how did i get here?

my husband, my beautiful Dragon, died suddenly at 12:03 AM on 9 February 2009. there was a cold, lovely full moon and 3 feet of snow on the ground. i "slept" for the following 10 months and "woke" to the physical and emotional pain and torments of deep grief. i "woke" to find i had moved the day of his funeral and that i am lost. i am looking for me while i figure out the abstract, unanswerable questions that follow behind any death. my art has evolved. his death changed that as well because i am forever changed and will forever bear the mark of losing the only man i can ever love.
there is alive and there is dead and there is a place in between. i am here wholly in my heart for my children, but i feel empty inside at this time. i miss him. i have not gotten very far in my grief journey. i make no apologies for this.
this is my place, my blog, where i write to tell the universe that i am still here.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Bunny did a bad, bad thing

yes, Bunny did a bad, bad thing. possibly blasphemous. but she had to. she was upset and did not know what else to do.

at the Soul Widows retreat, the art therapist, Diane Strazzer, had her make a journal. you saw the photo. it had a lovely full moon photo and an old flag photo and a castle photo, all cut out of magazines and glued onto paper as a cover for the journal. then she sprayed it with an adhesive to hold everything down tightly. but the spray was bubbly and it dried still tacky to the touch. so Bunny had to rub glue all over her cover to make the adhesive spray settle down. it did, in part, but as this week progressed, the combination started reacting badly. or something. the images on the cut out pictures started fading. they started pulling away from the cover. the spray adhesive started getting tacky again.

Bunny was sad. she did not want her journal cover to fall apart like this. so one night, late, she took it all apart and made this new cover from old fabrics she had in her stash.
she covered it in burlap. she put stars on it for her Dragon and her. she cut out a silk dragon and put on the cover. duh. dragon.
the inside is from a pair of jeans her Dragon wore and Bunny embroidered a daisy on it and the line from the song he always sang to her.
the inside back cover is from a soft flannel that had "Marines" on it. because Bunny's Dragon is, yeah, a Marine.

Bunny is going to take the advice offered up last weekend and write her Dragon's stories in the journal, and then her thoughts. each night when she goes to bed, she is going to go to take a few minutes and reflect on a story and she is going to write about her lovely, lovely Dragon. so handsome. so strong. oh, so missed. Bunny grieves hard for her Dragon. he is lost to her, or she to him; whatever the case, she aches to be with him, to be near him. the holidays are coming and Bunny feels the weight of each commercial, each little candy cane at the grocery store, each and every little angel, ball, and twinkle light that is being sold to decorate for the holiday season.

so maybe Bunny did not do such a bad, bad thing. she saved her journal. she will write her way through the holidays. oh, yes, Bunny writes a great deal more than she types. but the thing is, if she gets to go to another Soul Widows retreat, her journal will be so very different than the others. but then Bunny is different, too. all she can do is shrug. i mean, all she wanted to do was save her journal from dissolving which was what it looked like it was going to do.

Bunny believes her tribe will understand and accept. that's what soul widows do. they understand. Anam Cara. Irish Gaelic for "soul friend." yep, Bunny believes they will not mind that her journal cover is different. after all, it is what's on the inside that counts.

5 comments:

Judy said...

No, they won't mind and I hope you get to go to another retreat with your "sisters". When they look at your journal, they will just realize, as all your friends do, how very creative and thoughtful you are--thought filled.

Lacey said...

don't worry Bunny your journal has even more character now. It has been given a second life and been made beautiful twice. What could be more beautiful than all the love, thoughts and eloquent words I know that journal will carry.

Chillin' with Lemonade said...

heehee. Bunny, I'm glad you did a naughty thing! You deserve to fight for beauty!

abandonedsouls said...

hi everyone. Bunny is so glad you like her journal. she loves her journal since it is a tangible memory of THAT weekend, that WONDERFUL weekend she got to be part of. whew. no one's mad. Bunny does not like anger. it scares her. peace. to you all.

thelmaz said...

Bunny is amazing!

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