Rick

my friend rick died today.

he'd been having chest pains on monday, went to his doctor. doctor told him to go directly to the hospital. rick decided he "had some things to do", and went home first. he collapsed there. they started his heart back up on the way to the hospital. his body was alive for this last week, but we never knew if he was there. we all surrounded him for the past week: his family, his friends, his coworkers. we all surrounded him, loved him, told him we were angry with him, told him we loved him, told him we wanted him to come back to us, to share in this life with us some more. told him we love the world that has him in it, his laughter, his lovely crow's feet that accompany his laughter, his sparkling eyes. his delight in crudities, his inexplicable, laughing attempts to lure everyone he knew to go see the midgets at the local strip club, despite his being openly gay. told him we were sorry for this thing, sorry for that thing. i told him i was sorry i didn't go see him last thursday when he asked me to come by with the boy for a visit at my old job. told him i didn't have a good reason for not going to see him that day, i could have fit it easily into my day, i just decided to do errands, giving up my last chance to see him, talk to him, the last chance for him to know my boy, to share in all of his joie de vivre. told him it meant a lot to me that he'd asked me to come in, knowing, as i do, that that is a special request coming from him.

our shared friend told me the news tonight.

my dad and his dog, tennessee, came up for a visit today, our monthly house-hunting day. just before leaving the house, i discovered a peculiar plumbing situation in the basement, and we ended up spending our whole visit bailing out sewage and calling plumbers, excavators, etc. at one point in the afternoon, as i was leaning out the basement window, passing a sump pump back and forth with the plumber, trying to control flowing water outside and inside the house at the same time, our yard dug up into muddy piles of earth and snow, no one knowing if our basement was soon going to be under 3 inches of sewage, and rick in my heart all the while, my attention was drawn past the gathered men to the apple boughs by the porch. there was a little dark-eyed junco, flitting about the bough. it was so perfect: dark above, light below, perfectly clean movements, joyful little creature. a simple bird in a tree. it was such a site of perfection, a place and moment of pure beauty on the earth, in the midst of mess and grief.

i held the boy as i cried tonight. i sang rick onward, sang thanks for his life, for his having a community who loves him, for the gift of having walked for a time beside him, for his passing back to creator. the boy sat in my lap, playing quietly. every once in a while, he reached his hand up and put his fingers inside my mouth. his own little gesture, letting me know we were still together.

Sunset

visiting my childhood home, my father's home now. getting the boy ready for bed up in one of our old rooms, the sun pouring an orange rectangle onto the wall. the crabapple branches offered it the shape of webs; criss-crossing, swaying, gray webs in the peach light. ancient cobwebs never dusted down, fallen into each other, no distinguishable pattern. dancing, just as they are.

Glorious Day

Solstice

warm day with family.

8 inches of snow from a couple of days ago. 10 more inches have fallen today with a possibility of 10 more tonight.

happy solstice.

Home-Cooked Bath Toys

new uses for old jeans! i've been wanting more non-toxic bath toys to complement our collection of wooden goodies from the unfinished mill store that have served us thus far. today, i added this "family" (with spoon, of course - the current favorite toy) to the collection.

Boo's Basket

working on a basket made with pine needles i collected with my aunt boo last year, as she moved toward her death from dementia. we walked together along with her husband, ben, through long-leaf pine woods in florida. she saw me gathering the needles, and she joyfully began gathering them, too, though she didn't understand what i meant them for. at home that evening, toward the end of my visit with them, i invited her to help me take each needle out of the jumble of needles and lay them out straight, so they'd travel safely on the plane without getting broken. she sat beside me at their little kitchen table, and, though the disease had stripped her of her language, much of her reasoning, her memory, and the ability to simply work on most things competently, she understood what i was doing with the needles. we worked together, silently, while ben watched the news, her hands and mine taking turns as we slowly untangled the web of needles and, one by one, laid them in order.

boo passed over october of last year. finally, now, i'm weaving these needles together into our basket.

Thanksgiving

morning train ride to the city south of us. boy toddled up and down our car, smiling at every person on it, receiving smiles and conversation in exchange. at long last, napped in my arms, the rising sun flickering through the trees onto his face, the side of his hand.

so much of the journey was through wild land. quiet streams winding through the woods, bare branches webbing the sky. water lying still, frozen in its place, holding the sun's light on the earth.

we traveled behind the factories, the ugly places: laundromats, self-storage, their dumpsters and heating vents. occasionally, a glimpse of the wealthy - a house on a hill above the tracks, a row of neat victorians a few blocks away.

so few people out, towns nearly vacant, roads empty. one lonely car at the railroad crossing waiting for us to pass. storefronts all closed and quiet. just the rattle of the train on its tracks, the conductor's jarring announcements of stations, the passing trees.