Remembering memories

There's been a shift.  Though there still are wet days, it's more an occasional gentle rain and less the soul shaking sobs I seemed to regularly cycle through.  I find my self remembering memories of Gil these days, seldom are there new ones.  I suppose that's what happens as there are no new experiences going into the memory bank, but it makes me sad.  I knew that he would become a fading shadow of presence as the demands of daily life became louder, but I don't want to lose the sense of him that comes with the pain.

I've chewed and processed memories after memories, have said my regrets, forgiven myself for the most part, focused on the essence of Gil behind the somewhat dessicated  persona his illness had been reducing him to over these last years, and appreciated, savored, spoken all that I've realized he'd given me.  There will be more I suspect, and I'll welcome it.  But mostly I feel like I'm waking up into "this is my life; what I do makes a difference".

I'm starting to find out what my body needs, and taking better care of it.  I have a new cabin renter who is paying partly in labor.  He's a dynamo with a chain saw and able to move heavy logs like a Paul Bunyan.  Gil would have loved working with him.  I'm so sorry he's not here to have that kind of help with his lumberjack projects.   But I have it. And I'm comfortable asking for help!  Who would have thunk!?  I can remember my discomfort of last Spring, but oddly enough, it's gone.  I'm stepping into the rest of my life, and I feel startled by the newness of the experience.

My life has been so intense these last few years, that the relative calm seems almost pleasure.  This poem seems to capture it.

Any Morning

by William Stafford

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won't even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

A gentle man

My Dad was a deeply wounded man.  Adopted into a cold family; he did the best he could, but his emotional scar tissue didn't allow for much real connection.  In death I feel that he and I are free to relate  on a more essential level.
He was an introvert who had a naturalist's eye, as I do.  He saw variations of leaf and color; was able to identify mushrooms.  He loved to dream up projects in wood and other wild stuff.  The cabin he built by hand before I was born, had deer hooves as door handles; whatever you  might think of that aesthetic, it was the way he liked to play with making things out of wild and natural stuff.

He loved to think about how to make things.  Electronic "Heath kits",  cooking with exotics,  peeled grapes, beef kidneys, fiddle heads, he loved to fool around with making stuff.  He definitely had the pallet and curiosity that fostered our family's cooking gene.

But mostly he was a gentle man at heart who had bursts of anger at all the injustice he'd experienced.  He wanted to be a good man who would be respected, but on some level didn't really care what people thought.  He wanted what he wanted and never really learned how to empathize with others. But he wanted to.  Freed of his old psychological scar tissue, I imagine him full of curiosity, ready to be done with this world and move on.