered by an older poet

Someone at an Irish bar asked me a few days ago where Marcie's grave was and if I visited. I said, "She visits me!" At her quizzical look, I explained Marcie's cremains were in the house and slowly being spread over the world.

When I see this lass again, which may be far in the future, I will share this poem I found, which itself is Irish:

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there... I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow...
I am the diamond glints on snow...
I am the sunlight on ripened grain...
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you waken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of gentle birds in circling flight...
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry—
I am not there... I did not die...

A day in the sun...

I was recently returned a flash memory card with some precious memories on it. I decided that I would share Marcie's joy at a trip kindly provided by our friends Walt and Lisa Soto... out along the California Coast, sailing.

It was a beautiful and enjoyable day, and a perfect one for Marcie, whose taste buds were finally ready for regular food again.

We were definitely in a recovery mode, and she was so tired but strong and pleased with the end of chemo and the beginning of what she thought would be a simple recovery.

For now, though... her joy, as I captured it in pictures, and our friends. Also, a picture of a marine mammal and his harem, as she demanded I get a shot or two...

Editorial Update

I'll be posting short sequences and a little story about Marcie, travel, and me being at home when she did this week. I will also tell you more about Marcie's image of RiverMannonite and the history she built for him.

Pictures will be coming soon, of a little phenomenon we experience in our yard every year. I think you'll enjoy, even if the shots do not encompass the whole...

What a trip

There will be no photos shared publicly about my trip, save a few generic skyline shots and, perhaps, an approved shot of the hostesses (once they okay one). I will also not share much about this one here, except the Slow Food Nation event, as Marcie would have been in heaven there.

Suffice it to say that this was the first trip that I went on really more for myself and my future than for her and my past. This is not the place for such things.

Pictures of it all later. For now, we're going back to my memories of moments of my Marcie. I have some thoughts to share about Marcie and how I felt looking out on my next home city, one she almost joined me in. That will be all that one finds here.

Friends, of course, can ask in person or email. I will have some private albums to view...

F.

Here in San Francisco...

Well, my journey to San Francisco is complete. I checked into my hotel at 11:00 PM after a great little trip to the Slow Food Preview with Jane and Christina. I tried to get pictures, we'll see how they turned out...

I will take some pictures of the grand debauch as it unfolds. I keep wondering what Marcie and I would be doing if she were with me, but then I catch myself and I am back in the moment where I belong.

I guess that seeing her (now my) friends is going to have me slipping back into those memories and that nostalgia again. But I am not complaining. It's a comfy place and an influence I prosper from.

Starting in an easier place

So, I have been dragging my feet on selling all of our stuff. With Marcie's goods, this is because it kills me to look at it all and sort through it. The items she owned, even the insignificant ones, point to her personality and tastes very strongly. With the televisions and the electronics, it is just that I have to find the market.

Next weekend I will do a test garage sale and Craigslist spree. I will essentially attempt to pare my life down to almost nil... again. However, this means that I will have to work on selling Marcie's things, too. I dread it.

I will start with my own items for now and our videos and DVDs. After that, books, perfumes and knickknacks. Gah. This is so going to suck...

I will post links to the craigslist-offered items for you folks to look at. Unfortunately, Amazon makes it tough to sell or link to items I post there... but I will try when I get to that point. There will be a media list before I put that on Amazon, so watc for that.

I promise a substantive post tonight. I had a dream of her last night.

Things to look forward to

I will be returning to our friends, Marcie's characters, visitors and urchins and their associated stories, in due time. Due time means this week.

I will be launching a new site which will correspond with my travels to places Marcie wanted to see and my visits to locations she would have wanted to experience in those places. Oddly enough, the first stop is not in her longer list, but someplace she always spoke to me of.

I am going to Hong Kong in the next months to help a friend launch his publishing empire into the web 2.0 world. I may end up with a piece of that empire for my help. I will also be making stops in Thailand for the Moon Festival and possibly stopping in Fiji for a day or two, another visit Marcie wished to make.

The die is cast.

I will also begin the long goodbye, a blog dedicated to her memorial journey itself. It is time to set the plan in motion and start my new life with those first few steps to honor and complete hers. But we are not done here by any means.

The goal is publication. I will entertain offers and ideas on how to monetize my ongoing efforts. I am also hoping to hear back from friends so I can plan a trip to San Francisco. This will, as stated before, be a scouting mission for my eventual resettlement.

That's the big news. I return you now to our regularly irregular programming.

Places she never went

Marcie had a list of local places she wished to see or eat at and never got to. I am looking for her list now. In the mean time, the ones I remember will be visited one by one. Some I have already been to. Some I have Yelp-reviewed.

1. Private Reserve Wine Bar, our neighborhood wine spot.
2. Wine Steals Cheap wine bar in Hillcrest.
3. Soltan Banoo Middle Easter/Mediterranean food.
4. Phuong-Trang Restaurant Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine.
5. Laguna Mountain Lodge cabins that Seamus could visit with us.
6. Vagabond South Park mid-scale eatery.
7. Apertivo Italian Tapas, she was intrigued.
8. Pampas Argentine Grill Our friend Ariana's house of bif.

I recall her list having about a dozen items on it beyond these. If you know something she mentioned wanting to do, or a place she wanted to visit, write me or comment below for everyone.

Stories...

We'll continue with Otto tomorrow. I will also return to Marcie's maternal instincts and her caring side as well. I am sure you see that it all shines through in her way of relating to her "urchins."

Marcie's cast will expand into her less-developed characters after Otto, all of whom she wove memorable biographies around. Tomorrow, however, I will be posting a poem and some pictures to look at. I hope you enjoy them both.

I will be working intensively over the next week and attempting to finish off the grant work I have at the district before moving on. Then, the big scouting trip to San Francisco begins. So that's where I am at.

Email with questions if you have any. We return to our regular programming Sunday or Monday.

Characters: "Otto Van Otterson" (pt.4)

Otto had been underground for a while when I finally spotted him again. He was nowhere near his native riverine environs. Otto had moved up in the world.

Otto was living behind The Lamplighter, a karaoke bar in San Diego's Mission Hills. I may not have noticed him in my drunken state as I wandered out and enjoyed a cigarette after way too many drinks. Who knew "The Chauffer" by Duran Duran had so many fans?

Regardless, there I was, staring at a homeless person across the street who worked around the green-handled Mayfair shopping cart, his back hunched, turned to me. Then, with the successful attachment of a piece of wire to his junk-festooned carriage, the man turned.

Otto smiled and raised his hands in a grandiose expectation of applause. I could hear him above the din of the bar as he chuckled then warbled out a celebratory-sounding, "Rumanumanumanuma SKOP!"

He took the handle and, with some untranslable and nearly inaudible utterance, rolled out of sight. It was as if he knew he needed to be seen, my drunken mind told me.

I immediately called Marcie, who met my invitation to join me in a raucous night of debauchery and drink and song with derision earlier that night.

"Hello?" she asked, sounding annoyed.

"Hi, honey," I said. "I have good news!"

"What good news? That you're not nearly as drunk as you sound?" she asked. "Or that you will actually save your last buck and take the bus, not walk home at 2 and skip class tomorrow?"

Well, there was precedent. I had walked home several times to allow one more dirnk or a cup of coffee. It was a bad habit only because she worried.

"Mmmm BETTER news!" I shouted into the phone.

"Oh, dooo tell," she said, softening and now preparing, I assumed, to mock me in my drunken state.

"Guess who I just saw," I demanded, smiling as I did. "It's someone important!"

"One of your many cousins?" she asked.

"No, no," I said. "Important to you."

I steadfastly refused to tell her, despite her demands, but also told her she would regret not trying anyways. She relented.

Jane? No. Chrissy? No. Chip? No. My (her) parents, brother or my father? No, no and um, no way. She threatened to hang up.

"I found Otto!" I exclaimed.

"Otto van Otterson!" she said, laughing. "Where is he? You didn't try to talk to him, did you?"

I relayed the whole incident and she peppered me with questions. Was he wearing his suit? Yes, but it was a new suit, it appeared, and only one of each kind of clothes. How did he look? Healthy, but his hair was really long and his beard was, too.

"So was he wearing his silverware still?" she asked.

And there was the question I had hoped she would ask. He had, indeed. but there was something new and classy to relay.

"He had what appeared to be actual silver flatware," I said. "He also had a can opener next to his new knife."

I had spied the change from across the street, clearly seeing the utensil heads and heir dull sheen, the triangular head of the opener drawing the eye in a stark display against the other new element in his dress.

"He had a black handkerchief or maybe a fancy napkin in his pocke," I said.

Marcie cackled into the phone. "He was wearing his formal dinnerware," she said, cracking up. "He was, he was... he was probably headed to Saint Vincent De Paul for an important address at the General Asembly of the United Urchins!"

She gasped in ragged breaths and I stayed quiet after a chuckle, listening to her laugh and then, "Oooh, that's good, honey," she said. "Thank you for telling me. You're very thoughtful."

"I'm glad your friend is okay, honey," I said.

"So am I," she said. "Have fun tonight, and try not to overdo it."

I let that hang in the air a bit. It had already been overdone. But her happiness was very clea, as was her relief. I was in awe of her compassion, despite her teasing and mocking tone. She doted on Otto in her own way. That mothering again, I guessed.

"I love you honey," she said. "I'll see you later."

"Okay, baby," I said. "See you then."

And though she was relieved, she simply had to lay eyes on him herself. And while we stalked the ambassador, Herr Otto Van Otterson, Marcie would amaze me with her idea of what lay behind Otto's life.

A little more notice

I received an email from someone who argued that there was some kind of sour grapes involved in what I have written in some places on this blog. There are not.

Marcie loved the people in her life, despite a lot of pain she faced. To show the strength of that love, it is important that the reader have an inkling of the obstacles she faced in maintaining it.

I certainly do not feel comfortable with some of the stories I relay here. Many of them lay bare some of my own faults, some of which I have since, with Marcie's help, buried and moved on from. But they cannot be hidden without obscuring the real story.

Marcie was silent and often asked me to hold my tongue. I won't do that, since every time I didn't, she seemed to benefit.

Why would I change that now?

Thanks for reading onward, thanks for writing in. More to come.

The Big Scrap

I will be building a big gallery of Marcie's pictures, both from her albums and from the boxes of loose pictures she left behind. This will be a long-term project. I intend to make it a social project so that people can help classify and label the photos.

I will sen more information as the project develops. This will not be easy for me. I have avoided flipping through pictures and albums with people because I get overwhelmed. Just be patient...

Thanks, folks.

Just a simple sharing post

Marcie was worried that I would be too overwhelmed to function when she left me behind. We spent sad days preparing and making sure I knew where to find materials, checkbooks, bills, records and all manner of household business items.

I have had occasion to change my insurance and add new documents to the pile I keep in the Elantra. But I never took apart the whole bundle when I did, I discovered another one of Marcie's little notes, guiding me on what she thought I might not understand.

It doesn't matter that I may not have needed it. It was her way of nesting a note somewhere I would find it months later. I still hope to find more.

Affirmation: Another Note

I have always wondered if these dreams constitute any connection between Marcie and I, or if they are just the workings of my mind, weaving tapestries to occupy my thoughts and soothe me.

I have explained how I feel about the intertwining of phenomena and perception, especially as it regards the potential for life and ego survival beyond death. But a path to acceptance of life after death does not a proof make.

Regardless, the merest of coincidences can do so much for me as I face Marcie's absence. She seemed to have wanted me to run into her in my daily life long after she was gone. Her presence, as was the case before her death, is one of assistance and a deep understanding of me.

I have found another note. This note clarified a part of our lives and a function I have to assume that Marcie previously handled for us. I will share it tomorrow, when I have had time to fully formulate a context that relays the depth the simple missive otherwise hides from the reader.

Have a good Sunday, folks. F.

Marcie and Saint Patrick's Day

Marcie was not much of a fan of St. Patrick’s Day at the pub. Irish and beautiful as she was, she just never quite hewed to that cultural tradition while she was with me. That did not mean she wanted me to eschew celebration on the night of Saint Patrick’s. We just went about it differently than most.

 

The most Irish we became on Saint Patrick’s was to buy a bottle of Bushmill’s and a six pack of beer, enjoy some corned beef and baked or fried potatoes, skipping cabbage and going with a nice salad instead. She also foisted split-pea soup with bacon on me, usually. Dessert was a delicious bit of cake, usually chocolate with some green dabs of butter cream frosting, a nod to the reason for it all. Following that, we had the usual indulgences, mood permitting, of course.

 

However, I can honestly say that I have not been out on Saint Patrick’s since the second year we were together. Never once did we go to an Irish bar with my red-headed beauty in tow (or towing me). Tonight, that changes. I am going out and staying out, and trying to have a bit of merriment with it all.

 

I wonder, if it happens, how long it will take when I do go out tonight for me to get that old feeling of discomfort I used to while in bars or at friends’ houses without her…

Catching up

I have some wonderful pictures of the places Marcie and I lived, but I want to take a few more of the places and things we loved before I publish. I intend to write a post in story form, using slide shows to enhance the readers' understanding of the settings. I will keep you all posted.

I am getting ready to make another pass at selling everything which has no real meaning. When I do, I will let everyone know. Furniture, clothes, excess books, and computer junk, electronics... think, "garage sale with estate overtones."

I have begin planning the next version of the web site/blog, which will actually be one focused on the upcoming sojourn and my preparations for it.

I will be locking off all of my previous posts and backing them onto a local drive soon. This is mostly to allow me to redo the whole site and pull of any content I will want to sharpen up for the book, which I have started sending queries on. I'll keep you all posted on that, too.

I have been preparing for some serious cuts at the school and have options already on the table in case I am caught up in the chopping of positions. I have less than a year on the books, so I do not even get to have seniority factored in. Nonetheless, I am and will be fine either way.

You're all up to date, the plan progresses, and I hope that president's day has been good to all of you. Maybe something more substantial will appear later for you to chew on, you never know.

F.

The importance of creating

Creativity was the essence of Marcie' uniqueness. Marcie surrounded herself with creativity and engaged in it.

Marcie not only created things of beauty but also appreciated the creations of others. Books, meals, movies and architecture, singers, composers, and artists of all stripes gained her appreciation and patronage.

As Marcie worked towards her English degree, she leaned most of her class selections towards the study of not just literature, but the arts as a whole. She reveled in visits to the various museums, libraries, movie houses, bookstores and music venues San Diego has to offer.

One notes that dwindling numbers of people appreciate, much less engage in, the process of artistic creation. One also notes the tendency people have to push children and teens away from the arts and humanities and into professional degrees. If they are not pushing degrees, it is tradesmanship in place of craft.

The demand that we specialize, homogenize and even self-marginalize eats at the capacity we have to appreciate or even tolerate those who do not. Often, this pressure to pursue practical functionality ends the artistry or the common person. The world wants everyone to fit in a certain niche and function there.

We are called, as we go through life, to focus like a laser on one field of endeavor at a time. That is wrong. People are multifaceted.

The brutal nature of our society's outlook on our fellow human being is an outgrowth of this conformity-thirsty, aesthetics-rejecting mandate. The greed in our economy for orderly and predictable inputs from pliant and contributive laborers demands that all who avail themselves of less hard-nosed pursuits than wealth or advantage, and those that presume to pursue happiness in a manner another can profit from, be somehow "corrected."

At the same time, those who deem themselves and those they will hire worthy of art's rigors tend to preclude the mass. Snobbishness, competitive, money-focused nastiness, an exploitive studio culture and collaboratives that serve more as cliques than schools do not merely drive off the common creators. They also have fallen into the mindset that the paucity of colleagues is due to some special elite status, as opposed to what it is, the slow alienation of creation from appreciation. The same can be said for literature, film and music. This all must end.

Just as we do not always know when an idea will become a usable technology, we do not know when a piece of art will become relevant in a way the mass can appreciate. But if the mass is engaged in the creative process, perhaps that lag time between a permutation of art as a novelty and as an institution will shrink. Perhaps the idea that art is "before its time" should be examined more closely, to assure that saying, "before its time," does not actually mean, "we are not ready for the world to go there."

Sometimes the brutality is that of the cold-hearted allocation of few resources to the creative, the different or the conventionally unemployable. Consider the beauty of someone whose every word is written in a deeply poetic inner voice, silenced for years by society's brutal dismissal of her. How many Peyton Goddards wrestle with their own "ires-epic" today, undetected? Every one is a great loss.

The drive to create must be inspired and supported in every person who ever wished to express themselves, as much for their pleasure as for their profit. Every person who paints needs not be a master. Photographers should display their shots. Actors and performers should find a stage. Those who sang should continue to. But this does not happen. Instead, criticism, pseudo-sympathetic entreaties to "more productive" pursuits and the difficulty of paying the price of creativity winnow the ranks of the artist, the singer, the bard and the chef.

Once a person has been pushed away from the creative well by the pressures of post-industrial and the snotty gauntlet of their discipline's "scenedustry," I have noted that it sours them on the field itself. The artist cannot reject their own participation without rejecting some part of the form they were ousted from. This means that art loses twice when creators cease to pursue their craft.

Marcie constantly prodded and cajoled her creative friends to pursue their gifts and their urges. I will try to as well. I am officially starting a little movement I will promote personally.

I call on all of you who created in the past to stay in touch with that, to revive it if if has faded, to follow it closely if you have let it go and to start creating in the manner you choose. Return to museums and dancing and movie houses. Sing, strum a guitar, draw something, take photos, cook a meal with your own special ideas in it or just tie grass into little woven bracelets.

Even if such a movement were only to increase the number of grass bracelets in the world, to invite any one person back to any creative process successfully is something to be celebrated. All should push for the common creative to be reborn and the neglected talent to be recognized and renewed.

F.

Some Reminders...

Sunday, February 3 will be the last day to cut and paste the sauce and dinner recipes, including the nutty rice. Please save them now.

You should send me an email when you want to speak privately. Sometimes, I do not have your email address and you don't necessarily share it with me when you post. Keep it in mind, folks.

I will get around to listing Marcie and my stuff on Ebay, Amazon, etc. I will replace the Amazon store to the left with her and my items when I do.

If there is something personal you want of Marcie's and have not told me, please do. This also goes for long-lost friends, old coworkers and relatives who have been recalcitrant. No, you won't haul away bags of loot, but I would like for our loved ones to have keepsakes of some personal value, and I am trying to also lighten my load before I start my work.

One last reminder: you all have stories and dreams to share. Especially for you who woke early in the morning Oct. 29th, I extend the invitation to share with everyone here. Everything we celebrate about Marcie's life extends her reach not only in our own lives and hearts but in those of the people you sharing will touch.

This weekend I plan to take some pictures of our old house, intersperse them with pictures of Seamus in it, and maybe take some shots of the old Suncrest Place and Casa Arleda. We'll see.

Much love,
F.

Letters from Marcie: Note #2

Here's the second of the series she sent me. I am still looking for some of the letters i sent back, but they may be among the many missing letters and her journals still lost. I have not been able to make myself open every box...

That first week, after I got her initial letter, I wrote Marcie about seeing old pals, getting my studies wired and on wheels and just the natural beauty of the place. I had a deer for my neighbor in the dorms and somewhere I still have images of her. I had also called every few nights and was leaving messages between classes with my phone card.

It felt as if I were back in the Navy in some ways, but without the 6-months-or-more madness a cruise means. But the analogy falls apart at most unpleasant points, like hot racks (having to sleep in a rack someone else just left), steam-or-ice-or-both showers, constant loud noise and a plethora of retarded shenanigans going on all around oneself. Furthermore, there was a phone available at less than the price of a whole paycheck and an ass-kissing session with the ship communications sleazeballs.

My roommate, and his girlfriend, by the way, always sat and waited for me to share these notes and the longer letters, and I was proud to. Of course, that meant roommate demanded notes from his love, too, despite their proximity.

There was much mirth in that dorm because of Marcie. People who never met her loved her. The phenomenon continues. Someone told me that her personality comes out in what I write and they love Marcie's spirit. I'm glad I am expressing her well enough to show that part of her. She was my doting spitfire.

At any rate, this one was just a little pick-me-up note from my baby with yet another cute cat scene... it's nice. The letter is somewhere else:

Note #1- Letters from Marcie

Here is one of the notes I wrote about in this week's earlier, heavier post. It relays some of the love, as do all of them. More importantly, it illustrates the kind of wife and lover Marcie was, romantically speaking. Perhaps most importantly, her notes, letters and communications always told me what was on her heart, not just her mind.

The picture she sent me is the one of her in the green tank top at City College, viewable in the memorial book gallery widget/slideshow. She had not changed much at all, and I told her so. So beautiful...

Seamus was always sensitive to missing people in his life, and he still has a very good memory for people he has liked. He is quick to get close with long-absent pals and slow to take in unknowns. When Marcie or I would leave for extended periods, he would take up the habit of sleeping in the front kitchen window, overlooking the driveway all day and night for a few weeks. This was one of those periods, as she mentions.

Please enjoy. Reading these lately has made me feel at once both very loved and very forlorn.



I know she knows I love her, but I still have to declare it. God I love you, honey. I missed and miss you, too, and more all the time. I could use another note, too.