Friday, April 20, 2018

Morning Light

Little sweetheart, I had the most wonderful blessing of your presence this morning and into last night. You came to me in dreams. We were together in the lobby of a lovely old hotel. The weather was glorious as we walked through the doors together - mild and fine but not too warm, not too blindingly sunny, just the way you most like it.

And when we walked out of the day into the cozy, charming lobby there, so familiar and inviting, everyone seemed to know us, smiling and friendly and welcoming us back. The concierge called us by name and politely handed us our keys, delighted that we had returned and proud to tell us that they had prepared our favorite room just for we two.

As we walked upstairs together, I held you in my arms and I can still feel your body, which fits so perfectly into the curvature of my own, even now as I type this, even as I woke.

Indeed, little sweetheart, your signature sweet scent has mysteriously been in the air the last several days somehow, often in the hall late at night when I go out there. I know you are near. And I’m grateful and want more than anything to be taken, returned to your side, soon and forever. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

In Sound

I was listening to Irene Trudel’s show on WFMU last night, little sweetheart. She’s been playing tracks from the new album, Sometimes in Dreams. Last week she ended her first set with two tracks in a row, “As Day Turned to Beautiful Night” and “Lost Life”.

This week, we weren’t on but she ended her show a different way and that’s what wanted to tell you about.

Her last song of the night was “Racing Like a Pro” by The National from their album “Boxer”. It was one of the first songs of theirs you played for me, remember, little sweetheart? We’d kind of just discovered them. When we had gone to Seattle for that reading of Seven Pages Unsigned and we wandered into the great record store there near the Seattle Center, Easy Street Records, We went on a kind of spree. I got you a long sleeve thermal tee - a small in black with their eagle logo on the front (it’s here in the red table now with lots of your things). And we found an new EP by Bon Ivor and the first DCfC album and a double-album of various artists produced by the two of the guys from the National called “Dark Is the Night”.

A few months later when you were working in Carmel and I was back in New York you discovered “Boxer” and started emailing me mp3’s of some of the songs, “Racing Like a Pro” among them.
I was in the kitchen last night when I heard the song come on. I didn’t have it turned up very loud and I was a bit distracted but I recognized his voice voice immediately. I wondered if it was a new album. But then I heard the line “I’m dumbstruck, baby” and a thousand memories started flooding in.

There’s never a moment when you are not on my mind, when I don't ache with longing for you, little sweetheart. And every memory is locked inside me, flows through my veins thicker than the blood itself coursing there.

But even so, sometimes things - a song, a sound (a distant train whistle like we’d hear together in your bed in Davis), a smell (the scent of your cotton candy perfume) a picture of you that I haven’t seen in a while - sometimes things like this will floor me, little sweetheart. I hope they always do and suspect they always will.

You are my once in a lifetime. You are my everything. How I long to be again at your side! May that day come soon. Very soon, indeed. Until then, please find me in dreams and thoughts and take me to you the moment heaven will allow.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Illness Epiphanies

It’s April here, little sweetheart, but winter won’t loosen its grip and I’ve been terribly ill for the last several days. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been posting a bit lighter here but I have been writing to you elsewhere as I’ve been making sure to do a little work on the memoir each day. While I’ve been doing that I had occasion to read a few of your early emails to me and in one of them you describe yourself as being “grumpy as a badger”. That’s how I am right now about being sick and the prolonged winter, as well!

But in addition to being rather grumpy and impatient with being sick, little sweetheart, there’s something about it that makes one a bit contemplative. You can’t do much else but rest and force liquids, so you wind up thinking and half-dreaming, as well. I love writing to you, my little sweetheart, because the more I do, the more I think of and remember all the there things I want to tell you, It keeps things present for me, you know? And that’s something else I want to tell you.

When I was a little boy I was very sick for quite a long time one year. I missed almost half the school year with double-pneumonia. Did I ever tell you this? I’m sure I must have. I was quarantined and left alone at home for several months every day. I think in some way it may have shaped me a little. None of it is as dire or life-threatening as all the things you went through, little sweetheart, with your diabetes all through childhood and the surgeries and recovery years later, just a year before we met, but I feel as though I understood in a deeper way when you told me stories of your struggles and the long hours you had to spend in bed not able to do much of anything but just exhausted and trying as hard as you could to get well.

You’re simply the most courageous person I’ve ever known, little sweetheart. My miracle girl. Remember? I haven’t told you that in a while. You are my miracle. It bears repeating. And I think there’s something to this - the way you “found” me, as you like to say. There’s something of solitude inside each of us that called out to one another. That understood and sought one another. And that is a miracle, too, in its own right.

Please keep finding me, my little sweetheart. Please find me in thoughts and dreams and signs and help and guide me. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

April 1

It's Easter Sunday, little sweetheart, and, as ever, my thoughts are of you.

There's a lovely floral display each year at Easter at that little church up on West End Avenue I've told you about. You can put a few dollars into a little envelope and write the person's name you'd like to have flowers for in tribute, so I always have some for you. The envelopes usually say "Flower Offering" but one year at Easter they had instead a quote from Revelations: "I'm alive forever and always". 

I saved an extra one of those, little sweetheart, and I have it between two pictures of you on the bookshelf.

I'm saying grateful prayers for you, little sweetheart, that you came into my life and saved me with the great gift of your love. I know you are closer than I can imagine - alive forever and always - and that I simply must have faith, listen carefully for your guidance and know that I will be with you again, soon and forever. With all my love...