Almost Home..

So tonight on the way back from my friend Vince's in Phoenix, I nearly died. I hit a big rock in a pile of rubble and went a little on two wheels, steered and fishtailed, then oversteered and did a donut on highway 8, stopping barely in time.

But what happened in my head as it all was going on really is why this is here.

I just remember thinking as the car spun toward the edge of the Tecate Divide, "Oh, man... and I am almost home." One hour left on the road and I was going to fly off and down.

I was calm and everything was in slow motion. I accepted it, even as I tried every trick in the driving book to recover.

"I was almost home, this cannot be happening," I thought.

Then time caught up with perception and the world stopped with my car. I thought maybe I wasn't here any longer for a second, out of my body and looking at the great ravine outside my car window. Then I heard the crickets and the radio.

I was facing the wrong way and had lightly smacked my front driver's side fender against a boulder a bit as I had come to a stop. I looked for lights and slowly pulled around to face the right way.

I felt an urge and parked, then puked into the chasm almost as soon as I rounded my back fender. I stopped retching, the radio in my car static-babbling and the crickets chirping away in the high mountains.

I felt exhilarated and pondered the great mountains I loved all around me. The same mountains Marcie only loved when there was rain and greenness or snow to see. The ones she went to with me, "just because" when there wasn't any of those things to enjoy.

The exhilaration faded. I gulped and gathered my senses and thought of Seamus waiting for his meal. I washed my mouth with some mouthwash and lots of water, then drove down the mountain.

And even though I was thinking on an entirely different level in the rush of the near-accident, all I could think coming down the hill was that I was calm in the face of my assumed sure death not because I wanted to die, or because I was ready.

It was just that whatever happened, I was, at that moment, going to make it home.

Anniversary

You were here.
I smelled your perfume around me.
I felt your warmth beside me.
I heard your voice behind me.
I tasted your lips against me.
I knew your soul as my own.
I saw your face before me.

You were mine.
I woke to you each morning.
I lived for you every day.
I ran to you each evening.
I held you every night.
I cherished every moment.

We were one.
We lived in our communion.
We loved and feared in union.
We walked beside each other.
We shared with one another.
We faced the world together.

We were strong.
Our love seemed never ending.
Our faith was unrelenting.
Our passion was unbridled.
Our bond could not be broken.
Our hearts could conquer all.

I am thankful.
Your loving touch transformed me.
Your gentle ways reformed me.
Your happy manner healed me.
Your patient probes revealed me.
Your lightness helped me soar.

I am here.
I know you are around me.
I know your warmth's beside me.
I know your voice will guide me.
I'll taste your lips against me.
I'll see your face before me.

Arrival

I am exhilarated but pensive. I don't know what is going to happen when I drop off some of Marcie's ashes at the beach, but I am feeling her presence and that is enough. I will film the dispersal for everyone, and my words to her during this first moment, too.

She would love this place. She would love the surroundings, the heat and humidity, the thunderstorms in the evening, the hustle and bustle and the raw energy.

What I wish goes unsaid and unwritten because it is thoroughly understandable and predictable, and impossible to fulfill. I will share with all you who knew or have come to know her.

Look for pictures and film later on this weekend. I have been busy and will remain so.

The guardian and the preparation

Seamus has taken to sitting on Marcie's table of memorial, alongside her container. This began a short time ago. Usually, he slept under her. It is almost as if he has to be even closer. Of course, my dreams have accelerated, too.

I wonder if his have. At any rate, a few pictures:





I will post pictures of her recontainment another day. I sleep and prepare for the journey for now, folks. Good night.

The List

Socks
Shoes
Shirts
Pants
Hats
Jacket
Umbrella
Deodorant
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Medicine
Nail Clippers
Laptop
Money
Camera
Memory cards
Memories
MP3 player (hers)
Ashes (hers)
Her

Not being good at waiting

I was never the kind to sit and wait,
I was never one to bide time.
But you were always patient,
and with a touch or a word I was calm.

The worst waiting ever for me
was the same as the worst for you.
I charged and demanded action
and you let me, and it was ours.

It did not matter in the end
no rush was in time, no haste.
When I finally knew the time approached
I watched and learned to wait again.

And I may have been patient,
I may have let you bide your time.
A single touch calmed you,
and a word comforted.

I learned to hate waiting anew
not for the time it took,
but for the time it didn't,
and for the time it should have,
because nothing ever hurt more
than when the waiting was over.

Hard Listening

They listen so they will not feel
the pounding.
I pass them by.
Their ears are sealed.
Every voice they hear is a choice,
and never their own,
and rarely is it one they love.

I listen so I can still hear
the whispers
that pass them by.
My ears are clear.
Every hint of you is so choice,
as you were my own.
and remain the one I yearn for.

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.

An Unshared Road

I remember the paths we chose.
We did not always agree.
Sometimes we wandered.
We were never lost.
I joined your soul in long journeys.
We strolled in citadels of the mind,
and hiked the forest of the heart.
We were never lost.
I faced great obstacles with you.
We climbed mountains of tribulation,
took treacherous trails along chasms.
We were never lost.
I never knew where we were going.
We chose anew at each crossroad
and were each others' only guides.
We were never lost.
I don't recognize this place I am in now.
We never wandered in such ruins
and there is no path in the rubble.
I am so very lost.

On The Patio

Our dusk was red and yellow again,
It was every summer sunset you ever knew.
The mist of the hose in the smoggy air
made mud of everything except the plants.
They are still there, all the ones you left
the dragon and the gardenias,
the pink geraniums and the elkhorns,
The things Tanya and I repotted.
There are new ones, too.
A sago palm from a friend,
A more delicate one from your work.
They all thrive oblivious next to
pots of my bitter herbs.
They are new life for old.
They are not equal.
Nor am I.

Looking for you

Looking For You

Just half a year ago today,
You broke your bonds and slipped away.
I nearly went with you that night,
Sometimes I hope that I still might.

Five months ago I was alone,
Left here without you, on my own.
You'd come to see when I'd dream,
To comfort me, or so it'd seem.

Four months ago I traveled North
to see two friends your life brought forth.
Among your angels, I did start
to see a future for my heart.

Three months ago I knew despair.
I dreamed but did not feel you there.
Then back you came to see me through,
and give my soul a taste of you.

Two months ago I looked for light,
But you had gone beyond my sight.
And so, with heart and dreams bereft,
I wondered if your spirit left.

One month ago you came to me.
You said you were not sad, but free.
Insisting that you felt my love,
but soon would be too far above.

This month I waited for your voice,
your touch, your taste, your scent so choice.
I caught them in the morning's mist
A fog around me, coolness kissed.

Today I look around and live,
and try to share what I can give.
Sometimes I do and feel your soul,
and for a moment, I am whole.

But half a year ago today,
You broke your bonds and slipped away.
And one of those was in my heart,
It's simply called "the missing part."

Five days

Five days from now will mean one half year from losing her. My weight is down over 50 pounds, but I feel the heaviness of my heart increasing.

I feel it as I run into the night, hoping to outpace my sorrows with steps and heartbeats.

I feel it as I ponder my work and the meaningless struggle to procure money for children who are sneered at by selfish gray people who would see them imprisoned before they were educated.

I feel it as I consider the future with women ahead of me, in all their sadness or greed or heartless demand for comforting falsity.

I feel it as I gaze into a picture of beautiful blue eyes and know that a great and perfect love is gone from me, perhaps forever.

I feel it as I try to gather the courage and the motivation to pour out her life in verse and chapter as I know it, and her memorial as I realize it.

I feel it as I listen to my body for the little signs that say I will not live to honor her, to immortalize her, and to be known to have been hers at all, except as a rumor that dies with the last that have heard it from some reverent voice.

And I cannot feel so much so often and so deeply anymore without someone, and I feel my greatest grief when I admit I know she was right, and I must love to live, and I must live to love again.

And I wish she could live, so all of that, all of these weights, could feel so much less of a burden and a stone in me, and so much more a matter of my grateful love for her, as it always had been.

But at least my shoulders are broad and my back is unbowed, and much of that is her, alive in me and insistent that I carry her, and it, on.

F.

That last week comes back

Every once in a while, sitting here so close to where she left us and the great pain of those last hours behind, I am overwhelmed in my memories by her prsence. This is one of those overwhelming nights.

We are in the half-year anniversary of the last week I had with Marcie, and though i have had some joy in my life and made plans to honor her, I have been stricken this evening and am having a hard time with it all. No posts about cats and arguments tonight, folks.

Though I see that there is a possibility of happiness without her alive and near me, it is at times like these that the loss of her feels like a gaping wound that will never quite heal, but simply close up and open once in a while. I'll be back when it closes again.

F.

Five months today - A letter to Marcie

So, today marks five black months since I lost the one person in my life whose true-heartedness, beauty, intelligence, independence, sweetness and depth could completely enthrall me, and did.

To my beloved wife,

I have been trying to open my eyes and wake from this nightmare, now in its sixth month. Perhaps that word seems strong, but after 14 years of you, such a sweet, long dream, the profound absence of you is so very stark.

I hope to share, again, what you gave me. I do not know if you got all of this before you passed, and I now am so grief-wracked that I cannot remember clearly what I shared. All the more reason to do so again, freshly, I guess.

You defined so much about me. You encouraged me to continue in what I did that you loved, and you brought me around on anything you didn't. I could not refuse you, though it was never easy to lead me to change, I know.

Your gentle admonitions, calling me to reflect on my gentler ways, softened and warmed my warrior heart. Your drive to seek goodness before riches, and to appreciate what is free (and to free oneself), directed my work to higher purposes. You inspire me to be a force for good.

Your loving and attentive touch healed so many wounds in me that I cannot begin to list them. You taught me that some of those wounds, once closed, should never be reopened. I will try to uphold that outlook without your constant and sweet reminders. You teach me to forgive, a lesson I will try to not forget.

"Honey, don't cast pearls before swine," you said.

I don't know how many times and in how many situations you used that line to remind me that I should not pour myself into fruitless or unappreciated efforts. I still struggle with that. But even when I do toss them, your voice echoes the maxim.

You used to draw my attention to the simple beauties around me, the leisure and the ease of our life together, no matter how I wanted to build it up more. You teach me that simple pleasures are more lasting and dear in their absence than wealthy indulgences.

Your life affirmed to me how family, though precious, is almost always the source of the worst pain we can experience. The things you put up, and the dignity you showed while doing so, amazed me. You were a noble and strong example I will try to emulate.

I know you said you want me to get out and find my way in a world without you. I don't know if I can.

I do promise to draw on all the strength you have given me, all the lessons we learned together, and all the memories I cherish of you to get through just one more day, or hour, or minute, or second. Maybe something will turn, maybe it will not.

Either way, whether for a happier tomorrow or the last of them, I carry on, still thoroughly in love and absolutely crushed.

Right now? Marcie, I wish I could touch something more of you than a box of your ashes and a picture, because what I need now most is your soothing caress.

Your Husband

Soothing the beast

It has become more and more obvious since Marcie's passing that she served as a check on my wild side. It was most welcome as I am, at times, far too fierce.

When I cam home upset by work, or the world in general, and wanting to go out and take on the whole damn mess, she could almost effortlessly calm me down, soothe me and put my mind on other things. She knew I needed it.

Her calmative effect on me is sorely missed.

I find myself holding my ground and digging in where I may have let things slide. I am also running a bit wild and telling people what's on my mind, regardless how appropriate or not.

It's all "Damn the torpedos!" all the time.

She calmed me with her love, with her simple caring for me and her gentle demeanor overall. I try to reflect on what she would do or how she would react to how I want to deal with situations.

I guess she's still helping, but I feel that hard edge on me sometimes, and I wonder if I am simply supposed to be that way. I hope not.

A very tough day

So, todays was a day that, no matter what I did, was filled with Marcie. I imagine my dreams will be quite hard to put away when I wake up tomorrow.

First was the lady with her redheaded child who crossed the street in front of me at Park and Adams. The little girl, very "Natalie Wood" in her jacket and gloves, save for her fiery red curls, waved as she walked by and smiled.

A block or two later, Lily and Christine crossed the street from Cream, a local coffee shop. Lily is a pug, and Christine is her mom. I'll get pictures next time.

When I got to work, I was clicking through my old emails and came upon a nest of Marcie's. I read them and had to go for a little walk. I am waiting for Tanya to send me one she discovered, too... that will be hard as well.

On my way to the post office for my passport appointment, a song came on by Stevie Nicks. Marcie loved Stevie Nicks and I have always been bewitched by lady songbirds. It was "Changes," loaded with parallels and pain, and an acoustic version from one of my favorite all-decades rock channels, KPRI.

So much of it is so very relevant to our last months together that I had to pull over and sit for a bit:

Landslide

I took my love and I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Mmm Mmm... I don't know... Mmm Mmm... Mmm Mmm...

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

So...

(Guitar solo)

I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I, I´ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too...
I'm getting older too...

So, take this love, take it down
Oh if you climb a mountain and you turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring you down, down

And If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe... The landslide will bring you down
Well well... the landslide will bring you down

Every time I hear it, I hear her singing to me, though I am well aware that Stevie Nicks sang it for her father. Marcie and I once had a long cry to it after her first surgery, the removal of her breasts.

It came on as I tended to her 4 separate wound drains. I thought I was hurting her, and I asked, but she just crumbled again and shook her head, hanging it away from me sadly. She said, "No, it's the song, honey."

I really listened to it for the first time and knew she was singing it about herself to me in her heart. I guess my heart sang it back, and now I am the one under the landlside. And man, did it bring me down.

I miss her more than I ever did, but I guess she is calling me more strongly than ever, too. That, or I am just grabbing at every single chance to stay connected and on track.

Marcie and redemption

I will return to the places of Marcie's and my early love in time. First, I need to take a trip up to Humboldt (for pictures of our place). I think I should snap photos of it. It was a very special chapter in our lives, if also a tough one for her.

I am having so many dreams about Marcie. I am, in fact, having so many that I somewhat wanted to stay home and sleep all day today. I did not.

I found myself reflecting on some of the more esoteric reasons Marcie and I were so in love with each other today. I overheard a coworker kvetching about her brother.

"Oh, he is not going to change," she said. "People don't change and they can only fake it for so long when they try."

Marcie had a different idea, which I came to share. Marcie thought that everyone could change, but some people simply would never choose to.

"Some people change or they just fix their problems" she said. "Some people are perfectly happy being whatever they are, no matter how mean or dirty or how ignorant they are."

My discussion with Chrissy reminded me of another aspect of Marcie's outlook on people. Some people change, some people don't, and some people medicate.

"I am telling you, it is a total Prozac nation," she would say. "People think they can get away from their problems by just popping a pill and forgetting they have them."

Marcie understood the need for some help in a crisis, but she was disturbed by the number of people around her on permanent regimens of antidepressants. I had a theory.

"Maybe it's the environment that makes people sick," I said. "The drugs might fix a chemical issue caused by the polluted world around us."

I would never have dared offer it if I was on antidepressants. Thankfully, I never was and never will be, short of being forced.

"That's a total excuse," she said, her pretty blue eyes rolling as one hand went to a hips and her other circled dismissively.

"Oh, I was exposed to whatever, so I am depressed," she said. "Oh, I am sooo sad that my mom didn't love me enough. BLah Blah Blah! People need to get OVER it already."

But she was afraid of sounding silly, and she was wise to boot (as well as pretty and clever and well-read, and any number of other good things).

"You could be right," she said as she disengaged from the conversation. "You could be totally right and people might be completely toxic from the world or whatever. But that's just like throwing up your hands and saying nobody is responsible for anything."

But her belief that people could change and be redeemed was most comforting. Marcie had an immense capacity to forgive and to love, even if she was hurt. It was a measure of her tender toughness.

I will not say who she forgave for what. I will only say that, though we fought from time to time, I never did anything that tested her capacity to forgive me. But I still weep at the thought of her pain with people at times.

There were many times she was ashamed or just beyond the veneer of her pride, and it was a privilege to hold her and comfort her in them.

I was so relieved when, as I told her I apologized for anything she was too good to tell me hurt her feelings or that I had done to hurt her, she simply smiled and squeezed my hand.

"You don't have to redeem yourself for anything, honey," she croaked. "I always knew you wouldn't ever even conceive of doing anything to hurt me."

I realized at that moment that some of the things I had heard her talk about and held her in my lap or arms over still, on her death bed, cast a hurtful shadow over her. Like so many times before, I simply enveloped her in my arms and kissed her.

Sometimes, she did not share what her crying was about. In retrospect, I would get frustrated, though I held her anyway. I now know that consoling touch was more important to her than any silly lover's quarrel.

What she was telling me that very sad day was that the reasons didn't matter. That I just made sure to love her did, though.

A disservice

I have posted stridently about romance and love, and I have been very supportive of an idealistic look at such sentiments. I want to acknowledge the people this outlook potentially does disservice to.

To the people who have been badly hurt after being taken in by pretty words, I apologize. Not everyone is sincere, and there are many scoundrels cajoling and carousing in the pilfered cloth of troubadours.

Just listen to your heart, and if it hears something wrongly, run away.

To the people who have honestly lost faith and settled, or have found some lusterless lifelong relationship in the mundane and unloving safety of someone familiar, I apologize. It is your choice to comfort yourself how you choose in this ugly world.

Refuge can be more important than comfort, and much more accessible. But settle well.

To those who have had their fill of romance and decided that more of it is far too much, no matter how little more there might be for you, I apologize. I understand you completely and I have been there with you. Romance is a burden.

It can be easier to appreciate what we have had and pursue something less taxing.

To the people who have spent so much of their lives in love and dedicated to it that they have forgone great things and feel the burden of lost opportunity, I apologize. You do not need my notions and insistence in them to coax you into further sacrifice.

Remember opportunity has its place, and true love should make room for it either way.

To those who have suffered as that great devotion was severed or stripped from them-their careful, loving ministrations spent on a phantom-I apologize. How can I, knowing what you have been through, call you jaded or cynical when you evade it?

We who truly love have a secret knowledge of its cost in this vapid, nasty world.

It is all I can do to advocate some try to adhere to romance and some basic code of the heart. But before I let everyone know where, after my duty to Marcie is discharged, I will focus my efforts, I wanted to cut some slack.

I'll likely need some, too. On all counts.

Home sick

So, I am home sick AGAIN. I started coughing late last night and the hacking just did not stop. I slept three hours and woke with my voice going out, almost late for work, with a massive headache, the pain of which went from my sinuses to the back of my neck. I hate the polluted, Santa Ana-blasted Southern California deathscape we call the environment, I really do.

I seem to have dried out, but I wake up every morning clogged, drain by noon, then just cough and try to stay hydrated. That is hard to do at a school district office where the heat is on even if the building is warm enough for reasonable people. It just dries me out.

I hope I wake up in passable form tomorrow. We are supposed teach a grant writing class at a school. I love that part of my job, actually. We'll see.

This is not today's post, but yesterday's needs a makeup, so I will post later (maybe twice). I'm a tired, sleepy guy right now. I wish Marcie was here to take care of me. She was always good at making the sympathetic noises I needed to hear when I was ill, whether asked to or not.

*Sigh* *COUGH!*

Announcement Delayed

Because some of the features I was building into my announcement about Marcie's memorial were not complete, I will be holding off. Additionally, since tomorrow would have been our anniversary, it just seemed a better time for the big announce...

Sorry, folks. F.