So We Meet Again

Last night I dreamed of being in a house that wasn't mine. Someone with me - a friend, someone I knew - said to me, "There's Kudzu." And I said, "That can't be. He's gone." But when I looked, he was there on a quilted white oval bed. I walked over to him and picked him up. He was still light, like he was when he was sick. But he seemed whole. I draped him over my right shoulder, cradling him against my body like I always did. I rubbed my cheek against his head and stroked his soft, sleek back. I felt his weight - light, but meaningful. Significant. He was warm. And he purred gently, vibrations I could still feel echoing in my chest when I woke up this morning.

Requiescat in pace, Kudzu

My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.

May you rest knowing that you were loved to the greatest depths of the human heart. May you rest knowing that you were and are cherished.

May you rest knowing that your constant companionship warmed even the loneliest, the most sorrowful of hours. May you rest knowing that you were light in a dark and sometimes unkind world.

May you rest knowing that your presence brought joy, comfort, happiness, peace. May you rest knowing that you were all things good (even when you were bad).

May you rest knowing that beyond pet, you were family, as much my lifeblood as anything. That you were my very heart.

May you rest, fully restored to your gray fuzzy bellied glory, with no scars or marks or patches to evidence of your illness.

May you rest knowing that you will never have to endure my picture-taking ever again.

May you rest after your long and hard-fought battle. Having been so brave and true, holding on for so long for me, so that I could accept that it was your time.

May you rest knowing that I never wanted you to die, except that one time you ate my blue merino wool J. Crew sweater (and even then, not really).

May you rest, weary traveler, from all those thousands of miles on the highway between here and North Carolina that would have been so much longer without you.

May you rest, knowing that you will never have to be stuck in the car with me in the McDonald's drive-in in Leland, North Carolina while I have a panic attack over the holiday weekend traffic.

May you rest knowing that you will be remembered in repose on the windowsill, on the kitchen towel, under a blanket nestled against my stomach.

May you rest gently purring or making sleepy kitty noises as you slumber. With your snaggletooth hanging out.

May you rest with my gratitude for having never eaten my eyeball as I feared you would.

May you rest having served me well with the greatest devotion and loyalty - no matter what mistakes I made in life.

May you rest from leaping onto the cabinets, the countertops, the bookshelves, the bed with sprightly grace.

May you rest with an endless supply of spider plants whose leaves you may nip to your heart's content.

May you rest from strewing toilet paper from the downstairs bathroom into the kitchen.

May you rest, never to be forgotten.

May you rest, my darling. May you rest from exhaustion, from pain and from this namelessness that has consumed you.

May you rest in the hands of the Heavenly Father who made you.

My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.

A Pretty Good Year: Resolutions

* Take a deep breath during perfect moments and really live them.

* Apologize less for being me.

* Accept my limitations.

* Let go of the past - learn from it, but know that the present and the future are where I can exercise the most control.

* Get my stupid passport already.

* Be hopeful and believe that good things exist for me.

* Write more - and write earnestly. It's time to stop holding to insecurities and just do it.

* Welcome Reese into the world with all the love I have to give.

* Embrace happiness without reservation. Love without fear. And relentlessly seek to be at peace with myself.

Gratitude: Part II - Calm

"I just got lost. Every river that I tried to cross. Ever door I ever tried was locked. Oh, I'm just waiting till the shine wears off." --Coldplay, "Lost!"

I was a stranger in my own mind, divided between the thoughts that made sense and the thoughts that interfered with all reason and rationale. The interlopers stung me, numbed the parts of my brain I needed and activated other parts so dark and murky that I was lost.

But I have once again befriended reason and become acquainted with rationale. Those parts of my brain that slumbered have shaken off their lethargy and began to glow again. There is light; there is hope.

Beyond just feeling better, I am filled with calm. This past week, I was in a situation that should have had me shaking in my shoes, but instead, I felt utterly peaceful and unmoved. As though I had reached a different mental plateau, one from which it was easy to look down and see the insignificance of what was below and look ahead and see all that was before me and embrace it. Rather than falling off a cliff, I am reaching for higher ground with full confidence that my feet will find the right footing.

Rather than pleading for the storm to be calmed, I am the calm in the storm.

Another Perfect Weekend on a Mountaintop

Reflection: Angels and Lilies Among Glass

Accidental Serenity, Japanese Gardens

Lazy Sunday

This morning, Mom made an executive decision: we'd all had enough.

Instead of getting up at the regular time for church on Sunday, she got up, let the Ranger cat out the door and went back to bed. I finally cracked an eyelid around 10 and ambled down the hall. Mom was still in her pajamas. Dad had just thrown on a shirt to go downstairs. I could hear the coffeepot downstairs was issuing the gurgles of its first round of percolation.

We all sat around drinking coffee in our PJs until almost noon, when we realized we were hungry. We had eggs, grits, toast and fresh sliced tomatoes. I indulged in a third cup of coffee.

I took a long, hot shower. I let my hair mostly air dry. I put on a cami-tank top and shorts. I read a book. About 2 o'clock, I fell asleep again on the couch in the living room.

Dad fell asleep watching today's NASCAR race. When I woke up, Mom was back in bed reading a book.

The phone didn't ring. We talked in snatches, but it was mostly quiet. Calm. Serene.

We had tomato sandwiches for dinner. And then retreated to our respective druthers - books and computer games. Catching up on emails.

And the sun fell below the horizon and night stole quietly across the lawn. And for the first time in weeks, I felt still inside. Instead of droning bees stinging every corner of my mind, it was whisper-quiet.

Even though the weekend is over, the Sunday Dread seems to be held at bay by - of all things - nothingness.

Ghosts of Trees

On the northernmost end of J. Island is a stretch of beach that's only wide enough for walking when the tide ebbs to its lowest point. When the tide rolls back in, it drowns most of the available sand and curls right up against the edge of the maritime forest.

When I was there last week, I parked my car in one of the crude spaces near the picnic area and followed a little trail through the forest. The ancient live oaks stretched their gnarled branches over the path and the garlands of spanish moss filtered the sunlight into a spotty pattern on the forest floor. The path wended through the trees, so old and wizened, it felt other worldly. When I finally cut a swath to the other side and found the sandy stretch, it was really quite breathtaking. The beach was wide; the tide receded to the point that it washed just over the rippled sand dunes, and at its very edge, fishermen were more than knee-deep in the water.

The late afternoon sun buttered the landscape in a mellow golden glow. And down the naked strip of sand were trees - whole trees from root mass to spindly tops, washed up on the sand. The beach is called Driftwood Beach for this reason. But whereas I think of driftwood as scraps of sun-bleached board, these were water-stripped live oaks whitewashed by the sun and saltwater. Weathered smooth and replanted in the sand.

I found myself wandering through this beach-side forest, a beautiful wasteland of trees. It was serene; the wind tunneled away the voices of the few other beachgoers. Most people had already deserted the beach for dinner, and the further I walked along through the sand forest, the more remote it seemed.

I marveled at these amazing natural sculptures, carved from nothing more than wood and elements. They were austere and haunting. At another time, they were vibrant whip-slick saplings, and now they lay hollow and abandoned on the dunes.

The water gently lapped the shore; the sun oranged and grew soft. I climbed into the upstretching branches of one of the horizontal live oaks and gazed at the expanse of the Atlantic. To my left and right, branches arced and once-green root cords twisted in a massive wooden knot. These husks of trees weren't less than they once were; they were simply beautiful in an unexpected way. Trees outside the bounds of imaginable trees. Like the way that lives, imagined one way, end up a boneyard of unrealized dreams or directions abandoned. Clean white sculptures of what we once were or lives we never lived and haunting us with their imperfect beauty.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Quietly, cautiously, I mark off the fifteenth day. The incessant hum in my brain seems to be lessening...a distant buzz. My heart is calm, its regular steady pulse instead of an erratic skid. Slumber goes on uninterrupted, and my biorhythms seem to have time to sink into the dark quiet instead of dancing around while I have my eyes closed.

And aside from that, life is getting, perhaps, easier? It is easier to breathe. And to laugh. And to make it through the day without thinking about purposefully stepping out into oncoming traffic.

At the same time, I'm afraid to consider this thing knocked out. Is it just wishful thinking? Is it just a blissful placebo effect? Or is it truly down for the count? One thing is for sure - if it comes back at me, the gloves are coming off.

Jellyfish

One Week Later, I am a jellyfish. A soft translucent membrane, weightless in cool indigo water. I ascend slowly and concentrate on the movement of air and water: in and out, in and out. Sound is a thick murmur. Light is a quick flicker.

Below me trail tentacles, streamers of sensation and feeling. They dangle quietly, waiting. I have finally gathered these moments of tranquility, but there is still the threat that, though hanging idle, those tentacles will tangle with some mysterious something, electrify and strike.

Local Color

On Saturday, after the festivals, Justin, Eva and Eva's brother Gregory took me up on the Blueridge Parkway so that I could get some photos and really see the leaves. Gregory disdained me as a "leaf-looker", the term the locals reserve for stupid below-the-speed-limit drivers who come to the mountains in droves during the fall. And I knew I was old when I was trying to convince this 13-year-old boy to appreciate the beauty of his hometown. We pulled over at one point and climbed through the woods along a rather rocky path until we broke through the trees onto a flat overlook. And it was breathtaking. Totally worth the 19 times I almost twisted my ankle.

Possibly the best part of the whole weekend was Sunday morning. Eva's parents have a landscaping business and so own a Gator. Justin took me out for a ride through their property and the adjacent drive across Old Spanish Oak. It was freezing cold in the open air at 40 mph, Justin and I were laughing at Gregory's dog who insisted on racing us, and it was gorgeous and peaceful. Justin asked me why I wasn't taking more pictures. "I can't," I said. "It's too beautiful and I can't do it justice. I'm just going to breathe and enjoy it." And I did.

Shoreline

Last Friday, I found Kim waiting for me in the baggage claim area at the Cleveland-Hopkins airport just after 9 a.m. with five waking hours already behind me. With relative ease we collected my bag, headed into the glaring clarity of an overcast white morning. The drive back to Euclid was made surreal by the (unfortunately) anomalous fact that we were together in a car, like so many moments from our early friendship, and the startling fact that I was there because Kim was getting married. It could've gone like that - a series of adrenalized moments like a whole weekend of head rushes.

But instead, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts, grabbed coffee and breakfast, and went to nearby Sims Park behind Henn Mansion and bordering the shores of Lake Eerie. We sat at a picnic table, facing the endless stretch of slate grey lake gently lapping the stone break-walls at its edge. The clouds were thin - the kind you could tell would burn off with the early afternoon sun. We talked quietly - about the wedding, about life in general, about the man who was walking a cat sans leash just by calling it behind him.

After we finished our breakfast, we went down to the shore, and Kim started skipping stones - one of those skills I'd never quiet learned. She patiently showed me how to flick the flat abnormally-shaped stones across the water, the way Ben had taught her to do it. And we rejoiced when one of hers went five or six skips before sinking below the surface. We picked up a few bigger rocks and lobbed them in just to see how far we could throw them, relished the kerplunking splash.

The sand was wet and cool, the air blanketing us in dampness. And then it was time to go. We selected the best stones we could find and counted to three before skimming them across the lake. Mine skipped twice and hers three times before they disappeared. And we laughed for no apparent reason, and the sun started to break apart the clouds, and we walked away from the shoreline with one more reason to remember why we're friends.

How...

...is it that I can find a song called "Barfly" so beautiful and soothing right now?




If the player won't work, just click on the song title. Technical difficulties at the kudzu jungle...

Rest for a Weary Soul

Frost Chapel sits up on a hill overlooking Berry's mountain campus. I'm a little rusty on my history, but I think it was built in the early 1900s. For me, it is a sacred place. It is a place where I feel most spiritual, most calm, and always, always at home.

I made one of my regular pilgrimages to Berry last week, and I couldn't resist driving up to the old chapel to wander around for a little inner peace. The stones themselves have a particular smell to me - and it's like inhaling serenity. And for the few moments I stood on the steps looking through the archway and over the mountains, all the outside noise - and the interior noise, too - seemed far below me. And the quiet was just perfect.

Summer Dinner

* Porch

* White, fucshia, lavendar wave petunias

* Tree frogs

* Peel-and-eat shrimp

* Soft breeze

* Avocado rolls

* Good-natured argument about discerning a live oak

* Salad - craisins, almond slices, ginger dressing

* Sweet heady gardenias

* Lightning bug - caught one, tickling my finger before taking off

* Gently rocking in the early night silence