Retail Therapy: When the Bottom Shops Out

Happy birthday to me. Who could deny herself a few confections for her 32nd birthday? There were the shoes - the delightful nude suede lace-up half-boots I bought with the DSW gift card they bestowed on me. That was followed by an Amazon order - some books and movies and CDs because those are the sorts of gift I would want for my birthday. And when I went to TJ Maxx and everything just seemed to fit, I took it as a sign to buy it all. The Borders by my house is going out of business, and before I knew it, three trips and a stack of books later, I'd swiped a fair amount on the old plastic telling myself it was a good deal.

It didn't end there. Because in addition to my spending on non-perishables like shoes and dresses and books, there was a generous uptick in my payout for perishable items. Like cocktails. And dinners. And lunches and brunches. So while I was growing fat, my wallet grew thin.

On one particular day, a box from DSW arrived at the same time as an Amazon shipment, and I arrived home to both directly from a shopping spree. My den was littered with boxes and bubble wrap and the smell of new shoes and a pile of new books and the wadded up cellophane that covered the DVDs strewn among the rubble. And I felt a twinge of something. But ignored it.

But looking back, I can see how sad it felt to sit among all those new things and still feel the void. I know it's cliche; but cliches are cliche because they so accurately portray the human condition in all its repetitive glory. I mean, it's nothing new to shop out of sadness or loneliness or desperation or all three. But cliche or no, it was still the case.

I know what I was thinking in some moments: that I deserved new things to compensate for the lack of whatever else I wanted. I was seizing those things I wanted that I could acquire with a credit card. Who wouldn't want to exact that sort of control when other things on the wishlist are so maddeningly unattainable no matter my credit limit? Why shouldn't I buy pretty clothes and beloved books and movies that provide the perfect escape from reality when faced with the immense dissatisfaction of what I couldn't purchase?

What a harrowing truth. I think I finally accepted it during a bridal shower - an affair at which we were the sole shoppers in a downtown boutique. And instead of selecting one item as a token purchase, I chose...well, more than one. Despite the discount the boutique offered, I still nearly choked when presented with the credit card slip. But with a swift flick of the pen, I signed my name under a ghastly total. That was the moment that the rationalizations and rationality collided in my head in a strange confusion of voices about what I deserved and what was okay and what had spun totally out of control.

The point is not how much I spent. It wasn't the money. It wasn't that for once in my life I burned through an entire paycheck like water. It was that I let myself. That I could be in a place where I found it permissible to soothe my wounded soul with so much stuff. The truth came close to the bone...that I could be reckless because I just didn't care anymore. Who needs to be reasonable when all hope is lost? Who needs to rein in when the rain never stops? Why not shop myself broke? What's to lose except money?

To be honest, I haven't taken anything back. Perhaps because I truly like the things I purchased. Perhaps because when I wear those jeans I simply had to have or the dress meant for the next special occasion, I'll remember. I'll remember that all hope is not lost. That there's something to hope for, even if it's just for that place where the aubergine Ralph Lauren dress will be the perfect attire.

Image via Rita H. Ireland

Let's Be Honest

The spiral started, well, how spirals start. At an infinitesimal point behind you that's hardly discernible once you recognize the endlessly loping curvature that looms above you. Round and round and round until the circular shape with its no-end-and-no-beginning ways keeps you from even trying to recall its origin.

That's me, now. Looking back at that spiral, not even trying to fathom how I got to this place at the bottom. And let's be honest - for awhile, I've been slipping and sliding down the spiral with reckless abandon. Acting like I was powerless against the sloping gravity of it all. Like an impertinent child sailing down the banister, I picked up terrible habits with an alacrity that was mind-blowing. The eating. The shopping. The sleeping. The self-deprecation. The self-loathing. The perpetual negativity.

That's me, now. Finally plopped rather decidedly on my arse at the bottom. My first impulse is to offer excuses. But I've been here before, and excuses get me nowhere. So I'm trying something new. In light of my present position, in light of the recognition of my free will to be somewhere besides here, I'm going to explore my choices with all honesty. I'm going to tell the whole truth - the whole ugly truth - and hopefully find my way away from the ugly something less hideous...something tolerable...something that resembles the fragile beauty of hope...

Image via Randall C. Page

On Lost Love, a Year Later

They threshed the field's long golden grass while I was gone this last week. Now all that's left is a wild turkey picking through the leavings and just below the fence, a tangled knot of Queen Anne's lace.

Everyone complains that the summer heat came too early this year without realizing that summer is here. The new green leaves of spring trees deepened and darkened into baked green - a hot, kiln-fired color. The final blooms on the magnolia turned a waxen buttery color, and the petals hang heavy and limp. Only after a rain does the melting Southern heat relent, turning briefly to a mist that rises from the road, the smell of ozone and wet burned things.

It's that sudden oppressive heat that descended when we weren't looking that reminded me of year ago: a surprisingly mild evening, late twilight, cool enough to go outside without losing your breath. How we walked slowly through the grass that felt fleshy and alive. And then the next day that came with merciless heat, even in the earliest hour of the day, when we pushed ourselves into the car with death at hand.

Who could breathe in such humidity and tears? The hot damp flush of despair rising up my throat, staining my neck, my cheeks. Who could avoid choking on thick air and salt water?

Who could forget the bright clear light that slanted through the windows, the dry, dead wheatness of the grass, the fervent green of the trees that he must've seen just before he closed his eyes?

Who could not wish, even a year later, for a gentle twilight and cricket song to soothe the sadness of missing him?

Dear Stupid Heart:

Why, when you know it's not in the best interest of either us, must you always fall in love with men who do not love you back? You and your cursed unrequited pursuits, borne on a wave of saltwater. I would think you'd learned your lesson after repeated smashings, so many pieces to knit together again. And I know that we always do that - find the way with the needle of time and the thread patience to determinedly put you back together.

But this time - these latest times - I wonder why we must always go through this routine of reckless abandon. Of throwing caution to the wind and exposing you to devastation yet again. Of allowing - nay, being willing - to sacrifice you to the great unknown of What Could Be. Those naive hopes are piling up into an altar to What Never Will Be.

Oh, Stupid Heart, to be here again with you is excruciating. Gathering the pieces, wondering if I have them all, wondering if this is the time that maybe, just maybe, parts of you will go missing all together. Will the brokenness be such that it's too much for us to patch? And even if the pieces are found and the mending complete, we both know you'll never work quite the same. These bruises and tears never heal perfectly. Instead, you'll be tattooed with new scars of our failures.

I know, I said our. I blame you, but it's my fault, too. That's why I'm here, kneeling beside you, carefully sewing, trying not to cry when I catch my finger on the needle.

Love (Oh, Misbegotten Love),
Ash

A Man

The last couple of days, driving back and forth between my house and Mom and Dad's, I noticed a man. He's been standing on the less traveled side of an intersection - a little side road, really, that leads to an old road that used to be the main road. He has a very small cardboard sign that says, "HOMELESS HELP."

The first time, he was nearly a blur as I took the yielding curve on the slow side of 40 mph. I noted the cardboard, the flannel, an unkempt beard, a baseball cap. That was Saturday. And yesterday, I saw him there again, impressed by the same details, an additional sense of fatigue. Worn work boots.

I headed to Mom and Dad's after work today. An unsettling blue mood fell on me at the same time I was bathed by golden sunlight and perfumed by the early blooming cherry trees. So much beauty on the edge of melancholy. I flew across the county line at the bottom of a hill, crossed the river on the old main road and turned up the hill.

He stood where he'd been the past few days, all faded flannel and denim and weathered leather and a face burnished by sun and whatever hardship had fallen. The light was red. I dug in my purse. My windows were down. I held a folded bill out the window.

He approached the car assuring me that he was a harmless fellow. But I wasn't afraid of him. That sense of sadness in me just welled up. He took the money from my hand with callused fingers, thanking me. "God bless you," I said, feeling a terrible knot rising in my throat.

"God bless you," he repeated. And then he add, "Rock and roll til you die."

I smiled as the light turned green, held out a lifted hand as I made my turn. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's an addict. Maybe he's an angel. Maybe he's none of those things. But what I do know is, he's a man.

Words of Solace

"So sudden loss causes us to look backward – but it also forces us to look forward, to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. We may ask ourselves if we’ve shown enough kindness, generosity, compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we may question whether we are doing right by our children, our community, whether our priorities are in order. We recognize our own mortality; we are reminded that in our fleeting time on earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better."

--President Barack Obama, January 12, 2011

Dear 2010:

Let me begin by saying I had high hopes for you. I wanted to give you a chance to be the Year of Great Things. But you made your choices and became the Year of Disaster instead. Even though you're in the death throes of your last week, I'm going to lay my litany of complaints at your door. Because I deserve to have my say.

Kudzu's illness and subsequent passing shaded the whole year. From February when I first noticed his weight loss to March when he first went to the doctor to June when he finally lost the fight. Pretty much the whole of you, 2010, was spent enduring the decline of my sweet furry friend or mourning his death. That's a lot of kleenex.

There was the house I bought in February that I still don't quite absolutely live in full time, a fact I lay entirely upon your doorstep, 2010. And just to add insult to injury, I remind you of the delightful $800 water bill that resulted from the running toilet in the guest bathroom and found its way to my mailbox the week after Kudzu died.

And speaking of that week, heartbreak just heaped on heartbreak when I once again found myself in the general vicinity of Singledom. My poor heart, already in shreds, took another hit when The Barrister and me parted ways. At that point, I pretty much emotionally flat-lined.

Just when I thought I might stop living every second on the Verge of Tears, I found out that a dear friend from high school had taken his own life. I felt guilty for failing to be in touch with him more recently than I had. And I felt his absence profoundly. Even as I worked to verify that the rumors were true, I knew their truth in my heart. He was gone. I struggled through the service and the drive home, filled with questions that had no answers.

Your July also brought my 31st birthday, a rather pitiful affair. A mere two weeks after Kudzu died, after D.'s death and The Barrister and me disintegrated, and I was not only getting older, I was alone. Until the end of the month when I was briefly kind-of-sort-of stalked by a loose-cannon photographer.

The next month, there was the news of the final demise of The Old Job and STGD suddenly finding himself unemployed after more than a decade of faithful employ. Even though I'd heard rumblings of its approach, the actual arrival of The End made me more sad than I anticipated. Somehow, it was like the last crumbling of the life I once lived.

In September, I was mistaken for a pregnant woman. Kill me now. And my pregnant friend Hilary gave birth far too early and had me in a vigil of prayer and concern. On a bright note - though don't think you're off the hook, 2010 - little Aubri is doing just fine.

By October, I was over you. Not over all the havoc you'd wreaked on my life, but totally. over. you. Dunzo.

Unfortunately, you were not through with me. Why else would I have suffered through not one but two embarrassing setbacks on the road to romantic recovery? I mean, really, 2010. Was the humiliation and EPIC FAIL really necessary at this point in the year? I guess you figured a time when I had no dignity left was as good a time as any to send me down into the dumps.

And finally, December arrived. The light at the end of this 12-month tunnel of darkness. But just to get in your last one-two punch, you decided to claim another friend of the family, sending me to the funeral home mid-month. And you managed to even taint my beloved job to the point that I was desperate for a vacation by the time the holidays rolled around.

In closing, I would like to bid you not adieu. Or farewell. Or even good riddance. I prefer instead to bid you get the hell gone and don't ever show your face around here again.

Love (yeah, right),
Ashley

Dear Kudzu:

Today didn't go very well, and I should like to tell you about it. A lot of folks have been asking questions about why I haven't moved into my house yet. After all, it has been six months. And very few of them seem to understand that it's more complicated than just the accumulation of days.

They don't seem to understand what it will be like to live there and know that you will never be looking out the dining room window when I get home. You will never look out the french doors onto the backporch and chitter at the squirrels leaping through the trees. You will never be curled up on the other end of the newly covered couch (yes, Mommy finally got rid of the brown strips) while I watch TV and you stretch and roll and make little sleepy kitty noises. And even though I know all these nevers, there is still the ghost of you haunting my mind and casting a shadowy ephemeral version of you in all those places and making my heart hurt so bad it feels like it will never stop.

So you can imagine how I felt today when some well-meaning people were giving me grief over not relocating yet. And you can imagine that fine line, that sharpest point that pierced me and caused me to start crying -right there! - and make everyone uncomfortable with my tears. You can imagine how mortifying it was to struggle for composure and for it to continually slip through my tear-soddened fingers. And then to have to excuse myself and lock myself in the bathroom for a few moments and not only feel the pain but the embarrassing conjecture of what was being said in my absence. Returning to my place, I valiantly put on the face of normalcy but as soon as I was able, I was the first one to escape. And even when one of the guilty parties tracked me down and apologized, I could feel the tears rising again and sought shelter after a mumbled, "It'sfineI'mjusthavingahardtime."

And you're not here to make it better. There is no silky black fur or soft gray underbelly to comfort me. There are no intense green eyes. No small fuzzy paws. You are gone. And I know it. I know, but some days, the knowing just breaks me.

Today was one of those days. And I know you can't be here to make it better. But I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I miss you and I still love you with all of my heart. And I hope that right now, you're curled up in the shape of a "C", breathing softly and dreaming of me.

Love,
Your Mom

Sorrow & Hope

To be remembered is our greatest hope when we die, whether that remembrance is due to our achievements or just because we are loved. The need to be remembered is never clearer than when strolling among the dead. Weaving in and out of cemetery stones, feet falling softly among the dearly departed, it is impossible not to remember them and wonder who they were. I love the idle peace of tracing script with fingertips and wondering how the dash between two numbers was spent.
I recently found myself among the dead in a number of cemeteries, photographing epitaphs and statuary, details of shells and flowers and leaves curving against monuments. When I looked at the pictures later, two faces emerged.

Sorrow

Head in hands, sorrow holds vigil over the graves of those gone too soon. Those who weren't ready to go, or placed there by those who weren't ready to let them leave. Over time, weather either shadows them, making them more stark and desperate. Or it erodes the tension and leaves a smoother, reluctantly accepting visage in its wake. Who could blame these anguished faces for their permanent mourning of what was lost? I looked into their faces and saw myself, the lines wearily etched into stone, marble - cold and unyielding. I saw their downcast eyes, knowing they had cried from heartbreak, from loneliness, from desperately wanting to change the unchangeable. I wanted to lean against them and give them my mourning, to let my agony over losing Kudzu fall into smooth white arms.

Hope

Serenely, they stand or kneel over the bodies of those gone before us, hands clasped in devoted prayer. Some of them bow reverently; others tip faces upward toward the light. Their faces are bathed in an ethereal glow, their eyes are knowing. These stone creatures have foregone their mourning and looked to the light, relinquished their woe and wreathed themselves in hope. Weather-smoothed faces look ever more placid or seem to be disappearing as though the predetermined time of protection is up and they, too, are melting into a vague half-state. Hope sometimes comes with angel wings, folded quietly behind or poised, ready to fly upward.

The Truth

Right now, I miss Kudzu so much I can hardly breathe.

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.

The Word's Goodbye, But I Can't Say It

I've been a (raving) David Gray fan for over 10 years now. It all started for me like it did for most of us on this side of the pond when White Ladder exploded on the American scene with "Babylon." But over the years, I discovered the treasure-trove of pre-Ladder work, from Flesh and A Century Ends to Sell, Sell, Sell and my beloved Lost Songs. Plus, Gray put out three studio albums after Ladder.

Even more than Coldplay, David Gray has been the soundtrack of my life over the last decade. Albums and songs surged to the forefront at varying times with the words and music crafted for highs and lows. For love and lack thereof. For times when in the place "where we can shine" to the place "where the eye don't see no color." Like a cheap therapist, David Gray has soothed my soul on many occasions - long, desolate, never-ending car rides, stricken with grief, heartbroken.

And just like at the Coldplay concert, I heard one of his songs for the first time - from just four rows away from the one and only David Gray. I had thought it would be "This Year's Love" that would bring tears to my eyes or when he sang "As I'm Leaving." But instead, I was surprised when the song "Freedom" went right through my soul. And as I listened to it over and over (and over) again since then, what wasn't surprising was that it was a song for right now. For this state I'm in. For this place I live.

Take your eyes off me
There's nothing here to see
Just trying to keep my head together
And as we make our vow
Let us remember how
There's nothing good that lasts forever

Time out on the running boards
We're running
Through a world that lost its meaning
Trying to find a way to love
This running
Ain't no kind of freedom

Feel the touch of grief
You stand in disbelief
Can steal the earth from right beneath you
And falling in so far
They know just where you are
Yeah, but there ain't no way to reach you

***
It's time to clean these boots
Fold up these parachutes
The word's goodbye, but I can't say it
The end is close at hand
I think we understand
There ain't no use trying to delay it

***
Fasten on my mask
I'm bending to the task
I know this work is never finished
But if I close my eyes
I can still see you dancing
Laughing loud and undiminished

I love the last line of the song, the bittersweet hope of knowing that I will be able to close my eyes and see Kudzu undiminished - dancing across the floor on small, sure feet, eyes alight with love and mischief.

Thank you, David Gray, for the 497th reason that a world without your music would be less bearable.

Sorta Memory

Just listening to the Sarah McLachlan station on Pandora, and it's playing Tori Amos's "Sorta Fairytale." And for a flash, I'm standing in the kitchen of the Grace Street apartment in the middle of fall. The windows are open, twilight is settling, and the air begins to bite. Debating a glass of wine and smelling the cold. Filled with melancholy, but I don't remember why...and then, like a fairytale would, it dissolves into nothing more than an ephemeral shiver.

Field of Grief

It was a brutal day. Up at 4:15 a.m. to be in Atlanta for a meeting - followed by a meeting and another meeting and another meeting. By the time The Barrister picks me up in an abandoned restaurant parking lot after my last one, I am ragged and weary.

Two hours later, our westward journey ends on old turf...the school where Anna and Ronnie met. The baseball field is being dedicated in his memory. And though the gesture is honorable and kind, it punctures my heart, that place so carefully and newly healed over. It deflates all that I've been steeling myself against, and I wither under the curious stares of those who have gathered for the ceremony.

The air pressure drops, like the atmosphere reenacting my emotional state. A storm gathers to the west, moving toward us with the swift cooling winds.

Around me, there is the murmur of voices, occasional bursts of laughter. Aluminum bats connect with baseballs with a tinny ping that sounds hollow in the emptying air.

And the pressure drops and the tensions rise and the storm moves in on us.

We huddle in an aluminum building and listen to the rain slosh on the roof in a deluge so strong it sounds like a firehose is being sprayed wide open above us. And slowly, the heavy splatter of the rain begins to tinkle. Liquid turns to ice. Marble-sized hail pelts the roof in an eerie staccato so loud, we can't hear each other over the sound. It fills my ears; I can feel the vibrations inside my chest. I squeeze The Barrister's hand.

When it stops, the ground is covered in a layer of round white ice gumballs. The storm passes away, warm spring air behind it. And where warm meets cool, a fine mist begins to rise. It shrouds the field from our view as the makeshift ceremony goes on as planned inside the metal building.

As the master of ceremonies starts talking about Ronnie, goosebumps raise on my arms. And the punctured hole gives way to a torrent of tears. I don't know why I am crying. Why am I crying so hard, standing on astroturf and staring into the white air? I am trembling and hollow.

After it is over, someone calls out that the fog is receding and that a rainbow is arcing over centerfield. The crowds shuffles out to see. But I can't. I don't want to see it. It's too poetic. Too trite. This hope stretched out above us when there is none around me. I can't look, and so I stand in the doorway and watch the ice evaporate. Watch the cool solidity slide away into nothingness.

Let It Snow

It's Christmas Eve.

I am dreaming of a white Christmas. I am wishing for a dense white snow to blanket my heart in a winter wonderland where I can stay only just alive enough to get through the next two days. I am wishing for it to blizzard my mind with tidings of comfort and joy, erasing the flurry of thoughts and emotions about Christmas past and present scattered there. I am wishing for it to flutter down into my stomach and cool the slow burn of an open fire that's building there. I am wishing for it to muffle the sounds of Christmas wishes and carols and leave me in a quiet, silent night instead. I am wishing for it to surround me in clean white nothingness until I can stand to see upon a midnight clear, the world as it really is. Baby, it's cold outside.

I am wishing for you - wherever you are, dear readers - a holiday of peacefulness and love. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Hold close to the ones who matter most to you. Cherish them. Amid the gales of laughter and the wonder and excitement, steal a moment to save forever the best of what's around you. Enjoy your gifts. Celebrate The Gift.

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men...and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Gratitude: Part IV - Life & Death

This year, death shredded our lives into tiny pieces. Death, when it happens so close to you, when you touch it with your very hand, causes a fracture. And ironically, it's this fault line created by death that defines the life that goes on. For us, there is only before Ronnie died and after. Soon, we will mark a year since his passing, one layer of bedrock laid. And shortly after that, we'll welcome a new life into our family. But even as new life joins us, there's no way to erase the strata of pain, sorrow, loss and absence that have fossilized since his death.

But there is a way to see that alongside death, there are signs of life worth noting. There is the way the family banded together and is stronger for it, from the strength that comes from carrying one another through this. There is friendship - the arms reaching out from near and far to carry me through this when I needed more than I even knew. From afar, through emails and phone calls and blog comments and cards and prayers, my friends reached out to me and staunched the bleeding. There is humanity - the unbelievable generosity of the human spirit...the kindness that arises from tragedy. The unification of strangers by the realities of the human condition - death is something we all face. I'll never forget the 14-year-old boy, a son of one of the lunchroom workers at Anna and Ronnie's school, who came to the visitation and stood in line with his mother in his shirt and tie and called me "m'am" and told me he'd like to give me a hug because I looked like I needed one. And that's the kind of thing - no matter how painful death is - that makes this life one to be grateful for.

Beginnings and Endings

Tonight, I had an after-work drink with The Professor. I think it can best be categorized as a "Happy Thanksgiving, sorry we weren't a love match" drink. And the funny thing is, that was probably the best conversation we've had. We ended up talking about nothing special, but we walked down the sidewalk, arm in arm, and laughing against the bite of the November cold that neither one of us was dressed for. Perhaps this is just the end of the beginning and the beginning of something better.

***
I met up with a friend last night...beyond a friend, really. Someone who's been part of my life for many, many years in both person and spirit. It seemed as though we had found an ending some seven years ago when we fell incommunicado. But instead, I find that our story goes on, somehow the words still writing themselves despite the silence. It was just the end of an era. A new one has begun, seemingly right where we left off the last sentence.

****
The fall was unexpectedly beautiful this year. Everyone said that with the drought, it would be less vibrant. Instead, the landscape shimmered with deep ruby reds and luminescent yellows and fiery oranges. The air cooled and crisped; it all seemed so refreshing. The color somehow alive and hopeful. But the leaves have since dried and fallen to the ground, swirled across the browning lawns, and whispering in the wind. These scuttling voices are cold and sad and lonely. And so autumn dies, and winter begins.

***
The year is dying. And so much dies with it. For just a few more short weeks, I'll be able to say that Ronnie was alive this year...and then we'll begin another year. One that he never lived to see. Between now and then are the holidays, and I'm beginning to experience The Tiny Tim Syndrome...seeing that empty chair alongside The Ghost of Christmas Future. Only, we won't wake up. We won't get to beg the Ghost to take us back and fix it. It is broken. And it is over.

This is the beginning of the end of this year. This is the beginning of the holiday season and the end of the grace period where things seemed to be easier. This is the beginning of another wave of grief and the end of the calm before the storm. This is the beginning of the Advent and the advent of a sorrow we cannot hope to overcome.

May this be the beginning of the Peace that Passes All Understanding and an end to the despair that clings to everything.

Extra Credit: Giving the Professor His Due

Friday night, The Professor and I ate pizza and watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which I do not recommend unless you want to endure four very uncomfortable penis shots).

And afterward, we moved into the "We Need to Talk" portion of the evening.

What it boils down to is that me and The Professor want this all to work. We want this - whatever it may be categorized as - to blossom into a raltionship. Not for the right reasons, mind you. We both selfishly want it to work so that we don't each have to go back to square one alone. As we talked, I realized that some of The Professor's "whens" were hopeful ones - a relationship version of The Little Engine That Could. Perhaps determination and encouragement would help us up the hill and around the bend to the place where we were partners in a bridge tournament at the family reunion.

But in the end, it's just not there. The IT. The mysterious, unnameable, intangible IT that makes the world go round. I like him and he likes me. And there's some chemistry. But it's so easily smothered in the tangled tendrils of what's left of his relationship with The Ex and the inescapable cloud of grief that seems to have recollected overhead in earnest with the holidays approaching. Neither one of us seem capable of getting past our own boundaries to fan the flames of whatever might be there, and so there's this gaping chasm between what we're trying to pretend is happening and what's really there. But to his credit, he was all kindness and understanding.

I left his house Friday night disheartened. We certainly left on good terms, and I think we'll continue seeing each other in a friendly sort of way with very little expectations of the future. But for the moment, I listened to "Let it be Me" on the way home and let the tears come and hoped for when I find It.

Cannonball

During the very long conversation between me and The Professor, I tried to articulate the impact of the last nine months. I spoke about it in the collective - this is what happened to us - or relative to Anna - this is what happened to her. Somewhere in my ramblings, he interrupted me. "But what about you? You lost someone, too, right?"

And as odd as it sounds, the way it seems like that permeates everything I do, somewhere along the way stopped thinking of it as something that happened to me. Me, singular. I stopped acknowledging that Ronnie's death caused a grief that was all my own. Even though he was Anna's husband, even though we have carried each other through as a family, there is a place where I stand alone with reality. And it felt like a cannonball ripped through my chest.

Like a stubborn child, I've been pushing and pushing and pushing against the knowledge of what happened to me, trying to pretend that it was outside of me. That it happened to Anna. At some point, I tried to cut grief off at the knees. I staunched the wound by accepting the truth of the matter and soldiered on - and yet, somehow I was still bleeding.

It wasn't really The Professor's fault - this sharp reminder of death and absence. But I couldn't seem to stop the few tears that trickled down my face, try as I might. I struggled against them; I didn't want him to see me cry. And why not? I usually cry without embarrassment or hesitation if I'm so moved. But this was different. Because the pain came from a place that I knew he couldn't understand. Suddenly I realized that The Professor had the misfortune of being the first person who's come into my life after Ronnie's death...the first person who has tried to get close to me since then. I didn't know until that moment how very changed I am by that grave reservoir of sadness. Like a physical mark, there's a scar inside me. It's made me different from who I was before; it's an ever-present tint to the world.

I'm not suggesting that I'm set apart from humanity now because of this tragedy; this was merely the first awareness of it. The first recognition that the emotional injury is still there - there's still recovery to be done, time and space required to lighten that tint, and heal that ragged, raw edge where the cannonball passed through.

Coldplay: A Personal History

"Spies" - First year of grad school. The tiny bedroom in the Abbott's Run apartments. Listening to Parachutes while getting ready for Clyde's class. Dragging out of bed to head downtown to the little brick office on Princess. "Spies come out of the water..." always makes me think of the light through that second floor window, the view of the dumpster, Kim Shable's patio, and the first slight easing of that summer's torrid heat when October arrived.

"Clocks" - I used to travel between Wilmywood and Charlottesville, VA to see Mike when he was in grad school at UVA. The five-hour drive was pretty brutal - an endless stretch of asphalt with very little to look at until you got on I-64 in Richmond and headed into the foothill country toward the college town. I can remember Sunday afternoons, getting on the I-64/I-95 interchange with the windows down and the piano unfolding into the sinking sun, the wind whipping my hair. "Home, home, where I wanted to go..." and wondering exactly where "home" was anymore.

"Fix You" - "And the tears come streaming down your face when you lose something you cannot replace." I sobbed relentlessly over these words as I turned out of the drive at Grace Street for the last time. I was losing something - Wilmywood, my first (real) apartment, my hard-won independence. I let go and jumped into the unknown, letting the tears come, letting "the lights guide [me] home."

"42" - The first time I heard this song, it gave me chills. "Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head. And since I fell for that spell, I am living there as well." What an apt description of the last eight months in the aftermath of Ronnie's death...the retreat into my head where the dead live, where it's the safest and most excruciating place to me. Inside my head, I'm insulated and tortured by all that's there.

And tomorrow, I'll add another memory to my list...