2-1 - Memories

Remember the day that...

Remember when we were...

...The time we went...

Remember this, remember that? Remember? Remember?

What do you do when you don’t have anyone to remember with? Years and years of singular memories that just the two of us were witness to. Without you did these things really happen? Were we really there? Did we see it, feel it? You know, it’s the old “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there…”

When I’m gone, or soon to forget, none of it will have happened at all.

2-1 - Safety

I was with a dear friend last week…a fellow traveler on this painful road and much appreciated kindred spirit. We got to talking about feeling safe. Although her experiences and sense of safety are different from mine, that conversation brought some clarity to me about what I lost with Kevin’s death. Well, Kevin, of course – a husband, friend and lover, but also life as the lucky know it. There was a sense of confidence, security, and joyful anticipation; that youthful feeling, long after youth had turned to maturity that “trouble would come and trouble would go.” That “nothing could keep us down” or that “where there’s a will there’s a way” and all those other clichés that we took for granted and believed with all our heart.

In traveling to see my friend I saw the embodiment of this sense of security, safety. I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the nearby Back Bay train station. The streets and the train depot were filled with young people. They moved with such self-confidence and assurance. It all seemed so easy for them carrying all their gear, while balancing a latte and IPOD and cell phone. They laughed and talked endlessly on the five hour trip about majors, school gossip, impending birthdays (yikes 23!), about their mother’s wardrobe (to be borrowed) and their new lives in new apartments, with new lovers and spouses and surprise but welcomed pregnancies.

Yes, that youthful sense of safety. I guess you could say I was lucky as some lose that illusion much sooner – the early death of a parent, sibling, friend; the childhood witness to a long, painful illness that no amount of wishing or hoping or praying to your God ends in remission or cure. Or the realization that – as Kevin said, once he was diagnosed - “Now, there is no place safe anymore.”

I try to take refuge in the memories of our trips out west and to the mountains, our lost weekends in bed, and our leisurely strolls around New York City. It was safe then. It all appeared endless. I touch the treasures we bought along the way, tucked around the house to remind us of the week in Bodega Bay, our trips to Santa Fe, Utah, ah….Mohonk Mountain House. My mind retreats to those times, those times when there was no inkling of “nowhere safe”. But all I get is a feeling of panic – like in a nightmare when a monster is chasing you. Rushing room to room, memory to memory cannot secure a feeling of safety. I know - I know too much. Bad things happen and they happen to people I love and to me and there is nothing you can do to change it, control it, stop it or pray it away.

Does that make me a grown-up? Finally?

2-1 - Where is "on"?

People talk about “moving on” after a catastrophic event…but where is “on” and how do you get there?

I’ve been trying to figure out why the days are getting harder to get through rather than easier. I know the realization of the finality of death has sunk in. Year three – at least for me – has been the most difficult. You are over the shock, have moved through the pain of physical separation and now, now you have to deal with the reality of never, not ever getting your old life back. As imperfect as it may have been, it was my life. It had a past, a present and an assumed future. It was anchored, pinned to someone else’s life. A life that had its own past, present and future that I knew intimately through shared experience or through stories told to me so many times I thought I lived them myself. And, you know, you count on that other life to coincide with yours, effect yours, bring its own unique energy to bear on yours - shaping the future. Without that other life, well, the concrete things are there – the past, the present, ah, but the future. Where is that?

My life now consists of only the past and the present. I alone seemingly cannot generate enough energy to move “on”. It is somewhat like Groundhog Day. Each day is adrift, a separate entity from the next. Not really building to anything, not going anywhere, just another day that you fill with activities. Sure there are plans, but they are not plans for the future, they are more like scheduled activities. They are pathetic attempts to create a future.

And I do fill my days with activities, but at the end of the day or in the beginning of the day, in the quiet of the house, the depth of my missing him, seeing him, hearing his voice is still there, still the main focus of my life. Nothing I have done or plan to do fills the void of my future. Nothing brings me any closer to a sincere joyful moment, an anticipatory thrill, a momentous idea about what I could, should, would do in the days ahead, the months ahead and certainly not the years ahead.

Have to go….have so much to do today….

2-1 - The Sink Hole

A giant sink hole developed in my heart last night. It was nothing I did, saw, said, heard. It was simply the enormous weight of the grief that fell through the fragile layer of future that had begun to develop over the gaping wound.

It had almost begun to work…the tiniest, thinnest layer of life without him, solitary plans, visions of what it will be like once the muffling is complete; the ability to listen to music without dissolving into tears; the courage to watch a favored movie; to wear a tee shirt that was brought back from a great adventure; the imagining of life – for years and years – without him. But it all came crashing in late last night and dissolved back into the beginning when the tears would just not stop and the pain – the familiar physical pain – came unrelenting --again.

All that progress, all those strides forward gone in a moment and its 2007 again, the year that the world ended. It was such a struggle to get as far as I had and now I’m back to the foot of the wall – a sheer, vertical wall that has to be climbed – such effort and I can no longer see the handholds I had once so carefully chiseled.

So I think I’ll just stay here for a bit…with his pictures, his things and re-read his letters. In particular that one letter, one of those from the African trip in 1992 where he declared – 11 years into our life together – 11 years - long after many relationships hit the hum-drum! “You are the love of my life…” How could I have ever been uncertain? But there it is in black and white. It cannot be denied …I cannot question or doubt or disbelieve. Although I read that letter 18 years ago, I didn't really get it until now.

Of all the thoughts he put into the thousands of words he wrote to me over the years…declaring all sorts of things – that declaration - those seven words are the only ones I wish I could hear his voice say – right now!

2-1 - Life

Life is a perfectly honed ball…That’s how it starts out. Everything is perfect – as far as you are concerned. Food comes, warmth comes and you don’t know what you are missing so you never miss it.

As time goes by if you look at that perfectly honed ball under a magnifying glass you will see a few jagged edges, not many and the divots not very deep, but they are undeniably there. They come from tiny disappointments – coloring outside the lines, losing the 3 legged race, being told you can’t have that 3rd cookie. It all starts to add up, chipping away, chipping away, tiny little chips.

The more intrusive lacerations soon arrive, now visible with the naked eye. There is an illness – not just a cold, the first broken heart, the realization of the less than perfect body, Grandpa’s dies, the dog dies and the academic and social failures – a D in geometry and being a wallflower at your first dance.

Sometimes, if you are really well adjusted you can hone the ball again – polish it up so that it is not so ragged, doesn’t catch on everything and slow you down. You can never get back that mirror finish, but you can polish away some of the pain. Be aware that the polish is not permanent. Never will be, it is meant to be chipped away at. It is life and if it is not chipped away then you did not live.

But there is more, now many more serious gashes begin to appear. They are large gouges that leave the ball unrecognizable. They are completely un-repairable. These are the death of a lover, a mother, a father, a child; the loss of a job or the failure of a business; the end of a dream, a flood, an accident, a purposeful destruction. Now you are seeing life as it really is. It is no longer the smooth and shiny ball it appeared at the beginning. In fact it is no longer round. Large sections of it have been eaten away, deep into the core. It is nothing but a random shape hardly able to hold itself together. It was always supposed to be used up, cut into, and hacked away. That’s what it means to live, to love, to experience life.

My ball is nothing but a spiky, irregular mass, nothing much left of it now. I guess enough to live on for the rest of this life. And it is comforting to know that there can be no more surprises, no more devastating realizations. All of that has been eaten away and it is smooth sailing from here on out.

2-1 -- Probably

It has been two years, eight months and twenty-two days since I saw Kevin alive. I consider the day he had the heart attack and stroke as the day he died, although he lingered in a coma for two more days. That was the first time I knew that he was gone and would probably never come back. Probably you say – PROBABLY?! Yeah well, you lose the man who had become the center of your universe, the man who you lived for. Not that I didn’t have and still have a life of my own. Many of you know that I was and am very independent, but still, you know, he was my touch point, my home base, my measure, my guidepost, my trail marker, my kite string. Although we lived uniquely different lives we were family and we were tied together. Not by blood, but by something stronger than blood, it was by choice.

Now I don’t want you all to think I am sugar-coating my life (I know you know better than that!). Kevin and I had a tumultuous life together. We fought; we disagreed about everything from how to spend money to what to have for dinner. We were sometimes quite mean to each other just like you and he or you and she, but unless you experience the death of he or she you cannot know how certainly the “cream” rises to the top. Sure I remember the hurt, the times I wanted to leave, he wanted to leave, we both wanted to leave – each other. But those times were the parentheses to the other times. The bad times were not the essence of our relationship; they were food for the other parts.

Our differences made us never bored with each other. Our differences, although most frustrating, made the occasions we agreed with each other pure joy, and whatever it was -we did it, bought it, sold it, planned it, because agreement was a sure thing. Our differences made us compromise – and he did his share of compromise – although perhaps not as obviously as mine. He shut the door to being crazy, being out of control, being unpredictable. He chose to live a normal life…it took 15 years together for him to completely come to terms with that, but he made a clear choice and the choice was ME. It took a lot for him to live with his own demons, sorrow, pain and disappointment without benefit of drug or alcohol; he said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

I can’t touch his studio yet because, although I know he will PROBABLY never come back, once I disassemble it he will never be able to come back. I will break the spell, shut the cosmic door, turn off the pathway to his finding me and I’m not ready to concede that I will never see him again. Never hear him repeat one of his numerous stories for the 25th time, never hear him complain about the summer heat or the lack of winter snow, never hear him rail about politics, race, religion, rap music, the state of Hollywood filmmaking or the idea that everyone today thinks they are a filmmaker now that they have cell phone video capability.

But more, I will never again learn something new from him and I did everyday. Or have him tell me to turn around and look behind me to see a sight I would never have seen. Ah, this is why different was ever so good. I will never again marvel at how easily he framed a shot in the camera, or picked colors or heard a sound in the woods and knew it was a deer, a beaver or an eagle. I’ll never see him move from knot-tying to beading to skeet shooting and numerous other hobbies, excelling at everything he touched. He will never again computer-paint another fantastic image from the thousands of negatives that detail every place he ever was and every beautiful thing he ever laid his eyes on. I’ll never see the world from his perspective again and neither will the rest of the world.

I can’t bear to think that I will never feel his arms around me, or see the 21-year-old girl I once was reflected in his eyes. Never hear him breathing next to me in the middle of the night, or hear his comforting whispered reply when I whispered his name in the dark. And I will never live the fantasy of recapturing our youthful passion or see with him all the places he wanted me to see.

So my friends you can see that until I can figure out a way to fill some of those holes that have shredded, decimated, destroyed my life as I knew it, was living it and was prepared to live it for the rest of it, until I find a new trail head and tether myself to something else – not necessarily someone else – I would rather just accept that he will PROBABLY never be coming back, but – you never know.