Catching the rhythm

Gil was an "outside in"dancer.  When he fell in love with Latin dancing, back in the hayday of the Paladium dance hall in NYC, all the best Latin dancers emphasized, started on, the 2nd beat.  Gil would watch their moves and then practice looking at himself in a mirror.  He watched himself and counted the beats 'til he looked, when he danced the way he wanted to.
I'm an "inside out" dancer.  When Gil was teaching me, I tried to count so I'd start on the 2, but it just made me trip on myself.  So I just danced with him, let him lead me (oh, he was such a strong lead, I felt like I could totally let go and he'd carry me)   and my body learned, to feel the 2, how to respond to his subtle hand pressure "here, spin, there, break out".   If I tried to watch myself to see how I looked, I felt vaguely vertigo-ish, like my body was a moving car and the driver, me, was outside, not in the drivers seat.  I had to trust that my body would respond to the rhythm and to let it.

I feel like I'm learning to dance with me.  The background noise of crisis and anxiety are largely gone. There is a soft cotton like feel, not unlike my first encounter with a soundproof booth back in my research days, sort of like some motor noise has just stopped and I can feel it's absence like a pleasure in it's own right.
I'm trying to catch the rhythm of living me.  Odd, since you'd think after 64 years I'd have gotten it, but I've been so juggling crises and so working to survive, that I haven't really been in the driver's seat.  I'm still in the awkward stage of stepping on my own toes every now and then, but I have the space to feel, "who do I want to spend time with? Is this activity something I still want to spend energy on? What do I feel , right now?  Who are you? Why are you?  What do you want?"
I can pick up a subtle level of sensing that I haven't tuned to in years, if ever.  It's changed how I live day to day.  I've left some friendships, fed others.  I'm trying to set in place a much reduced farming operation next year....  I'll know I've caught the rhythm of me, now, when I can feel the ease and joy I used to feel dancing with Gil, and trust it

Dancing in the dark

I've had this blog idea rattling around in my head for a month or more, but have been too busy and not sufficiently centered to write it.
I'm in the midst of a relapse of the "too much"s.
Last year I sailed through the summer/winter on the food I'd already put by and committed to no garden or animal responsibilities.  This year I hoped to enter back in to that world,  just a little.   oops, need to recalibrate.  How much is enough?  Why do I want to spend the time/money on gardening and raising our own meat?  Is it the strangle hold of my lifetime identity as a producer (I don't buy at farmers markets,  I grow my own)?  But how much of my life force am I willing to give it?  Knowing that that life is becoming more and more finite?  I think I want to spend more time/energy with words.  Let's see if I can remember and change the pattern next spring.
So the blog idea.
I had been listening to the Gil music and turned the lights off as I was heading to bed.  The music was still going and a great latin song came on.          I could feel him.   There was that magnetic pull to move.  And I started to dance,  with him.   When he had his shoulder/arm surgery he was no longer able to use his right hand to lead in dancing as firmly as he had.  So I had to just tune in and anticipate where he wanted me to go.   And that's what I did; I let him lead me and I flowed loose and hot.   Dancing in the dark is such a great experiential metaphor for what I'm doing right now.  I'm trying to listen to "the beat" of what's happening.  I'm trying to trust and let it lead me.  And I'm trying to feel the joy/pain of engaging and letting loose.   I'm recently going through a wet stretch of weeping to certain songs.  It's good.  I'm harvesting moisture.  It's keeping   him   close.

Partnering

I'm watching, it seems like most everyone is engaged in partnering, where most actions, decisions, plans are in the context of what works for the significant others, spouses, loves, children.
I'm learning to do that with me.
It's perhaps the biggest change since Gil's death; my job is to make decisions based on what will further the action of me and (who knows?) what I'm becoming.
It's very disorienting.  I've always had a partner who I've been tuned to.  I miss the ease that having someone else's needs to use to make decisions,  gives.  It's so much more work to have to stop and think, "so what do I really want?"  And it's liberating.  The background noise of my life is still there, but I am emerging, as if from a great sleep, so much more solid and strong than I was in college, the last time I was truely a single.   I'm tired and it's a lot of work setting boundaries with folks or saying "no", but I'm learning.  I have no fear of becoming selfish or a narcessist (anymore than we all are) and I don't seem to miss being in a partnership, at least so far.
I'm just surprised at how different the world looks to me seen straight on through the lens of just my own life.

I'm still here

The garden is in, the chicklets clucking, big goats about to be joined by some kidlets, and then there are the new pigs.   My sister is a force of nature. By her sheer persistence and the grace of cardboard and wood chips (why did I never do this before? Oh my God, what a difference it makes!) there are less weeds and more clear spaces than there have ever been here before, both in the garden as well as the flowers and walkways.  
And there's more clear space in me too.
There's plenty to do, but I'm clear none of it's life or death because the death has already happened, there is no need for anxiety, he's already gone; I can survive in one form or other, anything.
I'm not lonely, but I am ready to reengage with folks.

When I was traveling crosscountry on the train, I sat with a woman whose husband had died a year ago.  She asked me if I'd noticed folks pulling back from me.  She feared that they didn't want her around them as a single.  I'd noticed the pull back also, both from others to me but also from myself in response to death or great tragedy in friends.   I told her I thought it was from discomfort, what to say, how not to impose, an unconscious fear of being too close to that pain and having it rub off.  I've kept distant from folks and also felt the distance grow from them, but I don't take it personally.  It's an organic reaction and must have some evolutionary benefit.  When I reach out, friends have been wonderfully responsive.  And I like being alone.  I like it a lot.

I am surrounded with delicious empty spaces.  I notice certain birdcalls (have they always been here?), faint scents, a small shift in my inner emotional weather front.   Flooding hits, my driveway washes out, Adam and Kate's newly carpeted basement ruined, and I feel the pain, but somehow I don't feel panicked by it.   Just curious.        I'm still here.
In some ways, I'm more here than I may have ever been.

Planting

We planted a big sugar maple, atop Gil's ashes and Isaac's placenta, in a beautiful spot on the rock outcropping behind the house. Chris and Miya (and of course the delectable morsel Isaac) Gil's brother and best friend Bob and his wife and Adam and Kate et al, we all shared, held ash, let it go.  One more step into the future after Gil.

I've been thinking about loving.  I remember chewing over the Bible line "Love thy enemies" and wondering how the heck one could feel the way I thought love should feel about your enemies.  ??  And then it hit me, love wasn't about focusing on the characteristics of the moment, it was being open to, awash in, the best possibilities.  It might be a baby, or an idea, a project, or a lover.  Love was allowing yourself to see the best potential  and by seeing it, feed it's actualizing. It is able to be chosen.

When I met Gil, he didn't have many of the characteristics that my Yankee, academic family looked for in men, so I decided that instead of looking at the bottom line of all his qualities that perhaps I should fuzz my focus on them and instead look at me.  Did I like the me that being with him was bringing out?  Did he open up potential in me that without his touch wasn't possible?  Yes and yes.
So I married him and changed the trajectory of who I am and the life I'm leading.

Planting,  an act of hope, an openness to what will emerge, a day to day slog of work.  I allowed a different part of me to grow, by marrying Gil.  He continues to bring out  the potential me I sensed when I agreed to marry him.  His tree and I will continue to grow together.

Humbling

We had a prairie burn on Sunday.  Gil had always organized them in the past, lined up the people and waterpacks; I'd made the food and manned the "flapper" or fire rake.   Somehow I just didn't hear back from many folk, and the places he'd borrowed the packs from in the past didn't respond either.
Sunday seemed calm, we had barely enough folk and then 2 didn't show up, barely enough waterpacks and then a couple malfunctioned, our burn meister's plan was perhaps misguided
and then the wind came up and changed direction.
As the fire took off, I was so focused on saving my neighbor's woods that I sent everyone over to help contain that boundary.  I was alone, surrounded by fire with only a rake.
It's times like this when I realize how easy it is to be a fool, full of pride "we've had 15 successful burns in the past", impulsively responding to the immediate and losing the big picture.
I was very dehydrated which seems to be associated with my vertigo, surrounded by smoke, and I panicked.  "Call the fire department!!"  I crumpled, couldn't stand up any more.

I learned a lot. I have a visceral understanding of what needs to be prepared to be safe. I'm more willing to go ahead and be a bossy broad and say I don't feel comfortable with the plan.  But mostly, I feel humble.  In the face of big forces, of which FIRE and Gil's death are only 2 of so many, I am small, small, small.  Which is just fine. I am not responsible to make everything turn out right; I'm responsible to learn as fast or slowly as I can, to deal with the consequences, and to keep trying.  
And to drink enough water.
I'm missing the guy.

Held in place

For What Binds Us

by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.



I seem to be held by these forces.  The scar tissue that stitched Gil's and my lives together ties me to old ways of caregiviing, managing, indulging. Habits, inertia,  I'm having a hard time changing these patterns, for good or for ill. The bond I feel with the farm, family, friends keeps me rooted and nourished , it sustains me.  And held to the way I've been.

I don't know what is next, but I feel more as though the decision has been made and no one has informed me.  I am listening for the urge for something more and to what the forces are, which hold me to this past, (I don't want to be dismissive; this "past" may well be the rest of my life).  If I can't sense and then name what  keeps me so rooted, how will I ever become aware of what new lives I may have yet in this lifetime, and be able to let go and step into them???

Numb and Crabby

So much for the anniversary of his death being an emotional Camile like weep fest.   For the last couple of days I've been feeling kind of numb, going for the naps and ice cream  and generally irritable at family, friends and foes.    I get off on missing him and crying but, you know, I've done a lot of that this year .  Time to move on to feeling other feelings, like anger.   I was surprised when I riffed on that in the last post.  There was a lot about the years from the brain tumor on that was really hard and he could be quite self centered and passive.  And I was never Saint Kathleen; I wasn't always fun to be around.   Grieving  doesn't change the reality of our basic messy humanness.  And crabby when it's upgraded to anger can be energizing.  Which I could use.  I'm sick of wallowing; time to clear brush and move chickens.  And I'm pissed he's not here to help.

Holy Week

A year ago, this was the week before Gil died.  Last week was our 25th wedding anniversary.  Oddly intense little mileage markers, they call out for some ritualistic processing (recovering Catholic that I am).   I went back to Samba on our anniversary, the Brazilian ode to meat restaurant that we went to last year, and I'm planning the ashes/tree planting we'll be doing with Chris and Miya and (ta da!) Isaac et al in a month.
And then there's   now.
Last year this was three days before he died.  I think it was finally starting to sink in that maybe he wasn't going to be able to snatch disaster from the maw of death as he'd done  soo many times before.  Hard to believe.  I think this was the day that I climbed into the hospital bed and spooned with him.  For some reason he needed to be on his side, it was such an invitation to snuggle!  I think I remember him responding, maybe even saying "good".  Mostly I was on the cot they'd made up for me right next to his bed, I could reach out and touch him.
I think this was the day when we could no longer get Gil to swallow his pills. These were ones which couldn't be given by IV but which could have fairly immediate negative impact on how he felt.     I suggested "pilling the cat",  mixing the ground pills in applesauce and squirting it into his cheek.  It worked in the morning and then in the evening he spit it into my face.  
I think he was angry because he felt belittled, and bossed.   I hadn't explained to him why these meds were necessary, I hadn't asked him to let us do it,  I didn't treat him as though he were still there.  Though he seemed mostly unconscious I think he could still hear us.
And I was angry. I was tired of being responsible for everything. Angry that he was fading these last years and I felt chose  TV and computer games, golf and billiards over me.  But mostly I was angry that I was in this position where looking out for his well being left me feeling like a bossy bully.
I wish I'd had the compassion to think of a more respectful way to help him, and
I was doing the best I knew to do; I feel no guilt.
There was a turning point when the magical thinking part of me started to realize,  he was too far gone even for a miracle like  in February, with the gurgling and finally getting the morphine as a steady drip loosing the pain and consciousness.  Those last two days I was in the numb space where it started to dawn on me, something momentous was about to happen and dramatically alter the rest of my life.  Gil was disappearing and I couldn't follow him.    How extremely odd.

The end of the shampoo and the death of orchids

I've woken twice in the middle of the night this last week or two, and found that I was crying.  No memory of a dream, just sadness and longing.  We're coming to the end of the year, the animal of my body remembers this quality of light or phase of the moon; a year ago he was alive and we were on the slippery slope.

This is not a pain I'm seeking to end, it doesn't have fear and despair to make it unbearable.  It fels a little like labor pains, surprisingly intense sometimes, but with a sense of health and rightness about it.  I am giving birth to myself and Gil's death is guiding me.               

I revisit details of this moment, that decision and though through hind sight I understand this or wish that, I don't regret with clenched teeth "oh, if only we'd....".  We did what we did, it's not about perfection.  I realize now that perhaps we hung on longer, tried more chemos at the end because we were part of a team with Dr Callander and she wasn't ready to give up.  She said we could always stop but she still had hope of "knocking it out of the ball park"  and so we kept playing.    Perhaps a useful insight for someone else but not a source of angst.  Gil's death was what it was and we had far more than our share of miracles and joy in that last month or so.  Who's to say we "should of" anything, but breathe as long as we could.

I just used the last bottle of shampoo that Gil bought.   He loved to be well supplied.  So when he'd get down say 3/4 of the bottle, he'd get another (often a large Costco one) but then would forget and at 4/5 mark,  buy another.  He once bought 3 replacement bottles before the original was used up.  He did this with toothpaste, and paper products too.  It drove me nuts! as things spilled out of storage!

I have used the last drop of the last bottle he bought.  Now I can decide what kind of shampoo I want.

Our 25th anniversary is at the end of this month.  We used to get orchids (often cheap Home Depot ones) but I often got them to rebloom for several years.  The last of our orchids has died.  I'm going to buy a beautiful one to mark this year and get some expert advise on helping it flourish.

We're entering the sweet spot time of a year ago when we got him his billiard table and other joys.   I miss him intensely at times and there are events or new skills (mine) that I know he would delight in and it hurts that he's not here to appreciate them.  

But  I  am;   I'm here in a way that I've never been before, surrounded by loving friends and family, but free of responsibility for anyone else's well being besides my own.  

Alone

I've been reading the blog from a year ago.  That was such an intense time, I remember feeling it, living it but  it's light years away from now.  I still cry, often from some song and wish he were here to enjoy this or that, but now is a time for me to be alone, and it's good.  I love being alone in my house with nothing urgent to do, I love it! I'm discovering my own rhythms, of sleep or eating, listening to the hum and noticing the way the wind blows, birds fly, the moon fills up it's bowl and then drips it slowly away.
I'm spending a lot of time on deferred maintenance of my body and soul, babysitting, taking care of the house and farm.  These activities eat time, which makes my alone time even more delectable.  I feel the echos of who I am, my likes and desires, compulsions and ruminations, those echos allow me to hear myself in a way that I couldn't when I was focused on my children or spouse.  I needed to be alone to wake up to me.
I feel no rush to dive into anything.  I'll be doing a little more with the garden and meat raising this year, but mostly as support services.  I'm doing a trip out to California to visit David and get a sense of his next phase of life.  Chiris and Miya and baby Miller are coming here sometime in late April as we bury Gil's ashes and plant a tree.  My sibs and I are gathering out in Maine at the end of August to reflect on my dad's life and then I'll spend some time at Pipers Nest, but other than that I'm hoping to just be here, now, alone.
If I listen and am patient, I'll hear what's next.

Vertigo

Yes, really.
I woke up yesterday morn and the room kept spinning.  Walking to the bathroom made me seasick.  It took many naps, and phone calls, and time, before I figured out what was up and found my feet again.  It was a day pulled out of space and time.
But good.
I've come to appreciate how my body takes metaphors literally.   My pseudo heart attack, showing me again my broken heart;  my vertigo, how dizzy and mind bending all these changes in identity are to me.
I am being stripped down to some primal version of myself as the activities I've used my breath and body for are no longer possible or what I want.
"I am not who I was, though some principle  of being survives from which I struggle not to stray"
I remember reading the "Little House" books and wanting to be a self sufficient pioneer; that's what has driven me to become good at "putting by" my garden and meat raising.  It's become fashionable now, but contrarian that I am, that makes me want to move on, or do it in a way which uses up less of me.
I remember listening to Joan Biaz records when I was 12, and deciding that that's what I wanted to look like, be.  And so the beatnik version of me was born, though I lacked the olive skin and my hair, even ironed would never hang straight.   I still have trouble spending money on clothes or other appearance driven womanly maintenance activities, though I am getting remedial fashion assistance and education.
I remember all the turn of the century kids books I used to read which fostered my sense of responsibility for family, family, family.  I have an idea of family as my root stock which has driven a lot of my choices, and perhaps that's been the deepest part of my identity up to now.

Identity vertigo, that's what is going on with me.  I sometimes feel friends or family respond to me as though I am someone else at essence than who I feel myself to be. They may have been distracted by some of my identity driven behaviors and think because I do these things, that must be who I am.  And isn't it?  How can I be other than what I've done and continue to do; habits die hard?  
But I feel like I am more than that.
What is the star I'm following now, freed of work, husband, young children??    Ir seems like I'm thirteen instead of sixty three, and that I'm looking for new Identity clothes to try on.  I need a lot of solitude, silence  and stillness to hear what that small voice in me is suggesting I try.   Of course I'm dizzy, I've lost the orientation of my old horizons, as I "voluntary free fall" into the future.
"I am not done with my changes"

January 8th

Gil died 9 months ago; it feels like 9 years.  I have traveled so much new territory, so many miles, I can barely remember so long ago.
But also,
It was a year ago that we started down the slippery slope, and it feels like yesterday. Gil spent the weekend with the Kavanaughs while Adam and I journeyed to Ohio to visit David.  When we got back I sensed that something was wrong, he was weak, confused, my alarms went off. When we went to the hospital, his platelets were out of wack, and his myeloma was soaring.
In hindsight, his myeloma had mutated sometime in late December and was becoming an out of control, burn the house down kind of fire.  I remember that all so familiarly; it was the world I lived in, and it changed so abruptly 9 months ago.
I am reassured when I still tear up easily with this and that memory.  I have not become cold and callused but I am shifting Universes.  I was living in a world of Doctors and numbers, intuitions and crises.  I did my garden and turkeys as though it were still my life, but increasingly over the years, I was not present, to myself or anyone else.  Oh I had insights, and awareness of this and that but to the deeper current of my life, I was not tuned in.
I feel like I'm waking up now, like a person after a train wreak, who lost an arm or leg, who realizes that they are still alive, and that the rest of their life will be radically different.  The Universe has been swatting me upside the head, with crisis after crisis.  All at first looked like potential disaster, all were, with some $ and effort, manageable.  What have I to fear of flooded basements or dead vehicles? The current of my life is pulling me.  Where, I have no idea, but I'm learning how to move a little within it.   And trust.      I feel the reality, Death IS.  And equally, while I'm still alive,   BE ALIVE.