musings after one year

i walked a mile with pleasure

she chatted all the way

but left me none the wiser

for all she had to say.

i walked a mile with sorrow

and ne'er a word said she

but oh, the things i learned from her

when sorrow walked with me.

my first year without him is over. the anniversary of his funeral on Valentine’s Day is over. i have no big excuse at the moment for feeling this badly other than he’s gone. he’s not coming back. i’ll never touch him, hear his voice, or be in his arms again.

if you’ve read my writing before you know i love the ocean.

i would give anything to be back walking the beach with him, climbing the rocks, and taking my photographs. i miss it with a heartache that won’t be healed. i have never found the serenity i experienced living by the ocean. it didn’t matter how wild the weather was, the ocean calmed my spirit. i felt free there. i can breathe there. wading. swimming. walking beside it. holding his hand and listening to the world, and his voice.

my Dragon’s and my last day together was spent by the ocean. we walked the beach and talked about nothing. we laughed. we shivered in the cold. a few hours later he was gone. i had no idea for a whole year what to do. i was confused and lost and desolate.

but a year has passed and from just barely into this side of it……. i am still confused and lost and desolate. when i sew i can stay focused on this life, mine, the one i still have. but when i stop sewing, or if i pause, i think about what it would be like if my Dragon was still alive and i know the truth. i would also be alive.

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day

On the absent face that fixed you

Unless you can love as the angels may

With the breadth of Heaven betwixt you

Unless you can dream that his faith is fast

Through behoving and unbehoving

Unless you can die when the dream is past

Oh never call it loving.

~ E. Browning.

my mind is a muddle, or maybe it’s a symphony, i try to look on the bright side. my mind is a maelstrom of thoughts, songs, pieces from literature, poems. i think of things and they all make me think of him, remind me of our time together, glittering moments in the sun or under the moon and stars.

Tennyson wrote of the walls of Camelot, “They were never built and therefore built forever.” magic is like that. some love stories are magic.

i know about time. i know how long a minute is. waiting for the Paramedics to come, doing CPR, talking to him, trying to convince God to let him stay with me. then waiting for the doctor at the ER, alone in a cold waiting room, minute after minute. there were ten of them that culminated with an empty life, a shattered heart, and a broken spirit.

i know how long an hour is. i was agonizingly alone for 20 of them waiting for my children to fly to me, to get to me. hour after hour sitting silently alone. i just sat in a chair holding his coat. i would get up to walk the dogs but then i would return to that chair in front of the picture window. i stared at the ocean the rest of that dark night, and all that day, and into the evening until my children came to me. of all the days following his death that are lost in a haze, i remember those 20 hours of solitude. no sound except the ocean and the gulls.

and i watched the sun come up.

there it is. the first sunrise over a Dragon-less Rockport, over a Dragon-less world. the pain in my chest was a terrible thing to feel. i still feel it at times. he’s gone and he’s never coming back.

i know how long a year is. it is endless days and nights without him. i can't smell him, hear him, touch him, talk to him, cry in his arms, languish in his arms, be in his arms, his strong arms that kept me safe and warm, and loved. now that i know, facing the coming years without him is bringing me to my knees. i’m trying to focus on work so here is some news.

i won the Camp Widow photo contest. i sent in two so i’m not sure which one won. my quilts and i will be part of the expo at Camp Widow. there will be an article about me in the newsletter Hope Matters. i have a new website up. the link is on the right side over there under his photo. i’m trying hard to drum up more commissions, also by letting people know i can do more than just the Memory Quilts. please go to my new website and see if there is anything i can do for you, or someone you know. pass it along.

sewing, quilting, creating things is my tether to this life. but i wish my life was beside the ocean again.

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~ Masefield

but i’d trade being beside the ocean for him. i’d live in a desert to be with him again. i’d live here in this apartment and give up ever seeing the ocean again just to be in his arms.