my immortal beloved

my dearest heart, my love, my Dragon,

i love this picture of you. we were doing Habitat for Humanity and they took our photos for some brochure or something. i think it would have been better to have our photos taken after we were dusty. but i love your smile here, the tilt of your head. so handsome.

i'm just okay but okay is all i can be while we are apart. i miss you greatly and nothing is right. food does not carry the same flavor. the sun is not as warm. the mornings are awful to wake to because i find this is not a dream.

remember that song, "you are my sunshine?" the first verse that few ever sing plays out in my head.

late one night, dear, as i lay sleeping

i dreamed i held you in my arms

when i awoke found i was mistaken

and i hung my head and cried.

you are my immortal beloved. much like Beethoven loved and wrote to a woman no one knew the identity of, i carry a torch for you just as powerful. a little over a year out and the sorrow and aloneness i feel because you are not with me is still as strong as my first day left behind. it is more familiar though and the thought of that can weaken the remaining piece of my heart until i pant from lack of being able to breathe.

our son sent me a flowery bunny. Beach Bunny with Daisies he called her. he reads and looks at the pictures. his note said he sees me getting stronger. he loved my defense of you in the previous post. that mom, the one of strong words and titanium convictions is the one he grew up with. he called me his shield. but the shield is battered now and very old, or feels that way. so much damage has been done to it.

a shield. i think i will put that analogy to rest and take up Daisy Beach Bunny instead. she isn't as worn out. she may look like an aging hippie but she's lighter, softer, and she is covered in your daisies a day. i miss you singing that. "i'll give you a daisy a day, dear......" i hope when i die that is one of the first things i hear. your voice singing to me. waiting for me. reaching out to me to take my hand and guide me as you did before. at any rate, Daisy Beach Bunny is still blessed with the talent of using a needle. she is working on the fifth dragon handkerchief. psssst. a little hint. she wanted a full moon in the center.

this is an "i ache for you" day. i'll be this way all day, however, don't worry. it is a familiar agony. i am comfortable with it since i know it so well. i'll embroider and quilt and sew all day. there's a new television show coming on late tonight that i'll check out for us. it's based on one of your favorite Elmore Leonard characters. i just wish we were together to talk about it after.

ah, well, our little Scootie Wootums is dancing like Michael Flatley. i think it's time to go for a short walk. then back to the solace of sewing.

i love you, my Dragon. i will always be your wife. you will always be my beloved, only now you are immortal. please watch over me as i stand watch over your memory, your pedestal. (i had to say it that way because it pleases me to do so. i'm down. i'm being walked on. i haven't given up.)

i'll see you tonight, in my fantasies, my dreams, my prayers.

the Dragon on the Pedestal

i find i am in a position of needing, no, wanting to defend my Dragon on the pedestal.the above photo is my symbolic one for him on a pedestal. he is pewter here, and his pedestal is an old wooden spool of thread. it is merely a visual.

anyone who writes their own blog knows they will get comments and emails. so many are supportive that they seem to create a slender thread, much like the one that developed between the characters in the film of the same name. for someone like me who does not own a car and has no real contact with the outside world, this virtual contact is a slender thread of sorts that connects me to a world that i sometimes feel has largely forgotten i still live. if someone leaves a comment, or email, then someone knows i am out here, still breathing, still adjusting to a life without my Dragon.

i got an email from a woman who, under the guise of an eager expert, insisted that she knew my life and thoughts better than i. she felt my marriage to my Dragon, and even the Dragon himself, wasn’t as i remembered him. she wanted to tell me that in my grief i was not seeing him clearly. “He was not perfect,” she said, and neither was my marriage so i needed to, let me paste it in here, “tell it like it is, why don’t you?”

i think because i have related that my life is one where i have been beaten down, and now appear weak due to writing of my deep and lasting grief for a man the likes of which i will never find again, there are a few people who believe i am spineless. i am not. i am tired of life. i am exhausted from grief. i am not, however, deluded or insane. for all the creativity I am capable of, for all the dreams and fantasies i have shimmering in my mind, i am an intelligent, introspective, and pragmatic person. my personality leans towards a calm, quiet demeanor. but i know my own mind. like sees like and i think my Dragon saw the smaller, quieter dragon in me. i can become terse.

late last spring, this woman’s email would have made me cry because i was in shock over my Dragon ‘s sudden, tragic death. last fall, i would have recoiled in horror due to the seeming immense cruelty and perverse ego that thinks it knows someone it does not. between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, i would have been wounded as i was reeling from the many firsts that hit through that 2-month period. now, when i opened the email and read her words of infinite wisdom from the planet of It Has Never Happened to Me but I Know Some People and I Know How I Would Handle It, i shook my head at her naïveté. she feels she has magic vision and knows what went on behind closed doors.

allow me this time to pull up my keyboard and open that door.

the quick and ugly is that up until the moment i met my Dragon when i was 44, i was exhausted from being on guard. i had learned that the best way to go around was to sneak around, and the best way to get along was to adopt the bobble head strategy of “Yes, you are right and i am wrong. i’m sorry, so sorry. Please forgive me.” let me assure you it was merely a strategy to survive. i did lose a lot of myself. chipping away at anything means pieces are lost; sometimes a lot of pieces. but you have to remember that i got away. i got away from my mother and i got away from my first marriage. it took time but i left both of them with some a shred of dignity and my hands still pushing up on the heels of their boots. no one touched my mind. no one affected what i believed to be true nor changed the person i was when the Dragon saw me deep inside me. i was still very capable of fighting for the survival of my children and myself.

i still can. i can also speak to what is my own personal truth. so to the woman who believes she knows it all, let me address your concerns. this time i am not typing from my knees in grief. this post comes from standing beside my Dragon that i keep on the pedestal. i am protecting what was and what is. he will stay there because i, and only i, know what went on behind closed doors. i have been behind quite a few in my life and trust me, no one knows better than the person behind the door.

i never said my Dragon or my marriage was perfect. no, i have not gone back over each and every post. i do not have to. i know what i wrote. i have an eidetic memory plus my retention for the written word, especially my own, is excellent. i am grieving. i have not suffered brain damage.

what i said was my Dragon wasn’t perfect but he was perfect for me. our life was hard but our marriage was fantastic. i agree that no one is perfect but i believe there are degrees of acceptance and tolerance of another’s eccentricities that can turn them into mere quirks that quickly make them come to be cherished. this kind of acceptance can be seen as a necessary part of love so it can grow with the people who are involved, and can withstand the pressures and tragedies of everyday life. understanding a man or a woman is, i believe, required to make a relationship not only last, but be all encompassing, spiritually, emotionally, as well as physically.

my imperfect Dragon is on the pedestal. that seemed to put you in a dither. i had written that i had put him on a pedestal during our marriage, while he still lived, and i wrote that he is there now. i want to express clearly that, to me, and only me, he has the right to be on my pedestal.

within my Dragon, no one thing stood out as a glaring character flaw i had a difficult time accepting. i am one person who knows about character flaws. i was whipped, struck, and locked in a small room all before i got to third grade. i was cornered, choked, hit, pinched, grabbed, shaken, and other manner of things all before i met my Dragon. i know a character flaw when i see one.

but for the sake of argument let me try to relate some things i had to adapt to for the honor of being the Dragon’s wife.

his voice was loud. it would reverberate around any room. it could be heard over the roar of an angry ocean. i had to adapt to that voice. i have never liked loud voices. they can give me flashbacks to times when i was physically helpless and someone was in my face. when my Dragon was angry his voice was a very powerful instrument. if he was upset with me, though, he deliberately kept it soft. he knew what i had endured. i had told him before we married. he and i both thought it only fair to open our baggage along the way as our love for each other grew. that is another reason for, or defining evidence of why we love each other so very much. we were adults. we had both experienced a lot. we knew what we wanted for ourselves and for each other. if he needed to explain his side of something, he kept his voice softer. he related his being upset without sounding loud and intimidating. he didn’t want to add to that particular script in my head.

he was fearless while i was more timid. he would walk out on rocks that i had no business trying even with my graceless crawl. but he would look back at me with his adventurer’s smile and offer his hand. i would be afraid of falling but i wanted to go with him. i learned to trust him and reach out to put my hand in his. i am glad i conquered my fear for i got to see and do things i would have missed. and so would he because he would not have left me there.

he ate things i thought were gross. he had been all over the world and eaten bugs and slimy things that are considered delicacies, but to me seemed to need a shot of Raid. i never learned to eat that stuff. i just watched.

he wasn’t tall, dark, and handsome. he was my height, powerfully built, and staggeringly handsome. it’s a personal preference. no one needs to agree with me. i didn’t base my continued dating or marrying him on his looks. i went with my instinct. i went with what he said. i brought my children into our growing relationship based on knowing his character. i asked questions and i watched his answers as much as i listened to them. i love the physical man but i also love the man he is/was inside.

he...i am struggling with anything so horrendous that it was tedious and frustrating to have to live with him, to make me think, 'he is soo imperfect.'

he is/was a good man. he was sweet and kind to me. he knew my whole story and kissed all the hurts away. he was helping me build myself back up stone by stone. in turn, he gave me his dreams and his thoughts. we shared everything. we talked books and movies, foreign policy and religion, crime and punishment, God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

he never got angry at me, only angry at what had been done to me and the lasting effects. i would scare him if i stayed at the beach alone too long. he was afraid that with my new sense of security and faith in his abilities, i would get into trouble. then i would see The Face. intent upon finding me. am i all right? am i being crazy trying to lug some honking big piece of driftwood up to the house by myself? i had quite a large commission for my driftwood sculptures and i would go hunting after storms. he knew i got lost in my work plus i always got dreamy while at the beach. i love The Face. that's it up there at the top, the main blog photo right now, intent upon finding me. such intensity. when he saw me, he’d smile, and the sun would come out no matter how dark the day.

he had flashbacks but that’s not a character flaw. the dark recesses of his mind replayed things from his life as a Marine and i would wake to help him quiet down. i would love him back to me. i was grateful he wasn’t alone, that i was with him to be able to do this for him.

he was stinky when he was sweaty but his neck always smelled and tasted good even when he was stinky. i don’t mind dirt and sweat. i was usually dirty and sweaty right along with him.

i love his mustache and beard and he kept them year round just for me. he did like to keep his hair short and i learned to cut it for him. i like him with longer hair but we compromised every June. facial hair stayed. hair was buzzed boot camp short.

he let me play with him, touch him, caress his mustache and beard. i got to touch his muscles and his scars. some were rigged. some were smooth. he didn’t tell me how he got them all. i always wanted to know but some were too difficult for him to talk about. now that he has died i wish with all my heart that i got to enough of his stories, to enough of anguish to have brought him peace.

he could be a silent man but then i knew how to be silent with him. he was in awe of the majesty of where we lived as much as i was. he knew to look down and up whenever we were out walking. he carried the sack of shells and stones we always picked up.

it seems i cannot find a great many negative things to say. c’est la vie to the woman who seems to know it all.

he took over the enormous debt my ex left me with. he complained about my being screwed but he never called me stupid or reckless for not fighting for my financial rights. he knew i was fearful about the threats, or promises as they were referred to, for my children. he also didn’t go vigilante and make my ex disappear off the face of the earth. the paperwork would have been monumental.

my Dragon is/was my best friend. he was my confident. he knew more about me than my doctor. he was my mirror when “you stupid, fat bitch” echoed out of the past into the forefront of my mind. he had wonderful, ridiculous terms of endearment for me but the one he called me by most was, “love.”

his singing voice was deep and haunting but only when he sang our song to me. he loved to sing in this terrible voice he affected just to make me laugh.

he is the love of my life after a life of not ever being loved. i never felt safer or more valued. through introspection, i know i had to have more irritating habits and annoying quirks than he ever did. when he finally found me i was so tied up in knots that i was a very closed off and tense woman living in the shadows. he was taking the time and gentle care to untie the knots and set me free.

he was setting me free to fly with him wherever life was going to take us. that was one of his wonderful gifts to me, our gift to each other. being there for each other when our memories tried to wound us was another defining aspect of our marriage. we knew what the other had been through. we cared deeply about each other's spirit, each other's soul. we love each other.

so i put him on a pedestal. not many of us get to have someone in our lives for whom a pedestal is warranted. a Dragon found me. he is/was the most awesome sight to see. he had the powers of healing abandoned souls. he healed my soul. he gave my children someone to look up to and adore. so i put him on a pedestal. it is my pedestal. i built it for him. it will stand as long as i am alive. he deserves something much more grand, but a pedestal is all i own.

and after i am gone, he will still stand very tall over a world and a society who will never know all he did for it. but as long as i am here, i will write about a Dragon who saved a woman from the shadows. that i can talk about.

one year, one month ~ grading on a curve

today is one of those almost perfect days. the weather is warm. my slider is open to a screen to let in air but not the birds that for some reason love to pull a Hitchcock on my balcony railing. they stare at me. don't laugh. i am serious. ever since i got one of those big birdseed bells last year, and a mutant crow came and gripped it in it talons, and ripped it off the hanger, they all seem to think i am going to put one out again. no way. i have small dogs, two scotties, and i don't want some big bird thinking they are charred birdseed.

so the slider is open but the screen is firmly shut. i'm embroidering on the last quilt for Suddenwidow and crossing my toes for more commissions. bury me people. i wouldn't mind a list a year and a half long. i just ate a quick bite and checked my email for some commissions that are being considered by people and my igoogle comes up. i love my flying, spinning pig that floats across the top and my applications like, well, yeah, the phases of the moon. i also have a calendar.

there is no avoiding looking at it. today. one year, one month.

am i better? how do you define better? would you consider grading on a curve? well, i don't sob and curl into a ball every single day. i do cry every night as i talk to God, and to him. i smile but my daughter says my eyes don't. i am thinking about the future and it freaks me out. i need health care because as bad as i feel right now, i know i'll feel worse someday. i can't live in this apartment for the rest of my life. i eventually need a car to get myself around. so the future scares the hell out of me.

i have, however, learned how to be more alone than i've ever been in my life. no one touches me but my daughter. once a week hugs. i only hear her and my son's voices now. i have the gift of online friends who are amazing. i have gotten flowers, my widow's ring, and the wherewithal to go to Camp Widow. never would i have gotten to go. never would i buy myself flowers. embroider them for myself, yes. but the smell isn't the same. and my rings, i find myself playing with my rings, making sure the little gold heart on the copper band of my wedding ring is perfectly centered. my widow's ring is closest to my heart.

as rings go i think i'm all backwards but that's me. eccentric thoughts lead to an eccentric life. my wedding ring has the heart on the band. when my Dragon gave it to me, the heart faced outwards to him. while i sat with him after he died, i took it off and turned it around and told him that my heart was closed to anyone and everything. i spoke those words while i was sitting there wanting to exchange places, or to go with him. but one year and one month later, God help me, it still holds true.

my daughter and i went out to supper one night about three weeks ago. we went to a Olive Garden. a man sent over a glass of wine for me. i told the waiter to thank the man but i declined. i told him i was very happily married and only out with my daughter. my daughter backed up the lie. or is it? i still feel married to him. i know he's gone. i know i am a widow. but i still feel so very married to him, so deeply connected, as strong a connection as the day we married, as the night he died.

or maybe i got the wine wrong. i am alone all the time so maybe my social skills are suffering. after we got in my daughter's car later i told her that maybe i hurt his feelings. maybe he saw the wild, unruly blonde hair, my long, patched denim skirt, and my big fake gold hoop earrings and thought i was an old hippie pothead. maybe he just wanted to score, but you know, weed, not sex. she had to stop the car she was laughing so hard. she said, "oh, God, mom. (our Dragon) would love it. i've missed your warped sense of humor. promise me. when you go to San Diego, you'll just say stuff. don't clam up. just say what you think. i promise you someone will laugh."

i have these grief surges. i read about them in a book another widow mailed to me. grief surges catch you off guard. you think, "i'm doing okay. i'm going to survive this. in fact, i damn well may smile today and it might even reach my eyes." then BAM. a song. the sound of seagulls over the Wal-Mart parking lot. or the sight of his beautiful face while i color correct all my photos of him. i feel short of breath. my heart actually hurts. my throat closes up as i fight off sobs. my eyes burn and the smile that was supposed to occur dies in sorrow.

so on this no big special deal today, just another month going by, here are some photos of my Dragon i don't think you've ever seen.

out on, okay, way out on Flat Rock Point dreaming of our island.

heading to the low tide point where we can wade across to climb up to the top of Salt Island.

there were crabs that made their home of this side of Flat Rock Point. we always went to check on them at dusk.

at the end of the Dog Bar off Eastern Point Light. we loved it out here during storms. the waves would slam into the granite and arch over the seawall. great place to be when the wind was howling. no one else would be out there.

my beautiful, wild Dragon. i miss you, love.

do you ever think of me? do you say my name? if i were never there again, would you never be the same? ~ my little rhyme for the day.

our island

i’ve had a crazy day of emotional upheavals and i’ve worked for hours and hours. my back is tight and my hands stiff. i need to de-stress. i think i'd like to tell you a story. it has no hard core grief to it. only a hint of melancholia. when i need to quiet down, i meditate. i say my prayers, and then i take myself to our island. if you continue to read, then you’re along for the ride.

it was love at first sight. the first time i saw the island i was outside alone. we had just moved in to the house by the cove on the 22^nd of December. my Dragon was inside with the cable guy for the television and computer. i had put on my boots and coat and gone outside to look at the cove. it was almost dusk and bitterly cold. the wind was blowing like stink and the waves below the house were crashing high up on the rocks. when the water retreated from the rocks it sounded like rattling bones. i felt such peace standing there and then i saw the lighthouse flashing it's green light every six seconds. i studied the island in the rapidly fading light, and i felt it. i felt called. the connection to that bit of wind scrubbed land was instant and something i've never felt so strongly for before, or since.

day after day i studied and watched the island, and took hundreds, thousands of pictures. everywhere we walked in Rockport, i would look for the island. the whole place seemed to look for me, too. it was a siren call. the lighthouse needed me. the abandoned keeper’s house never felt to me as if it had given up yet. it was only waiting to be taken care of again, to be lived in and loved. it wasn't my obsession alone. my Dragon felt it, too.

closed to the public, people had ceased to care about it. everyone spent the money on Thatcher Island and the twins. it has a history, but so does my island. my island is more austere and smaller than Thatcher. it is harsh and elemental. it is perfect for a wild heart that people have tried to crush over and over.

my Dragon knew i would love to walk it. he said he'd set us up with gear to swim over. i went crazy young with excitement. i felt like a rebel, a wild daredevil. he laughed. it was a simple swim to someone like him. i mean, he is the original daredevil. well, not the absolute first but definitely one of the best. i'd lay some of his deeds on the table to match up against any others. my wild man. why he chose me, well, he did and i am the better for it.

we planned carefully for weeks. we charted the tides, watched the weather, and worked up to the adventure with a lot of walking and swimming at an indoor pool in the house of a lobsterman that my Dragon had gotten to know. he was a widower and our company was welcome. he smiled enigmatically at our plans and lent us a couple of wetsuits, thruster fins, and BC vests. it had been years since i had done any diving and all of it had been done in Mexico where the water is a tad warmer. we practiced in the pool.

so i guess you can logically figure it out. we picked a warm, flat day and went during low neap tide.

there was really only one place to swim to. the island rises up out of the water very high and very treacherous in most places so that one low beach, in the photo below, was the only sensible place to go to.

we avoided the rocks off the point between our cove and the next. it meant a longer swim as the crow flies but we wanted to avoid the water between the mainland and the island because of the strong undertow and surface current.

we left the beach, below in the foreground, but on that, you know, flat day, and made straight for the island.

the rock around the island is carved by the violence of the ocean. the water surrounding the island is a veritable paradise, anemones and starfish, seaweed and barnacles. lobster pots abound. i saw my first lobster doing his lobster thing underwater. awe-inspiring. if i had owned an underwater camera, i think it would have given me too narrow a view of life for that day and what it has come to mean. no processing would have ever gotten the color right. it was better this way because still, to this day, all i have to do is close my eyes, and i am there.

we swam for the selected spot because, as you can see from my photo above, that beach was the best access. it was less than ¾ of a mile. the day was warm and the water was calm. we had the scuba gear and had built ourselves up for the swim. we went at a leisurely pace and my wild man restrained himself and stayed right with me. he paced me so i wouldn’t tire out.

then we were there. we took off the fins and put on reef slippers. we didn’t go too far up and around. the place is overgrown in summer and unknown to us. we did circle the house and the lighthouse. the rest of the island is rock with huge cracks and scrub, thorny beach rose, and old stonewalls from when the lighthouse was manned.

there are no words to describe how it feels to walk in a place that you have felt calling for you but you had only been able to see at a distance. the sun was shining. everything was green and lush for the summer. we felt like we were the only two people in the universe. we held hands. we whispered at times, as if it were a sacred place. for us it was. Heaven and Earth. for a brief moment in time we were in our own Garden of Eden.

we would have loved living out there. it would have required a vigilance that living on the mainland never requires, but imagine how much we could have lived, really lived every single day. everything we did would have been in sharper focus. every breath would have been fresh. every action well thought out. we would have lived deliberately out there and in doing so our lives would have been so rich with feelings and sights no one can buy or find anywhere else.

it was always our fantasy, and what are we if we deny ourselves our fantasies?

we swam back and returned the gear to the old lobsterman. he invited us to stay for hamburgers out on his grill. he never ate lobster, he said. he called them bugs. we talked until long after dark and the green flashes from the lighthouse could be seen from his porch. it was then that he started speaking about his long-dead wife, as if she had only recently died. he told us that he and she had gone out to the island in their younger years. “It seemed closer when we were younger.” he said he was glad we had gone. "I've lived here all my life and I know for fact that no one goes out there. Not ever. Not anymore."

his final words that night before he bid us good night were, “That place calls to people in love; to people who deserve to be left alone with their love. My wife and I always wanted to live out there, take care of the place, you know? We only went that once though. I wish I could have taken her out there again before she died. I’ll always see her out there.”

his words haunt me now sometimes. we only went that once, my Dragon and i. i guess that’s why i can’t let it go in my mind either. i will always see him standing on the island. i wonder if i had died first, if he would have always seen me out there, like the lobsterman and his wife.

i had heard the island referred to as Godforsaken. having been out there with my Dragon, i think i am going to have to disagree. i've heard the expression, "if you don't take Paris with you, you won't find it there." i think God knows about the island. i believe my Dragon helps me get there in my dreams so i can find some peace in this life, so that i can rest at night. i think we all need a place to go in our minds when it feels like everything is crashing down on us. it's not giving up. it's not a retreat. it's a sanctuary to sit in until we regain some strength.

i choose to remember my island. i choose to go there in my mind. i think of it as our island. my Dragon's and mine. i never would have gone without him beside me. i never would have touched it at all. it would have stayed an unfulfilled longing.

thank you, Love. i've miss you bad today. it's almost midnight. i'm going to go try to dream tonight. come get me. please.

a wilder frame of mind

first off, i have a link for you. above. lighthouses amid storms at sea. lovely music. wildly beautiful video. go get an iced tea then sit down and click on the link. enjoy.

i have been very down lately. afraid. tired. worried. i fell off the grief tilt a whirl. i want him back so badly, to touch him, to caress his face, and hear his voice. i want to approach him gently, eyes meeting eyes, and softly kiss his lips so i can both hear and feel him make that sound he always did when i approached him like that. his whole body would go still. his voice was deep, almost guttural at times, and when i barely separated our lips, he would deeply sigh. being with him was as much a spiritual experience as a physical one.

but i need to pull myself up and out of this. i am alone so much that there is no one to check on me to see if i am getting better. and my poor daughter, i cannot wallow as i have been. so from out of despair to melancholy with a hand up to wistful, i want to show you my island and try to briefly explain why it called to us, and to me now.

see it out there? it's not far. you can swim to it if you want to. the ocean gets up to about 48 degrees out there by the close of summer. you can make it. i suggest Crisco under a wet suit. it worked for us. we went at low tide so the current wasn't as bad. i could not take the camera though but, hell, just being out there was what i imagine i'd feel like walking into the Sistine Chapel.

if you put your back to the mainland, all you see is water and sky. you can lift your arms and smell nothing but salt and fresh air. i'm sure at times you can smell dead skates and crabs that the gulls eat. i don't want to romanticize the place. it's an island.
but you can see forever. the old keeper's house is a fixer upper, falling down, but we, well, i am a hard worker.
there is only one place where a boat can dock so we can, i can, know when someone is coming to call. and dogs. i'd have my Carmen Sophia and Scootie Wootums, but i'd also have a couple of big, scary dogs who would patrol the island like my own lovely hound of the Baskervilles.
all the weather hits out there first. the first breeze. the first hint of snow. the first rays of warmth from a morning sun. it all hits out there first. me first. me first. very preschool but i have never been a first in line kind of person. so, on the island, simply because of the grace of geography, it would be me first.
me and my Dragon. my Dragon and me. a couple. a pair. two halves of a whole. just because you cannot see him doesn't mean he isn't there.

falling down

i woke up at 4 AM with a panic attack that has yet to subside. terrible things are floating like wreckage in my mind causing my heart to beat too shallow and too fast. i'm lightheaded and so very teary. my eyes burn and my whole body aches. i am falling down in my mind and i cannot get back up.

it is all riding on one question. what am i still doing here?

i stupidly look to my past and judge myself and fall short. i wasn't the girl my mother wanted. i wasn't the boy my father wanted. i wanted to be loved but my first husband did not. my children love me but they are grown with their own lives. my son works two jobs, 9 AM to 1 AM. he is exhausted. my daughter works 9 AM until 7 PM six days a week and uses her one day off to take me food shopping and to simply see me so that i have one day a week actually seeing someone. she hugs me and we kiss each other good-bye. that is my only contact. that is my only touch.

i am alone as much as one can be and not be cloistered in a monastery or convent in a remote place. alone with my thoughts i worry. i worry so much it is affecting me physically. what if my ex cuts me off? what if he dies? what if i never get my things back out of storage? what if i never get another commission?

the Hope Matters newsletter came out yesterday and i am featured in it, my website, the quilts i make. i had two emails. one woman wants one quilt for her son. she is needing to wait until September or October to do it, but she definitely wants one. another woman wants 3 for her 3 children. i gave her my price and explained it all, but i have not heard back from her. she may not have even checked her email yet, but at 4 AM i got up and undercut myself in pricing. i emailed her that since she wanted 3, i would drop my price and hope it helped with her decision. as it stands, if she does order the quilts, i'll make about 22 - 35 cents an hour. but it will be money.

one widow knows she wants one but is waiting when she feels more like making the choices of her husband's clothes. i can understand that. she's sending them to a stranger, more or less. i have the luxury of being the artist and can make my own quilts. but i need commissions. if i could just get the woman who wants 3 quilts, i think my panic attack would ease. if i could just get a small little queue to form, then i would know my year is full of sewing, and bits of money here and there.

and i would appear to the world as a valuable asset. well, at least one who works very hard and provides a nice service for people who grieve. or have babies who have out grown their clothes and want a quilt from then. or have daughters who like beading and embroidery on their jeans.

i just want to feel like i did when my Dragon was alive. i want to feel needed. i want to feel like my being here is acceptable. because that's where i am this morning. i'm wondering why i'm here. alone like this day after day after week after month.

he made me feel so alive and welcome in this world. he noticed me and forgave my being here. it's a story to be told while laying on a couch to a man with suede patches on his sweater and a little notebook in his lap. i've been made to feel that i need to constantly justify why i was born. my Dragon just saw a woman who wanted love and had so much to give. i have so many ideas in my mind, things to create, all these different mediums to make beautiful things to give people pleasure, to make them think, to calm their spirits.

i'm rushing this. it will evolve. people will find out about me. right? maybe at Camp Widow, people will see me. they will see what i can do for them. i hope. i'm still here for some reason. right?

i had hoped in writing this all out under the quazi-anonymity of this blog, i would start to feel better. at least reason my life situation out. not yet. maybe later this afternoon. i'll work this morning. i'll eat my brunchy-lunch thing. i have a little hamburger patty left over. i was so hungry last night that i ate two. but i have one left for today and chicken for tonight. so i'll sew and sew. then i'll eat a hamburger. then i think i'll be ready for a "snap." a short nap. and i hope i don't dream about my worthless life. i hope i dream about a life that can be looked on and some semblance of value is obvious.

i just wish i could look at the mirror that was my Dragon's eyes. he always saw my worth. he always wanted me around. he'd find me on the beach and say, "hello, love. you've been gone for a while. i wanted to see what you were up to. want to go climb out on the rocks? i'll help you get out there."

i guess i need to pray for myself a little. i need to beg for forgiveness that i cannot see my own worth without my Dragon being here. i need to ask for strength to keep on being alone. and if He can see His way clear, to send some commissions my way so i can help people with their grief while putting some food on my little table.

thank you for listening. it's just something i'm going through right now. i'm just very tired and worried.

alone on my island ~ a poem to comfort me

if i am to be this much alone, let me be alone by the sea

where all the silent nothing i have can be comforting to me

if i am to live a quiet life, let it be on rock and beach

so sun and cloud and wind and stars all seem within my reach.

if my home is surrounded with ocean and sky then i could stand to live alone

so i can feel a part of the earth with sun-warmed skin and hair wind blown.

let me live alone on my island where my home is the only one that stands

on land of rock and scrub and gulls and waves crashing up on the sand.

the lighthouse can be my sole guardian to keep all the bad dreams at bay

it’s light can caress my home at night and brighten the days that turn gray.

my island will stand against the wildest of waves that roar in wild from the sea

the majesty of which inspires awe and belief that my love can return to me.

let my Dragon fly in on the wild night wind and come to my arms like before

and we’ll love as we loved before death took him and left me alone on the shore.

alone in a city is no way to live so let me return to my island small

and there i can live alone where i have all of nature that enthralls.

only on my island can i be free from expectation and strife.

only on my island can i hope to have any kind of a life.