Hi, friends. A brief update from here. Summers are not so great anymore. The day that Ry died was July 24th, and his birthday was August 18th. Those milestones came and went. I made it through the third year of grief, and am beginning the fourth. Grief. "It doesn't end," as a widowed acquaintance said to my sister, after Ry died. I don't know what to do any more about much of anything, so I coast a lot and try to meet what each day seems to require. I work and swim and take walks and spend time with my sister and our family and a few friends, and take care of Hodge the cat, who is eighteen and a half and doing well. I think of ways to fill the hours of each day so I can take a book or two and go back to bed as early as possible. I listen to the Red Sox on the radio. I write. I spent a lot of time this past year writing the new memoir, The Ocean of Trees. Then I set the manuscript aside and will return to it this winter with perhaps some renewed ambition or will to complete it. But it's mostly there. It's about 250 pages. The first substantive page begins this way:
And the beginning of part one is this:
Then the beginning of part two is this:
I wish I could use other people's words to write our story, the story of Ry and me. Mine don't feel good enough. I have a lot of wishes. Most of all I wish Ry was still here creating the story alongside me. A terrible realization came to me the other day, that our marriage and time together was a chapter of life. And I will have other chapters it seems, since time is doing what it does. Our early years of being young and in love are a chapter, as is my childhood, teenagerhood, and the years before I knew Ry. The bookshop years were good and another long chapter of life. Then came our forties, when things got really great, mostly. Ry and I were happy and doing what we most loved.
What next? I don't know. I'm grateful I can work. I'm painting and showing and selling my paintings. I'm still keeping a diary, and writing this new memoir. I can't see the future, anticipate much, or make plans the way I used to. The loneliness I feel is so specific that not much seems to touch it. I used to love solitude, and my own company, and quiet. Now I have too much and it makes each day feel over long. I know I have more to give in life and I'm actively seeking healing in many ways. One of my daily affirmations is this: I trust the universe; I believe in what I'm doing (breathe in; breathe out). All for now. Thanks for reading and love from here.
