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.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
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.
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.
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