Wonderful Morning

Seamus was too cold to not sleep all night between my legs, which is nice in its own way, and I woke with him mewing and cuddling tight. I remember him laying long between us, stretched out, on his back, paws stuck in the sheets while he kitty-snored, every night from fall to early spring.

I guess those cuddle nights are back!

I fully awoke and lit a candle I had saved for this year, smiled and felt the weight of the last few days slide off me and the great strength and assurance of that great love slide into me.

I don't miss you today, milady. I am grateful for you and the knowledge of who I am in myself and who I was in your eyes. Nothing, I believe, will shake that sense of goodness and approval.

And though nothing is ever unconditional, the conditions were just what we needed to feel that way :)

Marcie's Mourning

I have tried stepping away for a while, but my need to post and reflect and speak of and to and about Marcie has not faded. Some of the things I have not spoken of before include our conversations as the last few months slowly crawled by.

They were painful at times, but I can now recall them and understand how they made her so beautiful.

Marcie mourned her own life very briefly. But what she mourned the longest was her impact in her leaving us behind. That conversation came into play during her more somber times, when life was not much to be celebrated and all my efforts could not cheer her up.

But they always seemed to take great weight from her.

A letter to Marcie

Hello, my love

It has been a year. One year ago, my heart cracked and then broke as you slipped away. What a terrible night. That night will always haunt me with your kindness, your strength and courage, which all inspire me, and always will.

I thought, for the first few months, that I would not make it without you. I felt myself dying a little, day by day. I took care of myself, inside I just felt empty.

My longing for you ached like the hunger of a starving child. I noticed, as the months passed, your visits bolstered me. You nourished me with your soft presence and your happiness, so long forgotten in our lives, was a relief to see in our strange revels.

Of course, I have tried to write everything I can about the beauty of you, your spirit and your heart, your strength and your joy in life. I think you have approved, so far. I have tried to document everything that you made special in our lives, too. I think I have a good start...

I have been sorting my writing for your book. I know it would never be written if you still breathed, as modest as you are. But it will be. I need to have something of you outlast me. It was always my belief you would be there after me.

Sometimes I am glad, because this life beyond yours is so hard. I imagine it's what yours without me would have been like. I wouldn't want this for you, really.

I have so much to thank you for, my love. I will spend the next two weeks, between now and our anniversary, recalling them in letters to you.

Until the next letter, then. I miss you,

Me

Luxury Living for The Dead

Check this out. I floated past this graveyard every time we ferried onto the main island in Hong Kong. Having a view of the sea is not just for the rich living, you know... it is also for the rich dead.

The harbor and the hill of the dead

I have some films to share with you all tomorrow. A tour of a small temple... a view of a huge sea-facing place of rest, and some oddities of Hong Kong that come from familiar names and ideas.

Ending a long week

She has been all over my heart and mind, and now I am tired. But I will be taking her to the Turtle Place soon, and I will have to be rested, I think, to deal with that emotional bomb. Today I meditated after a long work day and watched the sky change. I thought I'd share some of it, too.

I wish I had her here to enjoy it with me, of course.

I have been collecting pictures of little things around the island that make me feel her presence. I'll share that in a day or two as I prepare for the film of my trip to Turtle Beach.


The Thoughtful Skies of Lamma

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.

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.

MumbletyPeggy

I went and visited Marcie at CVS several times, all but two of them completely against her will. Nevertheless, her coworkers were nice and she admitted years later that she enjoyed my visits.

One of those visits was more than a little entertaining. It happened to be one I was invited to conduct. Marcie and I were going to head to the cafe by May Company and enjoy a lunch, then after her work day ended see a movie.

We needed no movie that night.

I was engaging Marcie in very light banter, whiling away time in the near-vacant store as she tended the front counter. Her eyes locked and then narrowed and she looked past me as a hunched, black-garbed figure tottered in.

"Smsh mup rummum mubbum mum," a distinctly female but whispery voice said, the sounds wafting out from under multiple veils of black lace under a wide-brimmed hat. I saw no face.

Marcie watched and made eye contact with a coworker named Maia, who came to the front and took over the counter. Marcie slipped out from behind it, eyes locked on the slow, unsteady figure as it lurched and hobbled into the aisles.

The words became clearer but no more sensible as we got closer.

"So she so she so she so she does, does, does, goes there, she does, yes, yes, yes," the woman said under her masking veils. "I know. I know. I know."

I looked at Marcie, who stood with one arm under her breasts and the other propped on its hand, playing with the curls by her ear as she watched intently.

"Who is..." I started to ask, but her hand stopped me cold.

She leaned in close. "That's Peggy," she said, quietly. "She's a regular but you have to watch her or she leaves without paying. She hates me because I watch her the whole time and I make her show me ID when she writes her checks."

Peggy had offended Marcie by screaming bloody murder when she was caught leaving the store with unpaid-for goods. She made good, but a security guard had yelled at Marcie for stopping Peggy and bringing her back in by the arm.

"Everybody was looking at me and thought I was totally abusing her," she said. "And that's just too bad, because I don't care what age you are. Nobody shoplifts from me."

But her actions had ended with her boss allowing the woman to return. That did not mean Marcie let her get away with anything. In fact, Marcie was now even tougher with Peggy.

"I do not like her," she said. "So I just watch her and let her get pissed off at me. I don't care if she doesn't like it."

Marcie cut off the conversation and marched forward as Peggy pulled a large container of Advil off the shelf and into her many layers of clothes. She smiled and turned her head a bit, looking down at the woman.

"Can I help you with that Advil, Peggy? Do you want to know how much it cost?" she asked.

And that's how the MumbletyPeggy game began.

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.

Pictures from the patio garden

I took a few shots of the patio garden and a few of the yard in front. Keep in mind that when Marcie and I moved in, the yard was all rocks with a layer of cloth underneath. It's now almost overgrown, cloth be damned. The larger plants on the porch are up for adoption, and I have good cilantro seeds to send out.

Tanya helped me repot most of these plants when Marcie was very ill. We arranged them to give her a nicer outside view from her hospital bed.



Just let me know what you want and such, and I will send it. Those are jalapeño plants, by the way. If they or the tomato plants bear fruit, some will be reserved for seed and I can send some out from that as well. Let's hope they make it.

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.

Marcie On Our Other Birthdays

I will finish my story about Marcie and birthdays and growing up and getting over blah blah. But I wanted to mention one little thing Marcie did for someone in the family.

My grandmother, as I have said, was like Marcie when it came to cooking. Unlike me, however, grandma was also a baker. Yes, I know I have mentioned her making me cakes for my birthday. She also made delicious cobblers, pies and a variety of items.

As she got on in years, grandma Pruett slowed down on the baking. This impacted a lot of people, but one in particular. My father had a special cake he liked.

Grandma Pruett made my father his pineapple upside down cake for his birthday. I don't know when she started doing this, but it was likely his choice for cake in his formative years, in Hawaii.

I will ask him later today over dinner at Pampas Argentine Grill.

My mother had made my father pineapple upside-down cake as well, from scratch with a yellow cake mix and pineapple juice in places where water was called for, and lots of brown sugar topping.

Of course, her departure meant my grandmother resumed preparign the treat for him. At any rate, as Grandma got on in years she did not continue with the cake-baking. It was just too much.

Marcie, luckily, having a father also raised in Hawaii, knew just what to do. She made my father his pineapple upside-down cakes for years on and off, delivering one at his birthday faithfully. She took great joy in it.

It's just another thing her departure leaves missing in our lives now. But I try to note all of them, because the big things are just part of the good she brought into the world. All the little things count, too, and bring pain in their absence.

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.

Memorial Day

"Hey, honey," she said, kissing me on the cheek and looking in my eyes. "I am going to the movies, then I will be at the grocery store. I'll see you tonight, okay?"

I smiled and nodded, held her hand and closed my Anchor book. Memorial Day was usually a day to reflect, and she generally stayed out of my way for it. She kissed me again.

"I love you," she said. "Relax and I'll bring you home a little treat."

I nodded and watched her go, then turned back to my boot camp book, flipping through the pages and recalling one memory per face, one memory per frame, sometimes more. I lingered over a few.

This was their day. Car accidents, combat, misadventure, the grind of life after the service and the callous turned backs of the people they served, these didn't matter. That they served and then died did. My company had only a few over the years, but for my father, or my great-uncle Jerry or for any world war two vet, it was more a case of very few left to remember them and more of them to reflect on.

But this was the day for that, and Marcie knew I set it aside for that, and that is what I did. When she came home, we ate and drank wine, and the toast was always the same.

"To all the friends and comrades who would have like to meet you," I said, each year we were together, every Memorial Day.

Her toast was always the same, too. "To you, a true friend to heroes."

And dinner was usually silent afterward, but warm.

Little Memorial Acts

I am, of course, planning the larger memorial. But as I do, I find solace in doing small things from time to time in memory or honor of Marcie's spirit and to fill the emptiness she left, not just with me but the rest of the world. I try to do things she did so they continue to be done.

Marcie loved the spring greening of San Diego, and loved to walk and wander in places that were lush, no matter how fleetingly. A canyon I found for her she never did get to explore, so I went looking for what she would notice. The following is a Marcie's eye view of what would have caught her fancy there:



More tomorrow, and more substance with it. Good night, folks.

Marcie's love of sidewalk markers

Marcie loved to read sidewalk markers. She loved to know how old where she lived was. She had favorites from 1912, 1903, McKindle & CO, Gearson Public Works, and any number of companies who would place a brand on the end of a strip of laid concrete with a date the path was formed.

Today, the apartment owners next door repaved part of the sidewalk. I knew what I had to do. Thanks go to neighbor Rob Wheatley for taking a shot of me next to the work afterward. Good on you, man. Another everyday memorial act.

Maybe someone will wonder who she was. Maybe they will know.
A few hours later.
The vandal.

She also loved the other kinds of marks, from kitty, dog and kid silhouettes with names and simple slogans like "NH rules" to pop culture reference like "Kilroy was here" and even "Redrum," oddly scratched in in front of a convent on Hawthorn, they all lit her imagination afire.

I hope they don't scratch it out. We'll see!

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.

A Tough Time to Wed (Conclusion-R)

As I had said before, I was ill the whole time during our wedding trip. This did not end with wedding day.

After the wedding, Marcie decided we should walk to the Stratosphere. On the way there, Reverend Paged by His Cellphone pulled over and offered a ride, which we took.

We started toward the doors. "I can't wait to try the ride," Marcie said.

"I can't wait to have a drink and relax," I said, pinching her butt.

"Honey, can we take the ride first?" she asked, pushing up against my arm with one of my favorite parts of her. It was a surefire tactic.

"Yes, we can," I said.

We hit the ride. It was not much of a roller coaster, far too short and not very fast, but it was high above the valley and we saw for miles and miles.

"Oh, that was fun," she said to the attendant. "Thank you."

But as we cleared the door into the Top of The World Lounge, she leaned in close and whispered, "Honey, did you think that ride was kind of short?"

"Yes," I said. "Mercifully short. I'll meet you at the bar?"

"Oh, honey, are you okay?" she said. "Oh, geez. I'll be at the end of the bar."

And so another dash to the restroom ensued, this one without anything but a lot of horrible cramps and loud gas. I felt pretty greenish when it subsided.

We enjoyed our drink and I kissed her as she looked out on the view of the valley. She commented that I felt hot and I made a lame joke.

It was time to go. "Let's do the roller coaster at New York New York next," she said, excitedly charging down Las Vegas Boulevard.

I stopped and she looked at me. I waited for her to put it together. She refused to budge, and I realized that she was working her list. Lists were like inviolable plans from which nothing shall stray in Marcie's world.

"Honey, it will be so fast, and if you get sick, you get sick," she said.

"How about I rest and try to not get sick anymore on my honeymoon?" I asked.

"Fine," she said. "But don't expect to wait on you and baby you. You're sick, you have a little stomach ache. You're not dying."

She worked on me for a half hour. Finally she called, got a reservation and left the room, snarling "Fine, if you want to be such a big fucking baby, I'll go by myself."

When she came back, she brought me some Pepto from the4 Osco or Sav-on down the street. She apologized and then let me cuddle up with her while she described her roller coaster adventure.

"Well, it is totally fun," she said. "You go through loops and barrel-rolls, you're like 150 feet off the ground, and people are screaming the whole time."

She had sat in the front with "a nice young man," as she put it. I knew it was a jab at me, but i just kissed her as she described the roller coaster car, which was a cross between "an old New York cab and a hot rod."

I enjoyed her happy banter as I drifted off a little. She woke me up and kissed me, and after a very sweet first-time-as-a-married-couple lovemaking session, we took a bath.

When she got out and started to dress for later, I closed the doors and rejoiced that my stomach had held out with the pepto, though its disquiet was coming back with a vengeance.

We went out for a nice bite at the Monte Carlo's steakhouse, where I ordered a meal I thought my stomach had settled enough for the next day. It had, until I got back to the room and lost it.

That night, we saw George Carlin at Bally's, and his act became a part of our ritual visits. As a side note, I had to get up four times total from the opener through Carlin's act, so some of it seemed fresh the next year, though Marcie did not think so.

Marcie got home, drunk and happy, and passed out in her evening wear. I was awake until some more pepto kicked in.

I thought the last day of our little elopement would be the best. I awoke with a settled and happy stomach. My fever had broken, leaving a spectacular Frank-shaped, wet dent on the bed. I felt great.

We ordered in for breakfast and Marcie crossed off yet another item from her list. We had a tender morning and wandered down to gamble for an hour or so, then off to her next stop: Mandalay Bay.

Mandalay Bay had hosted the Lennox-Tua fight the night before, and the crowd had not completely dispersed. We enjoyed a little walking tour of the grounds first. I was fine.

Then, after a quick peek of the head into a restaurant, a smell kind of hit the wrong nerve and my stomach rumbled audibly.

"Oh, honey," Marcie asked. "Are you hungry again?"

I was not, and I gave her a grim shake of the head. "No, no. I think I am fine."

We walked past a couple of restaurants more, and watched the pretentious wine tower with its rigged bartenders going up and down on wires. My stomach was more sour by the minute. I chugged some pepto.

By the time Marcie tried a little more gambling, my belly was in full revolt. We made it to the shark encounter, then Marcie said we shoudl give the shark exhibit a visit.

I was dubious, and my stomach agreed with that outlook. "Let me ask if they have restrooms in the tour, okay?"

No restrooms.

"Frank! Come on!" she said.

I was not glad that I skipped it, but shortly after she left on her own, instead of waiting a little for me to be sure all was clear, I went into the restroom. I got out when she returned. but she had already written her little note.

As she tucked it away in her purse, she commented, "You know, you are going to regret not petting the sharks with me and not riding the roller coaster. Mark my words."

I do regret those things, of course. I also regret every moment in which I could have gone with her to a movie I did not really want to see, or taken a walk with her in Point Loma instead of surfed mission beach.

I regret working my job when she was sick, not being able to be there every second, and every lost moment that necessity and society and general life kept us apart.

But they did not seem like important things at the time.And these regrets are far outweighed by the times I took the risks she wanted me to so we could have more life together in the time we did get.