who do I want to be

A new barista is now making my lattes.  His says that his cappaccinos best show off his skills, but his goal is to make great lattes, too.


Yesterday he was pre-occupied with Halloween, a pagan event that, from what I understand of it, is consecrated to propping up the American economy with yet more disposable junk.


Anyway.


"I just don't who I want to be," he said.


"I have that feeling every morning when I get out of bed," I said.


He laughed.


"I meant for Halloween, but yeah, that too," he said.


I am living, as Sartre said, the "curse of freedom."  Freedom not as the opposite of slavery, but of attachment, commitment, love.


My goals in the first year were not about choosing a costume, but shedding what I had (and drinking as many lattes as possible).  This is happening.  This may have been the easy part.


The costumes beckon and seduce.  Who do I want to be?


Candace

worm again

The worm returned last night, shiny and wet, snoozing next to my bed.


"Here again?" I said.


As always, he said nothing.


I scooped him up and returned him to the lawn, still wet from the evening's rain.


I am tired of explaining to him that the moist outdoors is his home, not the inside dry carpet.


In the past month, this is the sixth appearance of Mr. Worm.  Never, ever, had a worm appeared in my/our home.  In makes no sense.  Why come in out of the wet?  But he keeps returning to one of two places, and I'm no longer surprised.


What could this mean?  Rich would not return to me as a worm.   Mr. Worm could easily be Mrs./Ms./Miss; they're hemaphrodites. And not scholars.  If their brain is removed, their behavior remains virtually unchanged.  Their primary response is to light, and not much else.


Maybe this is the message.  Go to the light, the light...


I need to think about this.


Candace

year one/one year

I was unpacking the grocery bags.  While removing the lemon juice, I looked at the clock.  5:24 p.m.  Rich died at 5:25, one year ago.  What does one year mean?  


My body knew.  I howled as the razors ripped through, now deeper than before.  The entire scene re-played, of his last breath, his sweet smell, of his body on the undertaker's gurney, the last time I would see his face.  And my mind, never one to be shy, whispered yet again you didn't do what you should have, you screwed up, what were you thinking...not much, not in the Chordoma years.  Because thinking meant considering the impossible.


How much alike, I now realize, is love and pain.  The first year I knew Rich, I believed I loved him.  But that was only the beginning, a laughably thin layer; if the full power of love exploded in us, all at once, I don't think we could survive.  Only as we learned to let love infuse all of our days, together and apart, did I grasp its power.


The same for pain.  To absorb it all at once is impossible.  Last year was a warm-up.  Not that this year and the next will be "harder," but I expect it will go deeper, slicing into places I can't yet go as I gradually release its power upon me and allow it to fade away -- into love, I hope.


Each night at dinner, Rich and I would light candles, hold hands, and say, another day, love, another day.


So -- another year, love, another year.


Candace

an open heart

Tonight, a dinner invitation I rejected.  Not when the anniversary of Rich's death is three days away; I cannot pretend to participate in conversation that doesn't matter with those who didn't know him.


Instead I will scream the only prayer remaining:  Open my heart.  To break open a pain that can be tolerated in small doses, lest the supplicant go mad.  To allow admittance to a future of glistening shards, unlabeled, waiting for me.


I will light a candle, seeing in it the container that once held it all, and always will.


Tomorrow, I will drink wine with friends to remind myself that this is the stuff of now and the future, and I had better get used to it.


I will look back on my list of a year ago and laugh.


I will never forget -- my final prayer.


Candace

answers

Grief makes for dull reading.  How could it be otherwise, when the author's brain and senses are numb, the ending unknown, the energy-giver gone?


We read about grief (I include myself here, thousands of words read on the topic) because, I expect, we want "an answer."  Not "the" answer, that's not possible, but yearning for a possibility of light inside the cave.


Surprise:  No answer.


And the only ones who offer one haven't been where I am.  Those who have only say:  It's hard.  Sometimes, they add: You're brave.


It is hard.  I am not brave.  Neither pain nor courage are options.  


Candace

waiting for the plumber

Almost a year.  All that I have planned for the day is a visit from a repairman for the pellet stove.  Why not?  It's hard to get on his calendar, and at least it's practical.  

I am post-ritual.  I've opened every door that I know, and behind all of them is a sheer cliff.  

Then look at photos, a friend suggests.  Bathe in the memories.  

Torture. I don't look.

Ditto for Rich's clothes.  For talking about him.  For not talking about him.

There is no escape, no comfort.  

There is only pain, bathing in it, breathing it in, waiting for the cleaning, waiting for the exhale.

Waiting. That's the job of grief.

Practical, too, in this life alone.  I spend a lot of my time waiting for the plumber, waiting for a repair of this or a cleaning of that.  

This may be the only ritual that matters now.  Waiting -- to be cleaned, to be repaired.

Candace