Small Things Matter

Every once in a while, I come across the reading that was chosen for our wedding.

At some point, I am to come to terms with the fact that I no longer have a wedding anniversary to celebrate.  It stopped at Seven years, and didn't make it to Eight. The opinionated, stubborn, black-and-white side of me will insist that there will be no celebration beyond Seven.  I do not want to be in the "it would have been Eight" state.  I don't even like hearing those words.  You either are, or are not; have, or have not.  Like pregnancy, it is all very black and white.

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Small things matter

Small things like never being too old to hold hands.

Like remembering to say "I love you" and mean it as you say it.

It is never going to sleep angry at each other.

It is keeping a sense of appreciation for each other while giving yourself fully.

It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is standing together facing the wind.

It is creating a circle of love that draws in family and friends.

It is doing things for each other, not in attitude of duty, but in the spirit of joy.

It is expressing gratitude in thoughtful ways

and not looking for perfection in each other.

It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding, and a sense of humor.

It is fostering the capacity to forgive.

It is giving each other nurturance and space to grow.

It is finding room for the things of the spirit.

It is a common search for things positive and beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

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I hope I never stop learning how to be the right partner.  I hope I never forget, nor do I need to remember.  I hope it all simply becomes the fabric that makes up who I am.

It all just becomes me.  

His Jackets

I washed them.  Folded them.  Took a picture.  As if I would forget what each one looks like.  But, what is the point?  They are jackets.  On the other hand, they are my husband's jackets.  Were.  Were my husband's jackets.  

Such is a typical and somewhat pointless conversation inside my head. 

These jackets will find their ways to my friends' closets; make themselves useful elsewhere.  It's a way to honor Patagonia's philosophy. 

Godspeed.  


I proceeded with other items in Eric's dresser.  It's a No-Go.  I put everything back in the drawers.  Not ready.  Can't do it.  

Jackets are released a month after Yellow Warrior Bike, all before the One Year mark. Not that there is a timeline nor is it a race.  Still, I think it is incredibly strong progress.  Very grateful.  And proud. 

Then I got this from Kevin.  About letting go.  There will be progress again next month.  

    

The Girl Who Flew the Kite

"Don't be so serious all the time!  Where is the Daisy who flew the kite?  I want that Daisy back." 

There she is!

The innocent question hit me hard.  I don't know where the "Daisy who flew the kite" went. She who was completely carefree, at least momentarily. Flying her kite with pure delight.  With an open attitude that was the envy of all attitudes.  She was exhilaratingly present on the beach. Made her prominent mark.  She also seems to be slightly preoccupied at the moment. She may return tomorrow; maybe Monday. May be next March. Who knows.  But she'll be back when she's back.  

I aspire to live a playful life, with intermittent moments of seriousness.  It is just not very much fun the other way around.  It's easier said than done if you want to do it artfully and meaningfully.  To not use humor as a mere distraction.  Distractions are fine, as long as you are fully aware what they do for you, to you, and against you.

So serious...

I have been in the middle of an "intermittent moment of seriousness" for months. It's where I am with my life.  The death of a spouse does that to people, I think. It forces me to deal with my core and everything caught in my web with a different lens.  I desperately want to emerge from this vortex.  Some days, it seems like an uphill trudge to just smile at puppies, as I untangle life.  Everything seems mundanely frivolous on those days.  There is little energy left to be playful.  Luckily, those days are farther and fewer in between. Other times, being playful is a cakewalk.  I can banter with friends for hours, flirt with waiters, and get comp'd on desserts.  To me, that's an example of being playful.

It is exhausting to be around me sometimes.  I get that.  Heck, it's exhausting for ME to be around me sometimes.  I can only imagine how confusing it can be for a new friend to "drop in" in the middle of my life.  There is no other word for it but "exhausting."  I feel bad to be emotionally unpredictable.  I don't have a solution.  Life is messy.  My life is, at the moment, a bit messy.

"The Daisy who flew the kite"
Copalis Beach, WA
September, 2013

I remember asking Eric "why do you have to be so intellectual all the time?"  I remember feeling the dichotomy of his intensity being the greatest blessing yet the biggest curse. "It's how I'm wired, hone."  Our talks would interweave seriousness with playfulness. I desperately want to fill those holes, but the efforts become forced and unnatural. Then I realize, these holes are NOT meant to be filled; or replaced. These holes are meant to remain.  

I am to create new interweaving of seriousness with playfulness with others now.

"Where is the Daisy who flew the kite?  I want her back."  

There is a time and a place for everything.  In the continuum of seriousness until I fully emerge from my vortex, there is plenty of room for playfulness.  Work on it. But not too seriously. 

My very own Prism kite

Daisy. Clarity. Rebirth. Connector.

I have never been "enlightened" in the conventional sense.  I suppose - I assume - Buddhism might say it is achieving a state of clarity.  I am not a Buddhist, but, SOME of its teaching intrigues me.  If I compare enlightenment as "a state of clarity in life," I would say that I have never been as "enlightened" as I am at this point in my life.  Sometimes things are so real and so clear they become surreal. 

On April 28 this year, I wrote a blog entry about a lesson on kindess.  I wrote about serendipitously discovered a blog on Kindness, written by the co-founder of Puget Sound Community School Andy Smallman.  The most important takeaway of Andy's writing was about reviewing an experience in your life that caused you pain in order to find the blessings in it.  I discovered Andy's blog barely two months after Eric's death.  I found myself drawn to the assignment, but was never able to finish reading the blog without completely filling my eyes with blur.  The assignment, however, was always in my head.  I constantly reviewed this darkest time of my life that caused me tremendous and unexplainable, exhausting pain, and attempted to discover the blessings in it.  The assignment has taken a long time.  

I think I may have finally found it.  I think I may have found the hidden blessing from the death of my beloved husband, the person I loved more than anything.  Anything.  It is so hard to type just this one sentence.  It immediately makes me tear up.  But I must write it to believe it.  

The blessing, as it turns out, is my rebirth.  

Eric's death turned my life upside down in a giant vortex.  My choice was to get sucked down forever in the abyss, or emerge.  I hate water; and I sure as hell will not die in it.  The only alternative is up.  A rebirth.

I have never been as clear about my life as I am today.  After an exceedingly difficult, stressful, and emotional week at work, example after example sends me the same message.  

I am a Connector.  

I am a connector who connects people - friends to friends; friends to strangers.  
I am a connector who connects people to humanity causes. 
I connect people to important issues about the environment, justice, life.  
I connect people to Puget Sound Community School.  
I connect people to discover their own passion. 
I connect people via all channels: my warmth, my laughs, my writing, my music, my presence. My bread.  
I connect people with my passion.  My passion in living my fullest life possible.  

I am a Connector.  We are all connectors; we have tremendous responsibilities as a citizen of the world to connect each other to humanity, in ways we deem meaningful.  

I am grateful to have finally found the hidden blessing in Eric's death.  There is simply no word to describe my gratitude.  The love.  Our bond.  My journey.  I am the single most fortunate person to have shared a portion of my life with my husband, exactly the way we did.   

I am to use all these for the greater good now.  And to create another beautiful and vibrant life for me.  The canvas is set.  Paint with gusto!

Winter Sojourn 2011
Ashland, OR

  

Godspeed

May you carry all your riders fiercely, bravely, safely. 

The warrior bike is on its way to Idaho today, where it all started.  Where it belongs.  I stole a quiet moment with it after it was loaded up.  Twelve hours later, it will be in its element.  Next weekend, it will be on the trails.  Rocks and dirt under its spokes and tires. Releasing joy and sentiment.  

I didn't want to see it go, yet I didn't want it to stay.  In my heart of heart, I know there is absolutely no better person to whom to release the beast.  

Alex will put the bike back on the trails, where it will carry all its riders fiercely, bravely.  Joyfully.  

My good buddy Andrew said it well.  Eric would not have anything to do with his unused bike sitting idle in the garage - he would have bartered it away.  Either that or my personal McGyver would remove the back wheel and devise a contraption for harvesting grapes using rubber tubing and a few pulleys.  Andrew always knows how to make me laugh with the strangest comment when nothing else would make me laugh.  

Emotionally, the beast is not a bike.  It represented an extension of Eric.  It was a vehicle that actualized his passion for graceful motions and the outdoors.  It is, therefore, even more suitable to release the bike to Alex.  I feel nauseous, sad, irrational, tearful, but above all, free and alive.  It is the starting point of a giant leap forward, into another brave new chapter.  I knew these emotions would surface.  I just did not know to what extent.  Now I do. 

I release you, so that you may let me go.  So that I may continue to live my full life.

Godspeed, my love.  Go. 

Top of Quest University
Squamish/Whistler, BC
Summer, 2010

The Yellow Mountain Bike

For as long as I have known Eric, he rode this yellow mountain bike.  It was a warrior pro bike.  There were plenty of colorful bike stories and human injuries.  He would set the bike up on a bike-tuning-contraption (which I am certain has a more proper name) each spring.  With his shop apron on, he spent the whole afternoon in the garage and meticulously tuned up his bike.  Spraying this, wiping that, cleaning every nut and bolt.  The man loved his mountain bike.  He loved bouncing his ass up and down the trails in the mountain even more.

Yes, collar bones were broken.  Both of them.  One time, I got a call while I was in class.  "Hone?  I'm in the ER.  Kirby cut me off on the trail and I rolled.  Yeah...I broke the left side this time.  Yes, it hurts like a mo-fo.  Can you pick me up?  Yes, hone, from the ER!"  I couldn't; I was in Seattle and he was riding in Idaho.  Perhaps he suffered a concussion and couldn't remember we were actually in two different cities at that moment...I'm sure it was the painkillers talking.  

The yellow warrior has been sitting in the laundry room for far too long.  Its spirit deflated.  It belongs to the trails.  It begs to be ridden.  

The yellow bike is the last of his four most personal items I want to release.  It is time to send it to its natural habitat.  Let it give joy to others.  Let its spirit soar. Let it be free.  Let it be a warrior bike again.  

Eric bouncing his ass up and down the trail
Circa 2002

You've Got Transitions!

The Fall season is finally here. I feel a transition again. You know how inspirational quotes are sometimes printed on large posters with a beautiful butterfly emerging from its caterpillar cocoon during its transition?  Well, this isn't it.  



My emotions seem more complex and complicated now.  Sometimes even a little delicate...  Each 30 days or so, I subliminally add another check mark on the calendar.  Time - and time lapse - is merely a human construct, so that we may define and measure our reality in the terms we could understand and relate. "Congratulations!  You have successfully negotiated seven months."  Seven months is truly phenomenal - if you are pregnant and on your third and final trimester.  By then you only have two more months to go and your child will greet you in person. Joy!  Not to be overly dramatic - I feel that lately, the more months I get through, the more adjustments await me, the more unfamiliar life gets.    

I suppose, when I make it to the first anniversary of Eric's death, everything thereafter will be more familiar.  By then I could safely say it has "already" been one year since Eric's death. 

Actually, the proper expression ought to be "it's been ONLY one year since Eric's death." ONLY ONE YEAR.   

At the beginning, the shock and burden was heavy.  I was constantly grieving, and nobody - including myself - expected me to be anything but sad.  I could literally be in a daze all day long, if I wanted or needed to.  I am well beyond that stage.  

But, I feel more "bipolar" than ever.  Constant transitions cause my emotions to fluctuate.  High one hour, sensitive another.  On my tough day, or tough hour, I could sit at the table, or my desk at work, drown myself in music, and let time passes slowly.  Then I emerge again.  I feel bad for my friends who have to negotiate my "bi-polarity."  I also feel bad for the few new friends I meet: death is not exactly an upbeat ice-breaker.    

At work, I am frequently balancing and adjusting my somewhat irrational and ultra-sensitivity towards people's passing comments or jokes on the topic of death.  I hear everything.  Perhaps because I behave "normal," people forget my husband had died really only seven months ago.  It's not their responsibility to remember such details.

In the very near future, I will start to organize Eric's belongings.  There is never any rush to do anything, but I'm not in a rush.  It is time.

In the near future, I will meet new friends who know little or nothing about my life with Eric.  It transitions me from the powerhouse couple-team "Eric and Daisy" to just "Daisy."  A powerhouse solo-team.  

In the near future, I will transition my emotions that Eric is always on my mind, yet he is in my past.  

In the near future, I will address my husband and my marriage in the past tense.  Words matter.  Proper grammar matters.  They tell stories.  

In the near future, I have to come to terms that I loved my husband more than anything, but I must no longer be in love with him.  The thought of this transition brings me to tears.  

In the future - at some point - I should find courage and stop calling Eric "my husband."  At this very moment, I want absolutely nothing to do with this transition.  

Emotions are non-linear.  Transitions are complex, intricate, and complicated.