happy, happy, joy, joy ~ Hope

someone had the audacity to write to Bunny to tell her that she, oh, Lordy Lord, she's gonna put this in quotes:

"you are resistant to joy, real joy, the joy that can be had when your partner dies and you are now free to be the woman you were meant to be in the first place."

Bunny's first thought was like, "oh, wow, i guess her marriage wasn't that good." but that's judging, just like this person was doing to Bunny.

it's an interesting thought though. being the person you were "meant to be?" like Bunny was run down like some wild creature, captured, and married to her Dragon against her will. like her Dragon oppressed her and suppressed her and kept her from being what she was meant to be. that was Bunny's first marriage.

silly woman. doesn't she know? hasn't she read Bunny's blog thoroughly? Dragon was AWESOME. <~ said in a sing song little voice.

and since his death, Bunny has been doing happy.

look at that picture up there. see that flower? hyacinth. Bunny was happy to buy it. crazy Bunny spending her hard earned $4.99 on that little glass vase. hopeful Bunny that her little flower will bloom. see? happy and hopeful.

Bunny is doing alright. she has her moments. she writes it out. that silly woman has never met Bunny. heck, she's never even see a photo of the real Bunny, me, to see her eyes, what's in them, and what isn't.

so maybe there isn't this exuberant, jumping up and down, joyful, joyful, we adore Thee bounding up and down the street like a big golden retriever excited at the thought of a frisbee toss, kind of joy to Bunny...

but...

Bunny does alright for herself.

so far she's made it all by herself,

and with a little help from her friends.

Bunny has her work at Build-A-Bear where she is the tippy top Party Bear/Bunny.
she goes back to her place where she has her drawings and sketches of things she wants to make.
she has her puppies! the lovely and diva-ish Carmen Sophia and the inscrutable but winsome Scootie Wootums.
and yes, she has her Dragon. her lovely, lovely Dragon who sits in her heart and her head. the one who gave her joy. the one whose only compression was when he laid on top of Bunny and she loved those times. {oh, my gosh. Bunny made a cryptic reference to sex. yes, Bunny loved her compression times with Dragon. ooooo la la. he was very, hmm, talented. there that's a PG word.}
Bunny is happy. Bunny has found equilibrium. Bunny is not just going through the motions. Bunny has friends she hopes some day to go visit. like in Arizona. Bunny hasn't seen Arizona since she was in college. and San Diego. and Canada. and England. oooo. Bunny will need a Pawsport for that one.

love to all my friends. love to my children and my fuzzy kids. love to my Dragon. and yes, a little love to me. don't get all down on Bunny just because she hasn't started a foundation or written a book or gone for the Gold Ring of Grief. Bunny isn't a Phoenix. she's a Bunny. she's doing it her way. she's got her earbuds in and listening to her own music. sometimes it's sad. sometimes it's happy. but joy? Bunny knows she will have joy again when she's with her soulmate again. fingers crossed.

peace, ............ and quiet. peace and quiet. yeah. you characters out there who seem to think it is your duty to correct Bunny, stop it. Bunny is doing fine.

troll with a roll of film

the warm feeling of my good day on Tuesday has not lasted. i am cold inside again. we are supposed to be able to recall happier times, wonderful moments, and keep ourselves bolstered with the confidence of what was. but i think there needs to be some kind of balance, or at least a better one than i have.

put the good times, the happy memories on one side of a scale and there should be some heft to it. the bad should not far, far outweigh the good. not by the margin that my scale is tilted.

i am alone all the time in between my daughter's once a week day off. there are people who email me fairly regularly, and keep emailing. some are readers who chose to comment through email. some are my readers from the web magazine i write for. all want me to write to correspond with them in my, i guess to them, unusual style. that has been nice. people know i am out here. i guess you could say i am not "alone" but i do like to occasionally see a face, hear a voice, sit beside someone and listen, and be heard. i am grateful for what i have,

but i want to go home.

i am on a list for emailed updates on real estate in Rockport, MA. it is "home" to me since it is where i lived a life that had love in it. "hey, mom. guess what? someone did love me. got nothing to say? yeah, finally." i was the unlovable one.

we were sitting on the bluff overlooking Whale Cove, {see photo below} on a stormy day. we were silently taking in the stiff, cool wind and listening to the cry of the gulls and the rush of the waves. there was lightning in the distance hence the newly added soundtrack} that Dragon was keeping an eye on. he broke our silence by asking this question:

"Why are you always surprised when you see how much I love you? Would you like to tell me what happened to you?"

"my mother told me i was unlovable. she had said that i may get married but he would not really love me. she was right. he told me i was unlovable. you know the other stuff. but i guess it is just the repetitive syllables of un-love-able being beaten into my brain over and over, and over for years, decades. and you are so beautiful. you are so capable and strong and, you're just a lovely person. how can someone like you love someone like me?"

"I love you because of all the gentleness you have inside you. You see so much beauty in the world. All anyone has to do is take a walk with you outside to know what's in your heart. And after all you've been through, you still carry hope inside you. You still think such beautiful thoughts. The scars you think are ugly tell me the story of your survival to hang on until I could get to you." he put his arm around me and told me, "I will never leave you. I have you now. You're mine, and when there's no more you and I on Earth, there will still be a you and I."

i embroidered that last sentence on my own Memory Quilt. from the look in his eyes, he meant every word of what he said to me. he loved me. he loves me? i love him.

i want to go home. i want to go to the ocean where the sky can be seen without tall buildings in the way and there is grass and sand under my feet. i do not know where home is anymore since home was where he was. i am alone all the time and i am so used to it that when i am out for long, i get anxious. i think, "i should get back. i have work to do. i am having a nice time with {my daughter] but i am not working and i need to work to have value."

i have no value as a friend. "you make the quilts and then they forget about you." "you don't have a car and you're grieving so you're not any help to me and too inconvenient to come and get." i am very low today. a woman, another widow, had entered into the realm of my little world here through the 'Net and she had wondered if i had wanted to go somewhere with her. she knows i have no car. i wrote to her that i would love to go, it was a place i would have loved to have gone and seen, no details here, but i told her my daughter works Saturdays and i have no car. she did not respond until late last night with an email where she wanted me to comfort her while she was having a bad night. i got on Facebook and chatted with her and she felt better. today, she is meeting two other friends at this place, spending the day with them. they both have cars.

the Bun is alone. in her mind, in her empty chest where her heart does not reside anymore, and in her actual physical little Bun Bun world, she is very isolated. she knows people can be alone in a crowd but even being alone in a crowd sounds kind of nice to her today when she knows there is a crowd she could have felt alone in. there were things she could have looked at and taken pictures of. she could have been lonely in that crowd, shuffled along listening to snatches of conversations, feeling the sun on her furry arms and the breeze through her furry fur. tousled fur for Bun would have been a nice warm memory to have added to the meager few she has.
so many people have told her, via email, that they love Bunny. Bunny even now has her own Facebook page. if you want to befriend her, contact me and i will tell you her last name. several of her friends are Canadians. Bunny is big with some people up there. but she wonders if people expect to see Beach Bunny, Bun Bun, The Bun and are disappointed by the countenance that she actually has been cursed with. Bunny is soft and pretty. the real Bunny is a tired, sad woman with a 1000 yard stare. she is hollow-eyed and haunted looking. she is haunted by the love she had finally been given and had to watch leave her.

she returned her daughter's camera and has been using her 35 mm from the ancient days of yore while waiting on her new digital she finally save the money to buy. the real Bunny looks nothing like soft, pretty Bunny with the digital.
she is just a toll with a roll of film. a boho, hippie troll with a creative mind that sees beauty in a world that does not see beauty or value in her because why? she does not own a car? she is not flush with cash to go places, even a little bit? she knows how people could be but choose not to be. Bunny as troll is not pretty on the outside. {her Dragon thought she was. he also said she was pretty on the inside and that is why he loved her.}

is it her? she is the common denominator in a lot of failures and yet,

and yet,

her Dragon loved her just as she was. he spent time with her and got to know her. he learned what made her smile, and laugh. he saw her eyes. he saw her heart. and she gave it to him to keep forever. that is why she has no heart anymore. shhhh. listen. hear that? nothing. yeah. Bunny gave her heart away to Dragon. he took it with him so he does not get lonely for her.

i guess the troll is only really the Bunny to him. get to know the Bun and that outer lovely mirage you think she is becomes the troll. maybe one day, someone will see the Bunny behind the troll and allow the Bun to be a friend. even if she does not have a car.

heart of stone

ive had a plastic snowman juice cup size of wine. the good kind. it was on sale for $4.95. why don't they just say $5? anyway, it's white zinfandel only it’s pink. why is white wine pink? idid pick it for the color though. it looked soft. in vino veritas. so here is some truth. i’m inebriated. i cannot hold my liquor. my Dragon thought it was hysterical, because i am a funny inebriated person. i hate the word drunk. Dragon said i never got drunk because i never drank enough to qualify. he said when i got inebriated i would finally liberally use contractions. he liked that i relaxed enough to use contractions. here’s another truth. when i was in college, i joined a math club. i used to have a shirt that said, “don’t drink and derive.” and i didn’t. i didn’t have my first drink of alcohol until i was 20. it was after my mother died and my father had kicked me out.

here’s another truth. when i was in high school, i was the astronomy nerd, as in the only one. i read every book i could get my hands on. i wanted to go to the moon. funny, isn’t it? i’ve been looking at the moon my whole life and wishing i could get away. get away from my childhood. get away from people who called me Fluke. get away from my first husband. and now get away from here so i can find him. i want to find my Dragon. the full moon was so cold and silvery the night he died. i hope he wasn’t cold.

but i digress.

my high school had a planetarium. i was such a good student that i was the only one who was trusted to run the planetarium and give the shows for the elementary school kids who came. my Dragon loved that. we’d lie out on the beach below the house we’d rented and i’d point out the constellations and the stars. we kept talking about getting a really good telescope when we had the money and i’d asked for a camera mount so i could take photos of, well, yes, the moon, but also Mars and Jupiter, and maybe out towards Saturn.

as it was though, our money went for the kids and food and that was enough for me. we had such a great time. the cove was my whole world and i never wanted to leave it. i could take photos of the moon rising up over our house without a telescope.

i love him. i miss him. he gave me so much that money can’t ever get you. he worried about not being able to give me the things i never had. i kept telling him i'd had some things but i’d never had love. he gave me love. he wanted to give me the house we both fell in love with though and that would have been nice. we would have had a great time saving it.

but all i wanted was him. he gave me confidence in myself. he thought i had talent. he loved my art. all of it. he understood me when i told him i had so many thoughts and ideas and that i had to use different mediums. stained glass, sculptures, woodcarvings, paintings, sewing, and photography. he bought me a really nice camera. my first digital actually. i’d always been a 35mm snob but film costs so he bought me the digital and turned me lose.

these guys are so hard to get. digital was perfect in that i could just delete rather than agonize over the negatives.

but my digital is failing. it’s grinding and i’m losing pixels. ld. so old and worn out. i went outside to take photos of the moon and i started crying tonight about it sounds so sad inside, and because the moon will be full Tuesday or Wednesday. so i had a plastic cup of wine. it has snowmen on it. i got a set of 8 at the dollar store for Christmas. they are so jolly and the red cup makes the pink white zinfandel seem so festive. but very little is lightening my mood tonight because my camera is slowly dying.

i know, i can get another one. but this is the one my Dragon got me. it has memories. it’s the one that took the last photos of him, on that day. hours before he died. smiling his “why do you need another photo of me” smile. because he is handsome. and wonderful. and strong. and he loves me and i love him and i want to touch him. i want to talk to him. i want to be near him again.

i’ve been without him for so long now and i guess, you know, depending upon fate, it’s only just getting started.

my tinnitus is bad tonight. i turned off the television a long time ago and just have music playing.

so the heart of stone. we had this friend who was a widower. a lobsterman. i think i’ve mentioned him before. he lent us the scuba gear to swim to the island. he told us about the house we lived in. he knew we rented but we had rented for 18 months. it was ironic that we were so quickly accepted in town. we found out from the lobsterman that it was because the locals saw us out in every kind of weather there was. and people liked my sculptures and paintings. i was accepted as an artist. my Dragon was accepted because, well, i mean look at him. he’s cute. he’s gregarious. people just gravitated to him. he is adorable.

anyway, heart of stone. i have to stay on task.

the lobsterman said that down on the rocks by our house was a heart that was naturally cut into the granite. he said few of the locals knew of it either. it was one of those magic things that you find and keep to yourself. you pass it along only to those you feel would appreciate it. he said he liked that we held hands where ever we walked, and the fact that we’d walk from the house on the cove all the way into town and out onto the Neck. he liked that about us. he could tell we were close.

so he thought we’d appreciate the heart of stone. he said he doubted the owners of the house knew it was there. they lived in New York and bought the house sight unseen and only ever rented it. it was an investment for them. how they could not live there, even as summer people, was beyond us but it was our good fortune to get to live there.

so we went out looking for the heart of stone. there’s a lot of rock out there. Rockport isn’t just a metaphor. it took us 3 weeks to find it. but we did. and every day we went to look at it. it’s on the side of a huge boulder that is turned toward the ocean. and it is true. the heart is naturally cut. looking at it, it is a definite heart. touching it, it is rough and uneven. like life. life has always been rough and uneven for me. until my Dragon. he saved me. he loves me. i cannot think of it in the past tense.

tonight, with my snowman cup of pink white zinfandel helping me accept the upcoming demise of the camera my Dragon bought me, i am going to make believe the heart of stone was there for my Dragon and me.

i guess the pink white zinfandel is wearing off. i have stopped relaxing my sentence patterns. i have stopped thinking in contractions. i am sitting here with an empty red, plastic cup with snowmen on it and i have typed away the mind fuzzies.

at this point, at this time of night, my Dragon would have smiled his worldly, devilish smile, winked at me and said, “here love, have just half a cup more. i’ll make sure you get to bed alright.”

i sorely miss his laugh.