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You, gone almost five years, now what?
Thought I'd have made so many new
Changes by now,
Instead everyone else I know has. Not me.
Still live here. Why? Easier than moving?
Still I wonder,
Where would I go, where I will go.
Perhaps time to start wondering: where do
I want to be.
Four years out, what have I decided, done?
Still in the same house. It was “ours” but
That time’s over.
Perhaps I’ve needed to see that written.
It was our house. Now? It is only my house.
I've done what?
I paint more. Health? Had to go down that hole
And I’ll pay for it. I write and I dance around
What I do want.
Another day of visiting, an old
Riding friend in her lovely bungalow
Of comforting spaces,
Places to rest with tea while discussing
pottery, painting, writing, extinctions, and
Contributing to landfills.
Speaking of the chastity of goddesses
The powers of choices and the
Comforts of friendships.
Dinner with friends of ours,
Back from their holiday travels, calling
Me come over,
Asking how are things. So I visited
A few sweet hours for wine and pasta
And catching up.
Without friends, I would have had a dire time.
But I need to recognize, they are friends first
And be grateful
For what they are, not dismayed
At what they may not be, nor append
Myself to them.
Being alone, is mine to consider
How to resolve and how to move on
Happy within me.
This time, being in this house has allowed
Me room to think about my circumstances
and living alone
Allowed because there is company here,
And companionship is good for soul and body,
I know that
But also know learning to be on my own
Is a lesson now needed. I can make it
Hard or not.
Glad to be with my mom this day
Glad to see my brother’s family.
A simple day
Christmas eve dinner with cousins
Awful cold started on top of bad chinese
Need better planning
Hard day traveling as going south
To north always leaves the worst
Roads for last.
Floor in the bedroom is done
Freshly painted, the walls still bare,
A new look.
No time to hang pictures and I like
The plain, blank walls surrounding me
In green quiet.
Time enough later to decide what
Will go up again, now time to pack again
And to sleep.
Home late to do much but unpack,
tired from driving, tired from being
now always outside.
What am I going to do about this?
How am I going to have a good life?
I don’t know.
Don’t know how, where, when Only
know it is time to take hold, how? only,
I can learn.
Came up for a party two doors down
That was fun. Before helped put up
A Christmas tree.
Tired when I left this afternoon
Too much to do and not enough time
To do so.
Stay with my friend, we go out to dinner,
She has so much happening in her life,
I so little.
Tired to bed and my dogs settle quietly
Beside my bed, yet I know, they are tired
Of traveling, too.
Dinner with friends, who remember you
And spoke kindly of you. Thankful
For this, yet,
Feeling tired and dried out, drained
Of enthusiasm any initiative I have swept
To the curb.
On the evening of that eighteenth,
I slept alone hopeful still of you healing
Five years ago.
Have finished painting our room, now,
My room, and there I shall sleep, yet again, now,
Always, without you .
Yet sleep was not good last night.
Awake for hours in the wee hours,
Sleepy all day.
But took time to do some kepting,
Decluttering counters and such,
House feels better.
Proxy for what I wish to do, this
Cleaning and prepping for a future,
For the now.
Dinner with friends last night,
Good food, much laughter, talking.
Time well spent
Finished painting the room today
Will sleep tonight in a soft green haze,
And white sheets.
Dogs asleep on the rugs,
Cat on her pillow, and me tucked
Deep into blankets.
Walls are taped and clean ready for paint.
Green, I’ve decided on a soft sage.
Tonight’s wine? Red.
Met a few women in a book club.
Thought to meet a few new folks,
Read the book,
Not a light book. Lunch and light chat,
A lot about meeting others, about
Alone-ness, loneliness and
Fixing that. Maybe, only these
Methods mostly had no appeal.
Made me think
Am I lonely? Yes, but grasping
What gives my hours gratification,
Gives sweeter pleasure.
I am stripping the walls
Of the bedroom, removing
The unwanted paper.
It is an easier thing to do
Altering simple things
In this house
Bringing to it a sense of serenity.
Not quite so, revising the aspirations
Of a life.
Lines from a movie that
Hold true: How did he die?
In my arms.
How do I go on?
One awful day
At a time.
Your path is as it should be.
My mind takes me down roads that
Leave me nowhere
The roads are for journeys, not destinations.
It is not enough to just survive.
Life is precious.
Wanted this day alone, because
That is how I must learn to face life,
On my own,
Fasting this day, taking meds
Later a friend comes, will take her horse,
Tomorrow, the doc.
I need learn from her, do what is best
For oneself first, not last. Should have said
No, not today.
What do I want and why do I stay.
With the answers to these, where can
I not go?
Towards what horizons, new prospects
wait, how will perspectives change
Facing new transitions?
What do I want and why do I stay.
Time to search answers to surface, where
I am going.
For such a spell, have drifted in place, afraid,
Drifting and carrying a harsh fear since the
day you died.
For in that moment any courage
I had was swept away
With your soul
By breaths learned again to breathe
By steps learning again that moments
Can be good.
Yes, I am hiding here, fine for a while,
But now? Now why do I hide,
And from what.
Life, a need to stay safe, only becoming stuck.
Did this myself and only I can rearrange it,
Not anyone else.
Hiding from deciding, must remember no
Decision is one, the question remains what
Do I want.
Today before the welcomed rain
Started I swept damp leaves
From my decks.
This needed doing and I did so
with a pleasant feeling of propriety.
This beautiful place
Deserves good keeping.
No longer do I so resent
You not here
Helping. Miss you deeply, but,
More willingly now do these chores.
A small step.
I have lived here
Almost as long without you
As with you.
Have used living here
More as a shield against living
Than a place
To get on with living.
Of what am I afraid?
Of dying alone?
Probably will happen.
So why do I let that hold my life
Hostage, stilled, damped?
Still wonder what, beyond you,
Still ties me here, binds me here
Just hard enough
To freeze me? Am I failing if I go,
If I stay? Really, where do I
Want to be?
Have watched others change their lives.
All the while thought I would
be the one
Making new choices before anyone else.
Yet, just about everyone I know
Has made changes.
Me? I still live here. Why?
Because that's easier to do than
Trying to move.
Where would I go? Have wondered, where?
Perhaps the need is to ask where do
I want to be.
Into the Steppes of Genghis, by this friend’s relative.
What a delight to see it in the special film festival.
A wonderful eye,
Sense of place and time, people and life, perfect.
Enthralled by the story. Then a great dinner,
With her brother
Her family, so close. Could wish this, too, but, no, will
Play this hand as best I can, mostly alone, yet also
Quiet and graced.
It is good to be with this friend, painting.
Her life is really changing now as
Mine is not.
At least not solely by my choice.
As I know choice is not always a given,
More a inducer.
I wish my friends goodness. I do not wish
Their crumbs of time or charity, even if that’s all
They have left.
Driving allows for thinking & crying
Not always either well but enough to see
Issues facing me.
My friends are moving on to places,
Good places, and such places no longer include
Me as much.
My problem! Left adrift again and
Better learn to enjoy time alone &
My own company.
