We left a window open last night and woke up with the house icy cold. Shawn brought me another blanket but it was too late. I was already awake. When I was young I could always go back to sleep for more rest after waking up. Now that's impossible. I wake up and I get up.

I went outside to shovel the driveway, completely buried in snow and ice. Goddamn October. Cold fresh air on my face. I wore Shawn's coat instead of my own. I cannot seem to take a step without his arms around me. He's gone out again, to buy coffee and muffins. When did we become the kind of people who buy coffee out instead of making it ourselves? Our fridge, with its stupid fancy pullout drawers and self-aware ice-maker has nothing in it.

*

It snowed last night and for the first time this season it has stayed on the ground. It's dark and cold. I woke up crying. I hate October.

I want to be strong for Shawn but I just can't seem to. I don't know what to do with all this grief.

*

Day three

I hadn't written about it because I haven't wanted a living document of this pain. I haven't even wanted to admit it was real. I haven't wanted sympathy anywhere, because sympathy meant it was true. I'm able to watch us experiencing grief in stages like a textbook, complete with backtracking and skipping ... with a general linear progression. Shawn is about half a day ahead of me. I look at him now, in the stoic place he has gotten to, and pray that I will get there soon. I'm running out of kleenex.

The rational brain tries to take over, and manages to do so sometimes for a half hour at a time, when pain becomes dull and bleak and achy. And then the emotional brain takes over and the pain becomes sharp once again. Wracking sobs and fetal positions and irrational thoughts of wishing to be gone. How can it hurt this much? It makes no sense. How can my heart break so many times over? I've been waiting to wake up.

O is coming over here tonight. I don't want him to. I don't want to get dressed. I don't want to take my hair out of the towel. I know Shawn is doing better now than I am because he got dressed first thing this morning and went out to get coffee and a muffin for me. Nevermind that I couldn't do more than pick at it. I was happy to see him showing signs of recovery. I managed to get into the shower at 4:30, and back into pajamas when I was done. I don't want to do anything else. We're progressed to a new stage. Now he's strong again and I'm crying all the time. He's holding me together the best he can. But it's not possible. He reminds me that he loves me, that we have each other. And that does bring me warmth. How I can be so lonely in the middle of so much love makes no sense. And yet it is. I know other people survive. I know we'll be okay in time. But right now I can't even imagine it.

cries to her husband Daddy our baby

The talking is easy. I've known you most of my life now and it seems like I can't remember what it was ever like not to tell you things. Correcting your spelling is automatic, just like saying I'll have whatever you're having when ordering drinks. We don't even mean these things anymore; we just do them because they're habitual. Saying I love you is habitual too, but this is a habit that I still mean and I think about the words every time I say them so they never become empty.

When we go out together I love to watch how you talk with other people. I've been trying to figure out your magic since the ninth grade and never gotten any closer. The fact that it hasn't faded after all these years makes me know this is no David Blaine kind of trick. It's not so much magic as it is charisma but you use it magically, never allowing it to stop you from doing the right thing or letting it make you take advantage. There was a time when I wanted you to be more dangerous. Now I'm old enough to see how lucky I am to be safe with you.

You make me confident in a way I am nowhere else, with no one else. You make me believe I am everything. You make be believe I am loved - having forgotten at times that such a thing even existed. With you all the insecurities and inadequacies are soothed. I stop wishing for anything to be different.

~

cold comfort for change

October has happened - just the way it always does - with no compassion. But we're just past the halfway mark and I think I can make it.

Some day I'm going to move to a place where October is kind.

*

I was the strong one this time, the one who didn't cry, the one who said Sshhh it's not your fault It's going to be okay I love you I love you I love you. I cried this morning though.

*

I may be obliged to defend every love, every ending

the first cut is the deepest

It's Thanksgiving here. Back home we used to invite the Orphans for dinner - everyone we knew who didn't have family nearby to spend it with. This year we are the orphans. Even though we travelled home for pretend-Thanksgiving with my family on Saturday, I kind of miss the way things were in some ways. Sometimes.

Still, I am thankful for many things this year, and overall. I have a wonderful loving husband and soulmate, I have a new developing closeness with my extended family, I have the opportunity to explore new career avenues, I have had the chance to travel and to learn from people on the other side of the world, I have two sweet puppies that give me all the love I can stand, I have a nice home, I have friends and confidantes who bless me with their friendship and support, I have my health and the good health of those closest to me, we have enough money in the bank to pay the bills with enough leftover to feel secure indulging in a few treats. Things are good. I know I am lucky.

*

Giving Thanks

We sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn. The ground was a little frosty and our breath made clouds of vapour around us. We wore fleece and gloves. These would be shed within the hour as the work got tough and the sun got higher.

I had taken a week off from running in preparation for this day so that my strangely sore back would not preclude me from participating and the rest paid off. I felt strong, lifing heavy rolls of sod from the wheelbarrow and unrolling them smartly on the ground.

Four hours later our bog has become a real, actual lawn. My back hurts again but it all seems worthwhile. The yard, Shawn said exuberantly, has been sodomized.

*

promises mean everything when you're little and the world is so big

I'm thinking about people I miss. And things. And places. I guess that means I'm thinking about nouns I miss.

It makes me feel emotionally itchy. Or maybe I just think about these things when I'm already feeling that way.

basic personal protective equipment

Noah says that we have known each other for generations upon generations and somehow we always mess things up between us. This is a shivery whispered exhale in my ear. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Noah says that it's like another chance; this time we're here to finally get it right. He's going to buy a cabin the woods and he's going to spend cold winter mornings chopping wood for the fireplace to keep me warm. My mouth is laughing and telling him he's crazy but inside myself I think that I might believe him.

I don't believe him because he's right. I believe him because my heart does that too when it feels that momentary flash of recognition of oneself in another, that moment when it is briefly heard through the din. It makes me breathless. I ask him if he says this to everyone. He says no. He's not lying. He means what he says. He just doesn't know that his heart will wake up in six days with all these things turned inside out.

He pulls my arm too hard when he tries to show me how to skate along the apex of his street -already leaving marks on me the first night we meet and I am already praying they never fade.

We walk from downtown to his place, the city lights growing further apart as we climb those endless stairs. I'm trying not to breathe hard. I don't want him to see that I'm having trouble keeping up with him and I don't want him to see that I'm afraid of him. He's the tallest man I've ever known. When he kisses me he stands on his knees and wraps his arms around me, still taller that me in this position, but now I can see his eyes. His eyes are dark and he looks haunted. I've convinced myself by now that he has important secrets that I need.

When we arrive at his house, his dog finds a comfortable spot on my lap and keeps me pinned beneath him. He isn't a small dog, nor a particularly friendly one, Noah tells me. It's a sign. Digby loves you. Digby wants to lick my face. It doesn't bother me but Noah stops him. She's mine. I'm not sure this is true but it starts to seem possible.

The next night it is cold outside. August blows a hint of autumn and I sit outside on a bus bench, not waiting for a bus but just waiting. C is beside me. She talks of the emotional faucet inside that can be turned on and off at will. Can you really do that? I ask her and suddenly Noah floats by me with his friend behind him. -for six blocks- he says as he goes past and I feel as though he was answering my question. The absurdity of a thirty year old man on a skateboard is lost on me for a few more days. I can turn off the feelings for six more blocks at least. It always seems to be nighttime.

Now I have fantasies of taking the axe that was referred to in the woodchopping dream and burying it in the side of the Hillhurt house in the middle of the cast party or ultimate frisbee games. I imagine staggering into LifeSport under the influence of vodka and openly stealing a bicycle just to make you chase me. I wish I'd spent the night with Digby. I bleakly watch the bruise on my wrist heal. Time's up for this lifetime.

*

we got different reasons for that

Lub. Dub.

Lub.

Dub.




Lub.





Dub.

GPS navigation capability

I feel the pace slowing down inside me, the intensity and the need are cooling and it becomes less necessary to agonize and analyze and emote. I think this is because things are in place already but my heart seems to have difficulty adjusting to being happy. Sometimes I try to think of what to write about ... and eventually just leave, having said nothing. I'm just another weak poet who only writes about strife. Now I just happen to be happy... and so there's little to say for a girl who has made a habit of thriving on angst. I look back on the reams of sad poetry and I feel that I don't miss that part of myself. I'll become a light farcical Noel Coward kind of writer - and be hated by all who read it. And I'll love it.

*