Winds of Change

The fury of the winds upon my roof was relentless. It blew and blew for the last few days. Mostly I stayed in bed to keep warm. I wouldn't say I am proud of the fact, but I am happy for myself that I had the chance. I'm making tamales today. The masa has saffron that a friend of mine brought back for me from Turkey. I have so many things to do it's difficult to know where to start. I'm probably going to close up the house and move on to a different life than I have known. It's strange to be letting go of everything I have struggled to accumulate. Honestly, I question the benefit of collecting so many objects. Relinquishing them is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.

A Light Supper

When the Unwanted Guest arrives...
I might be afraid.
I might smile or say:
My day was good, let night fall.
You well find the fields ploughed, the house clean,
the table set,

and everything in its place.

 

--Manuel Bandeira

 

We move into another winter and it's cold outside.

What will 2014 bring? It's been a short while since

we moved into the 21st century. Numbers

like 2013 and 2014 are strange to me. It seems

like just yesterday it was 1981. There were still

many years left to the 20th century. Today it's

cold and the next century spreads out like

a blank canvas. Let me pick up the brush.

 

Autumn Circle

All the things which come with Autumn represent change. The leaves change colors and then drop. The mornings get crisper and nights are clearer. It's been one year since my love died and my heart remembers parts of my life that my mind cannot. My love and I began in the Autumn more than thirty years ago, and my life feels like a giant circle which has led me back to exactly where I began. Having returned to the beginning, I cannot help but notice that everything has changed. So many Autumns have come and gone in that time and it is a different world than when my love first stole a kiss from me. An incredible life was set in motion with just a kiss.  Now, as that life runs its course, I am left in this moment. Today there is online-dating, lap band surgery, Obama care, war, cell phones, Facebook, really expensive gas, nano technology, and the list goes on and on. The world that my love and I knew, once upon a time, is gone. Autumn is difficult because you really become aware of change. You can't pretend that everything is the same. I'm like an astronaut in my own life on an unknown planet. I pray for friendly alien life forms to greet me not knowing who or what awaits. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers.  

Mongoose Days

I read "Rikki Tikki Tavi" with my students. He is a very brave mongoose that Rudyard Kipling created. He kills the cobras. I was thinking about the story from the perspective of the cobras, and it comes out very differently. They were just trying to protect their babies. Funny how life has two sides. I have a hard time seeing two sides of the events in Syria, but maybe it's not so unlike the mongoose and the cobras. They each want to protect what is theirs. I speak to my love each day because his picture is on my desk. He was a really fierce mongoose himself. Yet, he could be as gentle and playful as Rikki Tikki. It's hot here and the weather tires me out. I can't complain because it's nothing like Colorado. Those floods just washed away the life that so many people knew. In the beginning of "Rikki Tikki" it's a flood that washes Rikki away from his parents and his old life into his knew life and his adulthood. He learned well from his childhood/mongoose youth, and he carries his knowledge with him with no chance to go back. I guess that's how life is. Sometimes we get washed out of the past and we go on.

Faith and Clouds

I learned so much today. On the radio they were telling about a treatment that had my love had it, it might have saved him. I got angry, but I remembered what my love always said, "When death comes, even the doctors are silenced." So it was that he left. Then of course, the saddest song came on the radio so I could hardly drive. It's been raining out here in the desert, and I am getting use to all the water (from the sky and my eyes). The clouds have really been amazing. I keep looking up and wondering if the image of the clouds as heaven is just an illusion. Then I wonder if my love can see me or look down upon me. The idea of weather makes me think not. I'm sure it doesn't matter, but I still question and wonder. I wish I could just have faith. My dogs are barking at something they see or hear but I don't. So, I'm off to speak with them and I don't even know if they understand.

Strange Dreams & Strange Music

Last night I had the strangest dream (I know that's a line from too many dreams). In my dream, I understood exactly how to prepare to die and go to the next life. I was explaining to someone this epiphany, but as I began to explain, the understanding left me. The explanation of how one can accept mortality and prepare to leave this life we know involved a deep love of God. There was more to it than that, but I could not hold onto the understanding when I went to explain it. What a shame. It's funny that I am struggling with this problem in my dreams. Many of my friends have died over the years, but I never thought too much about the fear of death or my own fears. I'm sitting hear listening to Tom Waits and it's about 2:00 a.m. I can't sleep anymore and the song he is singing is called "Starving in the Belly of a Whale." Well! Death has certainly swallowed me up at this moment. The sun will come up soon and that whale will surely spit me out. I'm going to change the music right now.

Dia de Los Muertos & the Voice of My Love

I've been canning grape jelly and grape tomatoes this week. What a job! I'm trying to teach myself how to do it correctly. It is a bit difficult, but I'm learning. I don't know what to do with all the jars of jelly, jam and misc. I was cleaning up my hard drive and I came across a video my love and I made just a short while back before he became so ill. I can hear his voice saying things about humming birds and the land. He is speaking to me and I just love to hear his voice. I did not know I had such a precious gift. It really was a gift from the Universe this week. I thought I would never hear his voice again, but that is not so. The video reminds me of what a gentle and sweet man he was to me. I miss him this week. I found a really neat video that you can watch for free. It's about the Day of the Dead. This is a Mexican celebration that kind of laughs at death in order not to cry. The short film is animated and a little girl who has lost her mom is taken to the land of the dead for a short while to learn what Dia De Los Muertos is really about. You will love it. Actually it will be the most beautiful 3 minutes you will know for sometime. Just copy this in our url and you will be there.

http://vimeo.com/71853142

i know a path

 "i know a path in your heart that merges with mine, my sweetheart and i know of a tranquil sea, within me, that mirrors your moon face with delight."   Rumi

Funeral for a Friend

Once, long ago, my love and I attended a memorial service for an acquaintance of ours. It was like no other ceremony to which I have ever been. There was music and poetry and you knew that a man was gone, but the good things he had done lived on in the people in the room. Actually it wasn't a room but an outdoor dome fashioned from bricks where people sat on beautiful Persian carpets. The sunlight streamed into the dome from the places without bricks. When the people sang or recited Rumi, the sound was amplified. Many people filled that dome to honor a Persian man out in the desert who had been a poet and engineer and other things too. His wife was there. His son was there. It is easy to remember how lovely and sad that day was. My thoughts at that precise moment were somehow that service, that moment of death and peace, would never come again. I wanted to steal the memory so one day when I faced incredible grief, I would remember the feeling of death and peace together. In the future, I figured, no matter how bad I would feel, I'd envision that day, that service and I do.  I remember the instruments that the musicians played that afternoon. There was a drum that had little pieces of metal hanging from the rim which made a rhythmic drumming sound. I think it was called a tambor. Of course nobody tells us about love the way Rumi does. Love was there that day with Rumi seemingly in all things. The engineer was released from the earth with music and poetry. I hope that is the way people will celebrate my life one day. A moment like that is the magical culmination of every moment that came before it. Celebrating life is maybe all we can do or all we should do. We can share that together and we did. My love and I together will always be in that dome with love and music and Rumi forever. I can picture us with the enginer who built domes in the desert sitting on the carpets and reciting about love.

Don Quixote and My Chivalrous Man

When my love died, I gave away many of my books. I could not bear to see them anymore. I understand now how foolish this was, but at the time, in my anger, I did this stupid thing. One of the beautiful and very old books I gave away was Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantez. I can remember watching Raul Julia in Man of La Mancha in Orange County in the early 90's. That was such a wonderful show. I was much younger then and I could only see Don Quixote's great love Dulcinea as this really mean woman. I could only see she was always angry with Don Quixote. What I didn't understand then was that Don Quixote was living out the code of chivalry. At that time, I had never taught the story of King Arthur, so I had no idea about chivalry. More importantly, I did not understand the impact that the character of Don Quixote has on Dulcinea (Aldonza).  Lucky for me today I bought an old VHS of Don Quixote with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. I saw the story from a very different perspective.  Much older now and having lived a great deal more, I can see what Don Quixote does for her not only by his love, but by his seeing her as she should have been (had her life's path been different) and not as she was. This is surely what my love did for me. He chose me and made me feel as if I was worthy of great love. From my experience, this is rare. At the end of the story, after Don Quixote dies, Aldonza calls herself Dulcinea. She feels different about herself. This is true for me, as well. I go on and I hold my head up high.  

Waitresses from Heaven and Free Coffee

When I was young, I was a waitress. I was a waitress for many years. I remember all the people who came and went from my life and there were many. One couple who ate at the diner each week were really old (as I saw it) and really in love. Bill would help his wife out of the car and into the diner. They would always eat the same thing--cheese blintzes. I never thought much about the wig that Bill's wife wore on her head other than it wasn't very becoming. Then one day, after several years of seeing the two of them together, Bill came alone to the diner. He ordered the same food, but he had tears in his eyes. When he told me about his wife, water came from his nose and his mouth and his eyes. It was as if his soul was just washing out of his body. I was pretty young and I could see that he was lost and destroyed. I hadn't experienced such loss myself at that time so even though I was mortified, I could not ultimately connect. I still have a picture of myself sitting with Bill in the booth at the diner. This picture was probably taken at Christmas or Easter not so long after Bill's wife died. We are both smiling but Bill looks really frail and it won't be too long after that picture that Bill will stop eating blintzes (which he loved) and stop coming to the diner. You never know what an impact you have on people and how people you hardly know become your family. Yesterday, at the diner where I go sometimes for breakfast,I had my usual. the diner is really a bar but they have a great breakfast special that is really cheap. I watch the people drink beer up at the bar at 8:00 a.m. I eat my fabulous breakfast with potato pancakes and eggs. The waitress is always so nice and she's just this kind human who doesn't give me a hard time when I walk out while the juke box plays sad love songs. She's just like I was when I was a waitress way back when. Yesterday, I told her I was celebrating not having cancer. She bought my coffee. Life is good and life goes on.

The Art of Dying and the Art of Intelligent Living

I was listening to a lecture on the art of dying. This lecture was given by a gentleman named Atulanand Ji. It was a little bit difficult to agree with, but he said that when we dream, we don't have desire. I told you about that dream when my love came back to me and told me he would only stay three days. I remember feeling that I wanted more time, but I was happy for three days. Never in my life have I experienced such desire. Still this gentleman went into great discussion about irrational fears and a distinct drop in intelligence. Yesterday, out of my irrational fear of getting cancer, I suspect I had a distinct drop in intelligence. Just because I have to have some uncomfortable testing tomorrow doesn't mean I'm going to die, and even if I do get that cancer it won't mean I'm going to die. Although, someday I will. It's just probably not going to be in the immediate future. I love this blog and I'm not going to stop after all. I love my brother, the one who communicates with me, for calling me and telling me he loves me. Again, I am not alone. I love my best friend for taking me to the hospital tomorrow. I love my love for teaching me that the richest man cannot buy health.

Ask not for whom the phone rings...

I wasn't going to blog anymore. I was going to close this chapter of my life and move on. Big words! I'm not sure if that is really going to be the case. I promise myself that whatever comes from this moment forward, I will accept with grace. I won't try to fight or control or whatever. I'm waiting for a call from my doctor. Isn't that funny. I somehow thought my health wasn't really in question, but maybe that's not true and maybe I'm going to go through some other journey. I can't say at this moment. If the news is good, I won't even publish this entry. If it's not so good, I will. My stomach hurts and I can't stop thinking that maybe my love went away for a reason. I know it sounds stupid, but I always knew he went first so he would be there for me when I go on to another life. Some of my friends this week told me they don't believe in the after-life and that my belief is because I need to believe in it. Well, it's times like these you don't want your faith to waiver too much. I can tell you right now that even in my fear, I do believe in the after-life, and I so want to believe that I will be with my love again. I think I'd like to see my mom again too. Funny when you are really scared you want your mom. Once when my mom thought I had eaten a poisonous plant she put her finger right down my throat in a flash. Yuck! It wasn't poisonous, but I never ate plants again (just sometimes from the grocery store). I knew she cared about my life. I cared about her life and when she died, I missed it by only a few minutes. I woke up in the middle of the night and was on my way to see her when she died. I was always sad that I wasn't with her at the end. Death really sucks. I'm so mad right now and I can't say if I have the energy to go through any big thing right now. I'm kind of thinking that being with my love would be so preferable to anything I'm doing right now with my life. I get it that it's not going to be my choice. Still, I guess you could say I can't lose (unless there is no afterlife) because if I stay it's good and if I go it's good. That's my belief for this moment. Who knows how I will feel after this phone call.

Closing the Book on the Past

The book I created about my love came in the mail today. It had several surprises in it which I did not even realize while I was creating it. Our favorite restaurant, the one with the warm fireplace and the French bistro look, was the backdrop for one of the photos. I hadn't even noticed that. There is a beautiful landscape of the beach where we first met. I had not intentionally put that in the book. Strangely, most of the pictures are from the final years of our life together and not the beginning. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that when we started together so many years ago, there were film cameras and digital had not come in yet. Oh, how the world has changed. It's funny that the pictures I chose are not the best photos of us. As a matter of fact, they are mostly the really ordinary ones where we look so comfortable together. My love would have said he looked like a farmer, and I never realized how many plaid shirts he owned (I'm crying and laughing at this moment). When I received the book, I couldn't stop looking at it. I read it over and over and stared at the photos as if I had never seen them before. I added some stickers in the back of the book which show what kind of world into which we both were born. They were very different times and I can see that the world my love was born into was much more difficult than mine. His birth year includes the arrest of many famous criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, the dust bowl and Hitler becoming Fuhrer. My year has John Glenn's orbit of the earth, Jackie Kennedy's tour of the White House for television viewers, Marilyn Monroe's death and the Cuban missile crisis.  I know it's getting time to close the book on the past to some degree. It's not that I won't continue to grieve. It's just that I need some right-of-passage out of this dark journey. I'm ready to step out into the light of day and try to remember all the good things and let go of the sadness. The world I'm being born into today is, to borrow another quote, the best of times and the worst of times. So be it. I miss my love and I go on in peace. Take care. I will too.

Return to Sender or My Love

This morning I was continuing to go through papers and let go of whatever I can let go of. I found a valentine that I gave my love with Snow White singing "...someday my prince will come..." The music doesn't play anymore but the writing is still there. Then I found a valentine from my love. When I opened it, the music didn't play either. I was a little sad that I couldn't have a song, but then as if by magic it started to sing to me, "I feel good. Knew that I would now. I've got you!" Now that was a message from beyond that made me feel connected. I needed that today.
I've been waiting for that beautiful book that I created to arrive. It's kind of the final chapter in my life with my love. I added quotes from Rumi, Virgil and Hafez. On the back cover there is a picture of the most beautiful cloud that my love photographed. He had an eye for beauty. So, I've been waiting and I had guaranteed delivery by today. The mailman came and went. My disappointment grew. Finally started to track the shipping and the book had actually traveled to many of the places that my love and I had really enjoyed visiting. I cannot account for that since my address is really out of the direction of these places. The book finally ended up in Florida as undeliverable. Florida! Now my love has several connections to Florida and we visited there shortly before the huge hurricane that nailed Fort Myers a few years back. I just have to believe that my love is hanging out with the gators in some swamp down in Florida reading his book. Enjoy.

Son of a Great Man, Brother of a Great Woman

When my love was a little boy he would walk down the street and people would recognize him and come up to him and say, "Your father was a great man." They knew that my love had lost both his father and his mother at a very young age, but they also knew just how kind and generous his father had been. The father of my love would literally give you the coat off his back, and he did this once during the winter. He would deliver coal to families he knew were poor and without. He was a great man and when people would see the beautiful sad face of my love, they would remember just how great his father was. My love had a sister who was only a little older than he was. As a girl without parents, she would have the lessor opportunities of two children with very few opportunities. But children of great men seem sometimes destined to create opportunities where there are none. My love's sister would quickly be married off after the death of her father. She would be expected to raise her little brother as her son. In the house of her in laws, she would know hunger and great frustration. Even though her own life would not turn out as her own father might have wanted and surely not as her mother might have wanted, over the course of years, her great love for her little brother would work miracles. It was her love her that would spread across several continents through her little brother to others.  She would do without to give her little brother an education and a future. Her brother loved her so and came to see that without her, he would have had nothing. He was lucky to be the son of a great man and the brother of a great woman. There life was not built on sand but the indestructible stone created by love and suffering and loss.

Heaven is where True Love Goes

The moment you walked inside my door, I knew that I need not look no more
I've seen many other souls before-oh but, Heaven must've programmed you
The moment you fell inside my dreams, I realised all I hadn't seen
I've seen many other souls before oh but, Heaven must've programmed you
Oh, will you? Will you? Will you?
I go where True Love goes, I go where True Love goes
                                                                          --Yusuf Islam" Heaven/Where True Love Goes"

Long before I could understand that my love was going to die, I heard this song and it made me weep. It made me weep because I had such a strong love, and I could hear the truth in these words. Now that my love is gone from me, I think of God so much. When I hear this song my feeling is that my love and God are one--connected. I cannot even imagine one without the other. It seems that I misunderstood about God completely. Imagining death does seem more peaceful this way.

Modesty and Medicine

Today I must go to the doctor. It's a regular check up with my doctor who takes care of my women's issues (it's a doctor whose type of medicine begins with the letter "g". I know I should be able to say that word, but it's embarrassing. He is also an oncologist because I had a little trouble with an illness that begins with the letter "c". The big "C". That word you won't mind if I don't use because in most cultures it is taboo to say the word. Anyway, I'm OK now and I just have to check in with the doctor to make sure nothing has come back. When I first got my doctor, I did not know anything about him other than he is a man. A man! I really tried to get a woman doctor, but that was not possible, and I really tried. It's not that I don't respect men doctors, but the thought of a man woman's doctor was difficult to accept. When I first met him, I couldn't believe what I saw. Of course I had hoped that he would be an ancient ugly frog that I could pretend I did not notice, but that was not to be. My love took me to the appointment and even went in with me for the first consultation. I suspect God works in mysterious ways. These days I think my doctor is beautiful because he saves lives and he probably saved mine, but when I first met him I was dumbstruck that not only was he very young and very handsome, but he was from the same country of origin as my love. The country they both come from is not one where women generally have men as their doctors. How could this be? It was so embarrassing. Luckily my doctor and my love hit it off and the doctor understood that it was my love who needed the reassurance more than I. Luckily my doctor has a loving heart. I always feel sorry for my doctor because his job must be really uncomfortable and I suspect his reward will only come in heaven. My love will be there to meet him one day. When my love was very young, his own mother refused to go to a man doctor and this for her was a very bad decision. Had she gone, she might still be alive today (although very old). I know for myself, had I not gone to the man doctor, I would not be here either. For today, I am grateful to be here and very grateful to have a doctor.

The Last Supper

I remember the last meal I fed to my love before he went to the hospital for the last time and would taste food no more. I gave him grape leaves and hummus. He only ate a little, but those were dishes he always loved. I tried so hard to give him any food he would enjoy, but towards the end, food was not so important to him. We spent our life together cooking and eating and while this was not especially healthy, it was fun. I even studied Greek cooking for three years so I could make him the best food.
Imagine for a moment that it was your last meal. What would you want it to be? I think for me it would have to be cheese blintzes. I was a waitress for a very long time, and blintzes covered in strawberry jam were my favorite thing to eat. My love always wanted eggplant cooked in a variety of ways with tomatoes or yogurt or garlic. In a book called The Meaning of Food, a man named Brian Price, who had been in prison for several years, tells about how he would cook the meals for the men who were sentenced to death. The condemned men could choose what they wanted to eat and he would fix it for them. Sometimes the prison wouldn't have the exact ingredient like fish or whatever and he would try to take something else and make it as close as possible to what the condemned prisoner wanted. Most other prisoners did not want to fix this last meal for the condemned but Mr. Price came to believe that his cooking made a difference and that he could give these men a little peace before their last moment on earth came. I guess you could say we are all condemned to some degree. It's just that these men know the hour they will complete their lives. The rest of us don't. I do remember that in all my grief, food had no real attraction for me. Hunger and grief just don't go together. "What if that was your son or your brother? Would you be so ready to see him put to death like a dog? Or would you rather seem him get a good last meal?" This is the question Mr. Price asks of all of us. Peace--this is what I set out to find when I started the blog. Peace is what I am still searching for and just beginning to find. Mr. Price is a good man for believing that everybody deserves this even if just a little.

Babett's Feast and Difficult Times

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever. --Isak Dinesen

I like this quote from Isak Dinesen and it really rings true for me--now. Long, long ago, I remember watching a film called Babette's Feast. The story was written by Isak Dinesen and essentially it's about a really great food party. I love to cook. It's my absolute passion. In the movie, this wonderful woman who cooks so well has to live outside her own country in a country which is so cold and so without all the ingredients of life that she knew before the war. When she finally gets a little bit of money she doesn't spend it on herself but spends it on a really amazing party for the people she has been surrounded by during her exile in Scandinavia. When my love was just a very young child, his family would run out of food at the end of the month. To keep from starving, they would collect bottles and have just enough to buy potatoes. They would generally live off potatoes at the end of each month. Over the years of gazing at my beautiful love, I could see the physical damage such hunger caused upon his body. Of course hunger never damaged his view of the the world's beauty. If anything, it was in contrast to the real pain of his life that he was able to see beauty in things which I could not. Oh yes, and he loved food too.
 I am somewhat familiar with Scandinavian food as my two sisters married Norwegians. With several years of practice, I have become somewhat skilled at making lefsa, Norwegian potato bread. My love took me to Sweden several years back and I literally ate my way through that country. Smorgasbords, yes! In the United states, our understanding of Scandinavian foods generally consists of smorgasbords. Few of us know anything about the starvation that Finns and Swedes have faced in history. Not to mention, more people still have no idea how one produces Lutefisk. I know how it is made, but I have very rarely eaten it. When I think about Babett's Feast and the French character of Babette, I have to say that my love lived his life this way. In essence, he lived in exile in this country, although, his name appeared on no black lists and he returned to his homeland many times. He really took  whatever God gave him and he threw a party which was his life. His life was infinitely rich and beautiful and mine was too for knowing him. The next time I have something which seems really troubling to me, I am going to throw a party.