'what could i say, i was far away...'

Do you have a song that catches you unawares and then makes you cry? This is the song these days, apparently, that does it to me. It's not new, and I haven't listened to it for a year or more, but it came up this afternoon on itunes. And I found myself in tears.

It's not particularly exciting or emotional or anything, it's just... loss. Simple, heartbreaking loss. And it gets me every time.

cutlery

I dreamt last night that I was getting married. I was trying to keep it as low-budget as possible so was getting married in a church (which in and of itself is really weird) and having the reception in the church basement, using the church kitchen's supplies. I was really upset because not all of the cutlery matched, and I was trying to set a table with the mismatched stuff for the immediate family so that all the guests wouldn't notice this embarrassment. And then I woke up, very upset and angry about knives and forks and spoons.

I told this to Nick on our way to dinner and he just chuckled affectionately and said, "You? Getting married? In a church?!? That doesn't sound like you at all."

Which of course made me feel much better about the whole thing.

lunch remnant

'this house is like russia...'

'This house is like Russia 
With eyes cold and gray 
You got me moving in a circle 
I dyed my hair red today...'
(Tori Amos, Take to the Sky)

communication failure

I will sometimes text Nick to ask if he wants to get together for lunch. Hours later he might email me, "Hey wanna get together for lunch?"  I will then reply somewhat testily, "Umh, yeah. I texted you hours ago."  He will then reply, "Oh yeah, there it is!"

Or sometimes I will email Nick to ask if he wants to get together for lunch and he will reply, "Umh, yeah. You didn't check your voice mail?"

Usually it works out and we end up meeting at the Amsterdam Gates at noon and going for our usual cheap Chinese. But sometimes we never do manage to connect, and we end up drinking coffee and reading alone, sad to miss our weekly lunch.

Today at least was a good day, and I am heading out momentarily to track him down at the gates.

father's day

I had this sort of funny, sort of sad exchange with a friend the other day. She said she had to work this Sunday and I said, "Why? New schedule? Some holiday I don't know about?" And she said, "Umh, it's Father's Day. The one you blocked out." 

Dad and I used to go out for a special Father's Day/Birthday dinner every June, just the two of us. I always felt like such a big girl on those dinners. Dad, here's to your gorgeous cantankerous scruffy self. Happy Father's Day.

woodland fairy shawl

Knit from all the greens of the deepwood, available here

bad kitty

Naughty Llama-Monster loves the alpaca.

self-portrait, blurry, with boy

It was threatening rain on and off today after days, on and off, of rain.

My boy left yesterday for his beloved Pacific Northwest. I accompanied him down to Penn Station and we spent a last half hour together before, abruptly, his train was boarding and our time ran out.

I came home in the rain, had a quiet evening filled with love and concern from friends via text message, phone call, Facebook. I felt buoyed by all this love -- his, our singular and overlapping circles, our families -- but even so waves of sadness have been taking me by surprise all day.

I got home a little while ago from a much-needed Lauren-dinner. It was just starting to spatter from  a quickly darkening sky and I almost burst in to tears as I put my key in the lock, knowing how empty it would feel on the other side.

I could hear Llama crying disconsolately through the heavy door.

I wasn't going to meditate today, perhaps out of some juvenile shred of acting out -- let me show you how much I don't care, how little all of this means to me. But Evan's meticulously home-made meditation cushion was on the floor next to my desk, and I looked at it guiltily, and then set the meditation timer for fifteen minutes.

At first I couldn't calm my thoughts, and every little noise went careening and swirling around my head. The rain flung itself at the windows, and the refrigerator's hum turned grating, and the room felt dark and empty and vast behind my eyelids, and Llama sniffed and yowled at me, inconsolable.

But then, suddenly, the rain quieted and a bird started chirping, and then. Then there was this warm golden light behind my eyelids, a loving light that wrapped itself around me, and when those fifteen minutes were up I opened my eyes to the sun breaking through the cloud cover and a room suffused with a gorgeous west-facing evening glow. Even Llama was basking in the light, stretched out on the floor and purring, eyes heavy-lidded with sun-shiney pleasure.

Thank you, my dear, for giving this to me, and for smiling with me yesterday despite our crying a bit through all those goodbyes.