Cupcakes & Cocktails (cont'd)

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There was something oddly timeless and inexplicably familiar about walking through the garage to the sidedoor leading out of the now sudden darkness of the basement, its illumination clicking off on a timer, and climbing the creaky wooden back stairs to your apartment on the third floor. Coming back into the main stairwell from another sidedoor and onto the pale pink-tinted-off-white carpeted floor, the big mirror below in the foyer, the wide steps and tactile texture of the white stucco walls – it all seemed like I’d somehow been here before. I had the strongest sense of deju vu, my little sweetheart. Did I ever tell you that? And then reaching your door at the top of the steps and the end of the hall. The frosted glass and dark wood there customized, decorated with little decals and icons of your love and life – a red Routemaster double-decker London bus, a big pink and white heart bearing the slogan “Make Love, Not War”. We’re home. 

Like all good parties, or maybe just the ones that I go to, we wound up in the kitchen. I loved how perfectly cozy it was. The little breakfast nook table along one wall, a couple of high spinner stools tucked underneath. All the sweet little touches of sundries decorating the periphery – your black and white Kit Kat Clock, eyes and tail synchronized in a tick-tock ticking, the vintage pin-up calendar by the refrigerator door, pretty curtains over the floor to ceiling shelf unit holding all your little “treats”. I liked the color of the room. The walls an inviting sun-bleached shade of yellow. And the absolutely exquisite and intricate tiling everywhere from floor to counter to sink and the window overlooking the Sunset itself, the Spanish mission-style roof of a lovely church in the near distance, the ocean visible from afar. I came to know that these warm and lovely touches were largely the work of your mother. And you spoke so proudly, so lovingly about her and your father. It was terribly effecting, my sweetheart, how clearly and unabashedly you loved your parents. I’d encountered the oddest phenomenon in the years before I met you – it was almost a point of pride in other people how quickly they would disavow their folks, keen to tell you how estranged they were, as if that were requisite to being independent or hip, some curious badge of honor. Refreshingly, that was not you. You loved your parents. They were accomplished and thoughtful, devoted to you and breathtakingly kind and generous to everyone you brought into your circle. It’s a bit shocking that that should be so extraordinary – that you would stand out as someone who didn’t routinely have to run-down your parents to assert your own validity somehow - but there it is. Thank god for them. And thank god for you.

I wasn’t drinking in those days. I’m not now, again. Although there was a time after your passing - “if not now, when?” I used to say, disconsolate, wishing only to perish – for a couple of years where I tried drowning myself in alcohol. I’m sober again, my sweetheart, as I was in those days with you. And that night, knowing that I didn’t drink you asked if I’d like a glass of milk. Of milk! Who would think of such a thing? Well, you would. You even joined me. You didn’t have a problem with drinking. Indeed, you didn’t believe that I did once you got to know me. “You’re not a alcoholic”, you said, eventually and more than once. “You should be able to drink with my family at Christmas or even just when you’re with me. You should be able to drink on those occasions – when you’re happy. When we’re together. Just don’t drink when you’re sad”. And like most everything, my darling, you are doubtless right. It’s just that now without you here, it’s not a good idea for me to. I’m often terribly sad. Maybe always now. I need to be careful. Have my wits about me. Listen carefully to intuit your invisible presence. I’ll be happy again, though. I’ll be happy when I find you, as I know, as I so deeply feel and have faith that I will and forever. 

But that first night, we drank milk, didn’t we sweetheart? We drank milk and ate a cupcake or two and listened to the Beatles because you knew we both liked them, what little you knew of me, what you’d learned, you employed because you wanted to make me comfortable and at ease and happy. No one ever went to such lengths for me from the very start, from the very very start. And we sat together now on one of the little couches in your living room, the rest of the party going on around us and we talked and talked. There’s a poem by Mary Oliver, my sweetheart, called “Wild Geese”. “Tell me about despair”, she says, “Yours, and I will tell you mine.”. We did that night, my love… (more – to be continued…)