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.