A Little Adventure

The repetitious fog horn sounds in the distance. A Siamese cat surveys my invasion of his territory from the corner and swishes his tail in his own rhythm, quite contrary to the boom, boom, boom of the radios in cars passing in front of the pottery barn in which I'm am cozied up for the night.

I've gone on a bit of an adventure, to spend time with the friend who made Y's urn, to check in on my mom, and have an excursion to the Bay Area to play with Bella and make contact with my family there. I had to get out of the house in the mountains for September 27th would have been Y's 70th birthday. The way I was going alone there, the puddle would have turned into a pond, and I thought I'd do better out in the world for a change then struggling to find things to do at home.

There is no end to the list of things to do; sometimes I just don't want to do them.

So to go on this adventure, I had to get behind the wheel of the car again. I'm not sure if this phenomena was strictly my own, or if others in grief have a fear of driving. All I know is that my reaction time of moving my foot from the accelerator onto the brake had slowed down too much to be safe. I'd forget where I was going as I was driving toward town. I literally shook with anxiety. So, I had others pick up my mail, the prepared food left at the quilt shop, or do my shopping.

When I got this plan to leave home, I realized I needed to do something about my problem. I had to take small steps, so I drove to the post office and back one day. The next morning, I did a dump run and made a deposit at the bank. Then I tackled going 22 miles to Willits. I made it there and back with flying colors and only twice drifted over the center line. Thank goodness there was no one in the other lane.

Then I took myself 50 miles to Ukiah and made my two appointments, one with a counselor and one with a chiropractor. I did everything on the list, made all the required left hand turns, and got home without an incident.

It doesn't seem like much, I know. In fact, it seems silly in retrospect, but I did have a problem, and I had to solve it, all by myself. This set of tasks helped me pull myself together. Keeping to a schedule helped me keep the goal in mind. I don't want to be a recluse. I don't want to be a dependent old lady who has to live in the back room of one of her kid's homes to be able to survive. I can do this thing, called living alone, and I plan on doing it well. I just have to take it one step at a time and expand my confidence as I go.

I have a new prayer. “Thank you for who I am. Thank you for who I have been. Thank you for who I am becoming.”

The cat is on the bed now, accepting the inevitability of having to make friends with a new person for the night, and I am so new, even to myself.

Not Sure Why

I promised myself I would not 'set myself up'. I know what it means to pine away over such contrived memory land-marks as the first date, the first kiss, etc. I did enough if it when I was younger with teenager love-lost situations. I decided this kind of memory thing struck me as a form of self-persecution.

I also promised myself I would get busy, not so much that I'd get run down or sick, but enough to increase my activity and begin preparing the house, garden, etc. for winter. Having projects diverts my from focusing on what I no longer have to what I can create. They help me through the day.

What doesn't help are the moments when I expect something to be done by my absent partner and realize I'll have to do it myself. Having to take his fanny pouch off the chair and go through the contents of his wallet for the first time in our married lives threw me for a loop. The first smell of fall which always thrilled me because it meant football and popcorn and slower days made my eyes water until the sun went down.

So, I wondered why I kept his denim shirt out of the wash, separating it from the last batch of clothes he'd worn. His smell lingered on the collar. It held the last essence of his physical body. I tucked it away for at time and brought it out today. Pulling it on gave me a strange comfort, like reaffirming his life had been wrapped around mine as much as his shirt covered my arms and breasts and buttocks. It helped me know how much I was loved and probably still am from across this great divide separating us. I've hung it away again in a corner of his closet for some day in the future when I might need to be reminded of that love, or when I might need a good cry.

Surviving

What's inconceivable to me is how life keeps on going. Outside my bubble, my protected nest, all that was set in motion before Y's illness and death is happening. My novel is still getting published. His donated photos are still selling as a 2011 calendar. People are going to work and shopping. In truth, only my world, my day to day journey, has been affected. There are many who think of him and me, I'm sure, but they have to attend to their responsibilities. My son, Spence, admitted how easy it was for him to immerse himself in his job, his basketball team, and especially his four-month-old daughter's smiles; all of it easing his loss.

I learned something from him, and I tried this tactic yesterday. I made lists and chose one task, just to see if I could focus on something outside the pressure in my chest. I applied sealer to the deck railings. Sun rippled through the trees. A soft breeze teased the flowers blooming in the redwood planters. Blue jays cawed. At first I was only going to do two small outside sections, but, after accomplishing that small bit, I started the inside portion behind the planters which were the hardest to reach. I wanted to reposition the newly-planted flowers then redo the drip system, eventually.

I thought to stop there and do something else but decided to change my pattern of dancing from one project to the next. Instead, I painted until I ran out of sealer, a much different ending point for me.

When I was done, I was hungry for the first time in days, so I cleaned the brushes while my husband's voice whispered in my ear, “Not done until you finish the paperwork.” I could smile instead of cry and move on to the next task without being stopped in my tracks by a memory.

And so it went, one small job after another. I got through the day, until bedtime, when there were no diversions; where life stopped and past memories and future fears took over.

Laying in bed, I pushed my attention out the open window, into the night, and heard an infrequent croak of a groggy frog, the soft call of an owl, and I was reassured about life going on in a darkness which would only last until the sun came up again.