Wine, Boo, and Song

i wasn't going to get online today. it's the eleventh month. like it's only the eleventh month but it's the eleventh month already. eleven months without touching him, or being touched by him. it's not a year yet but eleven reminds me of twelve and that's a year.

i just watched Boo go through it from afar physically, though not emotionally. i won't be afar from myself and i don't know how brave i'll be emotionally. not going to think about that tonight.

i got an email from Jude. lovely, lovely. she remembered me today.

Suddenwidow has book our flights for Camp Widow. i'm really going. i don't know how to thank my two fairy godmothers for this. so if they look close at the photo, they will see an embroidery frame and beads being sewn on in some kind of pattern, i don't know. it's such a mystery that they will have to wait until August to find out.

but she emailed my flight info and she has a candle lit for my Dragon and me.

my daughter stopped by with a bucket of fried chicken and a bottle of white zinfandel. (i'm a lightweight.) so i poured a glass for myself and for her and we toasted our Dragon. she left and i put on that song, "Whistling Away the Dark." i lit a candle and then the phone rang.

it was Boo. she knows what day it is, too. we talked. we spoke of our men. we laughed about her dogs. we both know it's a hard day for me. she has a candle lit. three candles. "better to light a candle than curse the darkness" never meant more to me than these days. Boo and i both know i have some very dark corners in my life that my Dragon was healing, but didn't have the time to get to every corner. it's up to me to finish what he started. i need to do this for myself, but it will be him that is my carrot.

get it? i was his Beach Bunny? carrot as incentive? yes, i've had a glass of wine.

i miss him. i miss his beard. his laugh. i miss him taking the dogs out when it's so freakin' cold. he'd take them out and then he'd come back, take his shirt off, and put his cold skin right up against me. i loved it, warming him. i loved the way he smelled. he smelled like pine and salt and the cold.

so i wasn't going to get online but i took a photo of my glass, at my chair where i work at night by the lamp. the glass has hearts on it and l'amour in script around it. my son and daughter gave us the set of two with a basket of cheese and crackers and wine for my Dragon's and my first Valentine's together. they were so happy he had found us.

thank you, Jude for the email. thanks to my daughter for the food and the wine.

and thank you, Boo for the phone call, the checking up on me. you heard the catch in my voice and we shouldered on. we laughed and no matter how much quilting i got done today, i'm more proud of that bit of laughter. it's more than i would have managed on my own.

tonight the music is playing and i'm working by the light, by his photo, with my glass of wine in one of our glasses. i'm drinking from it now, on the eleventh month.

it will be too hard to do it on the twelfth month.

blowing like stink and the Dragon's laugh

i hope my uploaded video works for all of you.

on the day i made this short video there was a storm out at sea that forced these waves past the Dog Bar and into Gloucester where we were walking that day. the water temperature was 38 degrees. right off i am far too close to the edge of the seawall, and i get nailed. the laughter you hear is my Dragon.

{i love his laugh. it was always given with his whole heart and soul. as a warrior for his country, he did a lot of things that brought darkness to his soul. there were times he did not know if he would survive what he was asked to do. so when he got to laugh, he did it big. he felt it all the way through his body. i love that about him. he allowed me to laugh like that. i was safe to be myself with him. when i am too lonely for him, i watch this video and listen to that laugh. and if you listen closely, you can hear him finish my sentence. we did that with each other. we lived in each other's hearts but also in each other's minds. we have a "true marriage" as Shakespeare would put it.}

i checked the weather this morning up in Cape Ann. it's blowing like stink and it's 20 degrees. the wind is clocked at 54 miles per hour. i miss that rawness of nature. we would be out there today. walking. hot chocolate in a thermos. gloves. hats. Yaktrax on our thickest mountain boots. heavy coast with layers underneath. our eyes would be stinging from the cold.

then we'd go back inside and get warm. if you listen to his laugh again, you know how we got warm.

being outside with my Dragon is one of the things i miss greatly. getting warm is what i miss most of all.

"hello, Dragon. it's gusting outside on Cape Ann and i miss you something terrible. are you up there today? have you spread your huge dragon's wings to ride the wild, cold wind? come home to me tonight. come to me in my dreams and we'll make each other warm. it's so cold without you."