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How could I have forgotten that beach towns
Are filled with frivolity and sun and fun?
Actually I didn't.
But that so many would be couples, of course,
So twos together, yes, that I did. So on top of these
Past busy weeks
Is too much of doing alone, alone, alone
And coming home to more problems
And more alone.
Tonight I can say couples should all die together
Wish I had, am so angry you left me dealing with
Stress, misery alone.
Last two days in the new studio
Have been light on visitors but
Good for painting.
Yet I am not quite into the swing
Of working here and am unsettled,
Unhappy with work.
Halfway in this latest journey
With my two latest best friends,
Sovaldi and Ribavarin.
My energy levels remain as ever
They have been and hopefully I am
Still hvc free.
I am not sure yet what to think
Of this adventure, or why, really,
I’m doing it.
Oh can say to see if I like the idea
Of having a studio/gallery, prefer it attached
To my house.
Or I need to get off this long dirt road,
And that is true, I do. So this is directed
Towards doing that.
But I have been running off this road
For the last five years and and washing back
Again and again.
It has been noted that meeting anyone
Is next to impossible as long as I go
No where new.
Selling is good as it means another
Likes my work. But it isn’t needed for
Me to eat.
Perhaps I am doing it to allow life to perhaps
Open to change that can be welcoming,
Rather than hurtful.
Dinner last night with friends,
Whole flounder, grilled nicely
Cobia was delish.
Spent a few hours on the island
Opened and drew, waiting to see some folks
It was pleasant.
Left at five and came home to make dinner
Relax and catch up on bills, a different
Kind of day.
Catch up, this day, as so much was left
As it was, where it was and I am still
Not caught up.
Haven’t been committed to a place being open
In a long time, feels burdensome and we feel
Four days enough!
It is pleasant to swap stories with others but
I can see it is not a panacea for closeness,
Although it does
Allow me to appreciate the sweetness
Of my solitude when it is not an unbroken
Drag of time.
It is late as I sit here thinking of the last week, s toil.
The shop is set up and we opened two days ago for
This holiday weekend
People did come in, a few here and there, summer folk.
We are considering when to be open without being
There all week.
Easel set up, learning the dynamics needed for a small
Working studio with shop, space for ball but mostly
We are painting.
I have had company in my house
And have started another adventure
On my own
I do with a friend and am helping her learn
What this thing may need as best I know,
I too learn
I think this is a good thing for me
To be doing, even as I still will
Ever miss you.
Brought up on things like five year plans
When I think quickly, it has been an eternity
Since your death.
And I have little to show for it, still living
In the same place, while most every one we knew
Has moved on.
Read the five years of blogs in a single seating,
And I now see the slow evolvement of a woman
Devastated, destitute, lost,
Who in time eventually learns of dealing
With her horrible reality through moments,
Steps and breaths
To different levels of equilibrium. Not yet to
The sense of place, of home, of self hoped for, and
Though it feels
As time has flown too far, too long, been wasted, yet while
slow perhaps, progress inches towards knowing me
As I am now.
Who was for so long halved and pained, is slowly finding
Whole again, however forever tempered by deepest hurt and
Memory of you.
Two thousand nine is a lost year for me.
I can find no journal, my calendar is gone, have only
Jack’s pocket calendar.
I am afraid I have lost the small details,
Wish so to remember what I can before
I loose all:
Most of January, dinner with friends,
Jack working for the auctioneer and
doing side jobs.
A show at the B&B, sell some things, riding
When we can, Jack shooting as chance allows.
He enjoys trap
February, a gallery show East meets West. Jack
Pouring more Dogfish beers over 10 ounces, staying
with the Russells’.
March, Joel comes to visit, of course they
Go shooting and we conspired on dinner menus,
Lots of talking.
In March I broke that lamp and in a welling of despair
Felt the toll these years here had taken on me as
Well as Jack
I paint Snow Hill. We work the oddi auction on Apr 22.
Ian sings Time that sun sets, this outfits history - 100
Head or more.
The Ward show again falls on his birthday. His mallard
Garners no awards but Jack asks questions, listens avidly
To judges’ advice.
I still have the photo of Jack and Dover from an earlier
Bark in the Park. Did he take Arlo this year?
I can’t remember.
May, Phil is here to visit and they both shoot,
And go to the Shorebirds as once they would
Go to Fenway,
Jack shot as often as he could, and worked his studio,
Ideas emerging and shaping as he would come ask
Help with drawing.
He found designs, decoys, spoons to copy,
we built mock-ups of clay, allowing his touch
to learn, transform.
June we did not see Delbert again but at the Globe did
Hear Roy Bookbinder, whose words I wrote, perhaps in
That lost journal
Late in the month, pregnant with triplets
Delia came with Inning and Kimmi
Summer with us.
The pool was a favored spot, all sun drugged.
Inning helped with farm chores, we shot skeet
And watched baseball.
Days on the river, swimming off the boat,
Trips to outlets looking for deals. Old friends arriving
To hug Delia.
Days to the seashore, the fireman’s carnival, of barbequeing
In the back yard and sharing recipes. Watching polo,
Enjoying our company.
Kimmi following Ahhlow, and Arlo licking her face.
The joy of having this sweet family in our house.
Time too short.
What did we do for my birthday? I don’t know
Dinner somewhere? we were together and we were
happy with that
And his doctors appointments were about psoriasis
Not prostate and levels although I remember
Talking of such.
Sept 11 was Ligonier and Rich was not well.
Mostly I remember the long ride home discussing
Views about death.
Where to be buried? Not Pocomoke and probably
Not Needham, keep it simple, he needed only his ring
In the grave.
Oh well, when we are both buried in Needham then
Will his ring rest in the grave. Rich’s memorial
Was on Sept 25th.
22 years on October 4th, celebrated with each other
Content with our being together. Two decades plus,
Looking for more.
We redo the bathroom, because whatever comes, next
This time we are going to enjoy a remodeling project
While we’re here
Mid month an appointment with that urologist,
Biopsy at the hospital results and a diagnosis
It is cancer.
But this Doc is confident and arrogant.
We,trusting, so bewildered, everyone heals from
this, don’t they?
Jack signs up for a decoy show next labor day.
He will need to work hard to carve enough inventory.
A great idea.
I will hang paintings, and can see a time we do this often,
A new venture. I consider an asheville workshop
For both of us.
Another goose season and better a deer season
By the pine Jack set up and shot his first deer
A ten pointer.
A shot through the jaw, dropped instantly
He calls us at Faith’s to tell. I fly home in the subaru,
Joel, Rico follow.
We hang the rack in a tree so when it has decompsed
To skull can hang in our home. Another deer later,
Provides me venison.
One day I will hang that rack in the kitchen above
His painting and when that happen, within a year
I will leave.
Thanksgiving, my mother chose to go to Cheryl’s
Afterall, there is always next year. Joel brings a wild
Turkey he shot.
We, as often we would, discuss recipes for moist bird.
Presented on a marvelous old platter, the bird and all
Is perfectly detectable.
Saturday, Jack and Joel do not go shoot,
Rather help Rico and me at an auction, so never have
that last shoot.
And the times we rode, the last, taking the bay, the gray
To ride the back fields along the river, as ever riding
touched by heaven.
December, he is content with his doctor,
His choice of surgery date and I drive him early
to the hospital.
His doctor leaves me hanging,
never comes out after to talk to me
about my husband.
Who stays in the hospital a few extra days
Its a procedure new for the doc, has my Dear in pain,
Told its normal.
Jack heard from that doc, that this
would be the most painful thing he
would ever feel.
However much I fault myself and I do,
How I hold those words against that doc
And hate him.
The snowstorms started while Jack was still
in the hospital and harried us forever with a cold
I’ve never lost.
Read this blog these last two days,
Straight through: all those early years
of sharp engulfing hurt
Through the lengthening days lost in a fogged
Miasma with no direction at all. Direction is still
An un-compassed thing.
Deep in me ever rests that first fear, pain, despair
Laying in abeyance, underscoring all I have done
Since that day.
Rising through has come a cope-ability
In time allowing the learning of needed
Trust in myself.
Have finished reading journals and indeed
To often the same laments are written when
The truth is
I was unwilling to recognize stalled spots
Or to make the needed changes about things
that concerned me.
Can see some of these faults are with me still.
Some I have addressed in varying degrees, others
I try forgiving.
Today I chose also to recognize I am tired,
Not for ever and much for the meds but
Need to see
To learn to give time to myself to heal.
I’ve run for five years, Run while
Staying in place.
This day I chose to not go, to stay close,
Lay low and be just in the time of here
Alone with me.
The shop in Chincoteugue may well come to be.
Thought about it, designed signs, and more, decided to
Enjoy doing it.
I have questions with no easy answers.
The easiest answer is to do little, stay put,
Make few changes
What has been going through my brain,
What do I think of the past, what is done,
What of today,
Never mind tomorrows, what keeps me
From moving, keeps me still, of what
Am I afraid.
Think about it, five years out, the winds
Blow no softer. The change is I can
Stand before them.
Not easily, but now, after all these hours, days
Months and years, I can sound weather,
Find leeward edges
Find respite, hide quietly in the sweet
Corners that allow time to recoup, and
Finally live on.
With this course of treatment, one
Thing is I have enough energy
To my surprise,
To do almost anything I might’ve done.
Almost, today I am tired from doing
Way too much
Normally, and now need time to regroup
Back into quiet time. Which was simply
Done with you.
Meet with another a friend
Whom I have not seen in so long,
Time too short
