Category: Blog (Page 73 of 101)

yesterday,
the view from my writing desk
looked like this:

and this:

yesterday there were torrential rains.
impromptu falls sprang up
throughout the forests,
while this one
swelled into
places that
haven’t felt water
in i don’t know how long.

yesterday
the water was
boisterous
and loud,
oh my goodness
it was loud.

yesterday
the water
turned the color
of heavily-milked
coffee,
muddied
agitated
with the debris
that floated in
from who knows where
and how far away.

today,
my view looks like this:

it’s still cloudy
(this time with snow) but
the water has
receded
and cleared
to a shade of whiteness.
the tree that
was in danger
of drowning
yesterday,
now rises
above the falls,
relieved,
i’m sure.

then there’s the
birdfeeder.
birds flock to it
when there’s food
to be had.
they perch on
nearby branches,
politely
(and sometimes
not so politely)
waiting their turn.
squirrels, who would
empty the feeder
in short order,
race up and down
trees
in search of
a bridge,
a way to trespass.

the constant roar
of the water
is occasionally
punctuated
with the
thunk
of a bird
flying
into the window.
it is
nature’s symphony,
that’s for sure.

yesterday
i sat in awe
of the power of
that water
frolicking over
rocks
on its way down
to the lake.
today i
marvel at
the resiliency,
at its
tenacity.
rocks do not
deter it,
they just add
dimension.
logs and limbs
become
playmates,
transported
with the flow,
occasionally
becoming stopped
by a boulder,
but then along
comes a surge
of water,
and the log
is freed.

my falls
are
unapologetically
affected by the
changing
weather conditions.
sometimes,
just for “the fun of it”,
visitors
toss in trash,
and the falls
remain unaffected
as it whisks
the foreign
items away,
depositing them
who knows where.
one thing’s for sure:
the falls will not
hold onto
garbage.

other things you should know about my falls:
this water
doesn’t hold onto
yesterday
and
doesn’t
waste
one nanosecond
concerning itself about
tomorrow.
this water
swells
and dwindles,
it roars
and it hums,
it romps
and it dawdles,
this water flows
without ceasing
always
and
only
in the present.

i almost yank yesterday’s post, feeling it too revealing and too whiney, but i am away all day without computer access so it stays. i tend to be a very private person, crafting all sorts of curtains and armor and masks to hide behind. when other people console me, when they commiserate or empathize with me, southern hospitality being what it is, i feel the need to take care of them, and sometimes that takes more energy than i can spare. plus more times than i can count, i’ve had somebody take my words and fashion them into a weapon used against me. it’s never right away, mind you, always down the road, giving me whiplash from being jerked back in time so abruptly and stinging like hell to have my pain used to inflict more pain.

so i just keep to myself.

thank y’all for your loving comments. i have the best friends ever.

///

we clean out his office today. he doesn’t want to, but thinking that it’ll be easier to go in when nobody is there, i rather insist. plus i just want it behind both of us. being an imaginative woman who has a tendency to be very protective of loved ones, i stand before you and admit that i fantasize about trashing the office. about slashing the chair of his friend, the only one above him in the hierarchy of power and responsibility, the one who sent a henchman to deliver the message of imposted parting, the man who stayed away from the office the entire day on wednesday to avoid having to deal with the unpleasantness, the man who hasn’t so much as sent an email from one friend to another. but i don’t. we don’t. don’t slash or trash, just take what rightly belongs to him, turn the alarm on, lock the door, and head for home. it’s a relief, not having to drag that dread around like a ship’s anchor tied round our necks.

there’s just one more thing i want to do tomorrow, then we are free to direct our imaginations to what might – or will – become.

p.s. we stop for some celebratory chocolate on the way home. only seems right.

we make the necessary phone calls, send the necessary emails that first night, telling ourselves how this was actually “all for the best.” we make ourselves downright giddy with anticipation of seeing confirmation that “this is sure to be the best thing that ever happened to us.” we’ve said it to others so many times, now it’s our turn.

“no alarm clock, right?” i ask as we get into bed.

“no alarm clock – maybe ever again,” he replies as we await the arrival of the sandman.

he sleeps until 9:30 and announces it a good, restful sleep. we tend the animals, do the barest of morning necessities, then because the rain is replaced with sun, and because we are no stranger to the escape mode of dealing with dreadfulness, we strike out for a day of errands. “together,” we say. “this is good.”

and we don’t lie. we absolutely love being together, we enjoy each other’s company. he still laughs at me, i still give him reason to laugh. we work every single day to have the kind of union we want to enjoy. after 38 years of togetherness, we still hold hands everywhere we go. i rub his back as we wait in the checkout line at the grocery store, he squeezes my shoulders as i call to get after the doctor’s office who hasn’t called in the refill for him, the refill he needs today. yup, we are good together.

our last errand checked off the list, he surprises me by turning right off the proverbial beaten path. “where are we going?” i ask him. “taking the scenic route,” he says.

and we do take the scenic route because like he says, we have “nowhere to be and no time to be there.”

we drive along the mountain backroads, the blue sky, the purple mountains, the white/blue/lavender clouds stunning us into silence. we see a fox and four wild turkeys. i vow (then forget when we get home) to look those up in my animal totems book. we see horses and cows, old barns and captivating falling-down houses. we see a donkey standing right beside the road looking adorable, as though that’s his role in life. roadside adorable.

“do you ever . . . did you ever come home this way?” i ask him.

“once,” he says then tells me about how he got behind a school bus that trip. and when it stopped at this one house on the lefthand side of the road in front of a house with a fence all around it, a little boy – maybe 8 years old – got off the bus and headed to that particular house. “there was a donkey in the front yard,” he tells me, “and when the donkey laid eyes on the boy, he started jumping up and down. that donkey was sooooo excited to see that boy . . . at least i think he was excited.”

“of course he was excited,” i offer. “that’s the story you made up about it, based on reading the ass’s body language.”

and we laugh some more.

we get home just in time to work side-by-side in the kitchen cooking supper. “this is gonna’ be great,” we tell each other.

this morning we are up at 7:30, dress, then ride into town together to deliver the dog for her spa appointment. then we go get the slow leak in his front right tire fixed, then, because we can, we make a spur-of-the-moment decision and stop in at the small, old-fashioned superette and take our time walking up and down the aisles filled with all sorts of odd and old-fashioned (and sometimes odd old-fashioned) delectables. from the butcher in the back of the store, he orders a ribeye steak, about an inch thick, for our supper. i pick up the potatoes and some frozen chocolate chip cookies because, well, we don’t have any chocolate in the house, and the time is fast-approaching, me thinks, when we’ll need a bite or twenty of chocolate.

“supper for two for less than $20,” he announces proudly, and i feel a twinge skirt around the edges of my smile.

we putter the day away, readying the house for the arrival of loved ones for thanksgiving week. we are quieter, but still laced with determined optimism. then he gets a call from a friend, and a crack appears.

it’s grief, you know. the roller coaster of grief. grief isn’t contained to bodily death.

we’ll be all right – and i say that with certainty. maybe certainty laced with a we bit of denial. maybe not, though. i guess we’ll see as we go along.

i’m lucky. i’m married to a man who never invested himself in his career for the sake of identity. he didn’t bring work home on the weekends unless it was absolutely, unavoidably necessary. he went in early so he could be at the kids’ soccer games, school plays, recitals, and other special events. though he never really liked the work he did, he eventually developed a solid good reputation in the industry for his steadfast loyalty, honesty, affability. i don’t think he’s sorry to not be making the 2.5 hour drive twice a day. i don’t think he’s sorry to be shed of that tiny, windowless office they stuck him in (something he never complained about, but still). i don’t think he’s sorry to be done with that, and yet it remains to be seen how he will handle living in a week of saturdays. it’s not as easy as some might think, this working from home all day every day. it’s what i do, and i love it. but i wonder: since he’s accustomed to having the structure of working in an office outside the home and enjoying the elasticity of weekends at home – how quickly, how easily will it be to treat home as both work and play?

so yes, there will be adjustments – how he will spend his time, how i will adjust and amend my daily routines and rituals, where we will go from here. not only am i accustomed to, i need long stretches of silence. i’ve trained the dog, i’m sure i can train the husband. one thing i know: we still have miles to go before we sleep. and maybe it’s escapism or avoidance or maybe we have our figurative fingers stuck in our figurative ears – doesn’t matter. we’re focusing on thanksgiving next week. on togetherness, on abundance of life and love, on feasts of love and friendship and family. and week after thanksgiving, we decide together, we’ll start crafting a map.

and me – on the side, i’m quietly conjuring things to do with the strips of cloth, beautifully tinted by errant rainwater . . .