Bird Watch

Little sweetheart, I've been seeing more and more birds these last few months. 

I think maybe the reduction in air traffic has been a boon for them. A couple of weeks ago I saw a cardinal. I always thought of cardinals as winter birds and regardless of the season, I'd never seen a cardinal in the city. The first time was over by the dog run in Riverside Park near the 86th Street Gardens. I was so excited, I stopped a random passerby just to tell her. Maybe a week later, I saw another, or perhaps the same one, at the drinking fountain by the playground at the W83rd entrance. Then, a week after that, I saw two! 

I was crossing through that little common square between four apartment buildings just north of Lincoln Center, that kind of "quad" between Amsterdam and West End, and I heard a bird singing just spectacularly. I looked up and it was a cardinal, a male like the other(s) I had seen up in the W80's, but then I saw the object of his affection - a female cardinal, her colors more muted and grey but still with red highlights. 

Every time I pass any of these spots, now, I look for them. Since your ascension, little sweetheart, I often find comfort in birdsong and the sighting of the little guys. I feel a sense of closeness to you somehow. 

I think I told you in these very pages that story about how a few years ago, I went out into the hall and was startled to find the prettiest little bird, a finch, I think, sitting quite calmly, like a sentinel, atop the crash bar of the emergency exit to the roof. It turns out he'd escaped from Angelo's apartment on the second floor - he has several little birds and often lets them of out their cages to fly around his apartment at will! Somehow, this little guy got loose and flew to the highest point he could find indoors. Before we knew who he belonged to, my neighbor Eric rescued him and then got a little birdcage and gave him to me, because he has a cat that would be far too curious. I had the little guy for about a day until we discovered that he belonged to Angelo and I took him in his cage back downstairs to his home. 

But before I did, that night when we still didn't know where he belonged and I had him for safe keeping, I fed him and gave him water and talked to him and showed him your picture - I told him all about you, how much I love you and how we all miss you so very much and that this is your home, so that he would know. I wanted this little bird to know about you. 

It seemed very important, little sweetheart. And it feels very nice today, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, to remember it all. How I love you! Forever. Forever. 

On This Day - Mom

My little sweetheart, within the next 24 hours is the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death. We don’t quite know exactly, because my brother found her after her fall and we don’t quite know when it happened.

When the news of it came, it was a late Sunday night going into Monday morning. I was in London, excited to begin rehearsals for a play of ours - one that you and I were hoping to do together at Seattle Rep.  I had been texting my director, our friend, Wilson Milam, with notes and rewrites well past midnight after which I finally went to bed.

My laptop was nearby playing music and still restless around 4am, I reached over to check email. My brother had written in all caps “EMERGENCY. YOU MUST COME HOME”. I was puzzled to say the least. I wrote back to say I was in London and was mom okay and he replied “NO. COME HOME.”

You know the rest, little sweetheart. I’ll write more later but I'm remembering just now how I called you once I had the actual confirmation. I was alone. I was staying at Kris & Joy's in Northern London but they were in Wales at the farm. I didn't even know how to dial out international on the landline. I had to wake them to find out.

The first call after that, I made to you in San Francisco. I told you and you burst into tears and then began helping me through every single step for a week. You got me on a flight back to NYC and then Detroit. You flew yourself there and brought my suit. You slept in the airport waiting for my flight. You took me into your arms and helped me through every moment. You took me by the hand and over and over that entire week every night to remind me that you were the love of my life and that I was still alive with something, the most Important thing to live for - you.

It’s that day, today, little sweetheart. And I am so grateful and miss you so very much. Oh my dear dear True Love. Take me home, soon, won’t you?

With all my love.

SF Set

I was watching a movie the other night, little sweetheart. I’d seen it before but it was funny because I had just been thinking of it and here it was on TCM. I mentioned to your dad after and he said he too he just watched it the day before that. It’s the Steve McQueen film Bullitt.

It’s famously set in San Francisco and it’s really kind of astonishing how many shows and movies are. Even films like this very much a product of their time (still good, just clearly a wonderful snapshot of their period), in this case the late 60’s, the city is somehow timeless. Seeing it in 1967/68 takes more there just as vividly as seeing footage from 2010 - which I did last night, watching a film about the Giants World Series run of that season.

So often, little sweetheart, and I know I’ve said this before, I feel like I can almost touch our life. Can feel it on my skin, in my heart, a part of the blood flowing through my veins and I have that sense that it is just ever so slightly out of my reach. Not so lost that it can’t be regained, found.

However frustrating the feeling, there’s also an enormous comfort in it. Like it can’t possibly really be gone if I can have this vivid of a sensation. And that, maybe my gorgeous girl, is a good sign, a bolster of faith.

You’re there. You are always. And so are we and our time, I just can’t get my fingers on it yet. But we are and are always. You’ll take me there, I know.

With all my love forever.

March 18, 2020

Little sweetheart, tonight is awful anniversary of your passing. It’s always so hard but I try my best to do the things you would tell me to. I texted your parents this morning and sent an new little flowering green plant to your mom for all three of you.

Tonight I would have usually gone to Taize to light a candle and pray for you but the sanctuary is closed because of the coronavirus, I was telling you about. What they did instead was have a “virtual” service. They’re using a video conferencing app now at the church like office workers do for meetings, so I was able to watch and listen and say a prayer for you after all.

As I said, just the other night I was looking out the window and I noticed the moonrise. It was enormous and full and when I looked it up I discovered it was the night of a supermoon, not unlike the one that rose above your folks and I when we went out in the hospital parking lot after you ascended on this very night nine years ago to the very heavens.

I went up on the roof and gazed at the moon, luminous just like you, and talked with you for quiet a while.

These are difficult days, little sweetheart but my heart is filled with love for you. And I promise to do my best, waiting patiently, working diligently until you can take me home with you again and forever.

With all my love.

Mom's B'day

Little sweetheart, today is my mom’s birthday. She’d be… well, maybe she’d actually prefer if I didn’t say how old but I sure do miss her. I’m so very glad you two got to meet and spend a little time getting know one another. Like everything, I wish there had been more time but I’m glad there was some.

Last night after working and having dinner I looked for something to watch - just like you thought me to do with you, watching a story at the end of the day together with your partner; was so happy and proud to be called your own! - and I saw that one of my mom’s favorite movies was coming on. It seemed very cosmic, in a way. So, I sat down and watched it all the way through.

It was Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. I think maybe I remember the movie most because, even though I often say this was one of mom’s favorite movies and it was along with Casablanca and a few others, what she liked most about it, I think, was the song “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”, the BJ Thomas version of the Bacharach/David composition. She had the 45 and I remember how she liked singing it.

I’m so glad you two met, little sweetheart. It’s actually a little uncanny how as young girls - like very young, like 4 or 5 - you resemble one another in photographs, even decades and decades apart. I suspect you two have gotten to know one another even better now, in the forever. And I very much like thinking about that and the day when I may finally join you.

With all my love forever.

New Moon, Supermoon

It’s the awful anniversary of your accident, tonight, little sweetheart. I’ve been praying and going quietly with extra care and kindness about the day.

Tonight as I sat here on (new) sofa, I saw the moon - huge and rising - between two buildings. Still in my pajamas, I put on a coat and hat and headed to the roof in wonder to talk to you.

A supermoon, not unlike the one that passed above us simultaneous with the ascension of your beautiful spirit the night you left us, was overhead. I read more about it once I came back to the desk here where I sit now writing this to you.

I feel you close, blessing me, encouraging me, keeping me safe, strengthening any faith that we will be together - indeed, always are - soon and forever. Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased.

With all my love, forever. Forever.

The Cruelest Month

It’s March, little sweetheart. TS Eliot once called April “the cruelest month” but however mournful, even he did not know my sorrow. March is mine. March is the month you were taken from me. March is the month of the bitter anniversaries if your accident, our ten day vigil praying for your recovery, your tragic passing and soul-ripping grief that has followed me to this day.

Each day this month, little sweetheart, perhaps more than usual, perhaps more than any other, I must pray and be mindful, find ways to be kind and endeavor to busy myself with the work that remembers, honors and conjure you - The Most Beautiful Spirit, the blessing and very reason of my life.

Please be near me, won’t you, little sweetheart? Please help and guide me. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

Jesse

Today, little sweetheart, is the sad anniversary of your beloved big brother Jesse's tragic passing.

It happened just a little over a year before I met you and was still so hard to comprehend - you loved and missed him so very much. And although I was not lucky enough to have met dear Jesse, I have dreamt of him many times, doubtless because he remains so very near us, even now, nearer than we can imagine - just as you feel so near yourself - and because you and your mom and dad and his dear friend and ours, Noah, have all told me so many wonderful stories of him. You never stopped telling me, little sweetheart, about Jesse. Just as you told me so many stories of your childhood, of your mom and dad and how very much you loved all of them.

Even before I dreamt of Jesse, I felt I somehow knew him. And I have dreamt of him, many times. Often, you are there, too. I'm always so grateful when you visit me in dreams, my little sweetheart.

One of the dreams that comes most to mind today is one where I was in the Richland Road kitchen. Your mom and dad were there and Jesse too, who was kind of holding court. He was charming and hilarious and we all were enthralled. Then, you yourself, little sweetheart, came through the swinging door from the dining room, as if you had simply come downstairs from your room. I ran to you and gathered you in my arms weeping with joy. I wouldn’t let go. Jesse lightly teased me until he understood and then he and your mom explained that everything was okay. We were all together now forever and nothing could take us away from each other again. It was okay to let go, really. The room was full of love and I felt like I wanted to be there forever. And I was.

I think this is something like what simply is but I just can’t yet quite see. I believe. I believe that you and your brother are so very near but just out of sight of mortal eyes. And that you are eternal and always - that we all are - and that I will find that, find you, on that day when I finally join you.

I love you with all my heart and soul. Forever. 

Soaring! Ascension!

Little sweetheart, we got a surprise tonight. We thought the guys from the London radio show, Sonic Imperfections, on Resonance FM were going to play a track or two from Sometimes in Dreams, and we are assured that they will be in an upcoming program, but instead they played the closing track from our album, Dream Together - "To The Other Half of the Sky".

It's one of our most personal songs, little sweetheart, and nearly eleven minutes long. It took up quite a chunk of their broadcast. They said incredibly lovely things, too, calling it their favorite and saying it had been on their turntable at home for months.

One of the things that's so powerful about it, of course, is you, little sweetheart. Your soaring vocals, solo, open and close the song that builds and builds and builds and then slowly unwinds, ascending. Below is the video we assembled for it, for you.

I need you more than ever. With all my love...

In Every Thought

I'm thinking of you so very deeply today and every day, little sweetheart.

Was up late last night assembling the video and then had physical therapy this afternoon. It's very moving sometimes to see everyone there working so hard, from different levels, at different points in their recovery.

One very nice lady there, always kind and cheerful, is recovering from some severe nerve damage to her hands. She's just one of the many people I feel a kind of kinship with. I went over to talk to her just a little before the end of my session and I told her what today was. She asked if she could pray for us and I closed my eyes and we did just that.

Later, after I'd left and was doing some grocery shopping before heading home, I stopped at the little rectory across from Sacred Heart on W51st St. I often talk to the nuns there and sometimes bring cookies or something. I've gotten to know the Mother Superior, Sister Catherine, a little. I thought I'd stop by and see if she was there. So, I rang the bell and one of the other sisters answered. I asked after Sister Catherine but she wasn't there. I told her that I came by sometimes and what today was and asked if she could ask Sister Catherine to say a little prayer for you, if she could. The sister said, "how about right now?" and closed her eyes and began speaking. I closed my eyes too, as I stood there in the door and wept quietly as she said such a very nice prayer for you and I, asking God to envelope you in love and protection. Then we said the Lord's Prayer together, I thanked her and went about my way.

My way. Our way. My way is listen quietly for you and do as you whisper and guide me. Until that day, little sweetheart, when I may join you again and forever. My every thought and prayer is for you.

With all my love forever.

That Morning After

Little sweetheart, today is Ash Wednesday - rather unforgettable for it having been on March 9 in 2011, that morning after your accident.

From rushing to your side and tearing my shirt off to lay under and cradle your head, to rushing in a police car to the hospital where they had taken you and sitting on the floor outside the ICU waiting to able to finally see you, when the tears, overcoming the shock, broke through in a torrent that continues to this day and the sobs wracked my breathing, only ever one hard breath removed from me even now, I sat there. And as the night shift at SF General turned to the Wednesday morning one, I saw people arrive, both staff and visitors, with the sign of the cross in black ash marking foreheads.

It was an eerie almost surrealistic sight. And somehow quite appropriate. It signaled something urgent and other-worldly. In those days and hours that stay with me always I remember how my hand would involuntarily cover my mouth, a gesture of shock and grief, almost a cliche, but made now so true to my understanding. I think in those moments our souls very nearly leave our bodies, longing to join and merge with the most beloved - you.

It’s Ash Wednesday, little sweetheart, and my every thought, my every prayer, my entire being is with you. With all my love forever.

Forever... (and Dream 3 video)

On this day in 2011, little sweetheart, you crossed over to The Forever, where I so long to join you. Tonight I assembled this video in honor and memory and faith - we'll be together again, soon and forever. Love you with all my heart and soul.

The True Way

Seven years ago, little sweetheart, I woke with you for the last time. You were curled up in my arms with your little feet around my ankles, your hot water bottle pushed off the side of the bed to the floor, warm enough now in an embrace. You kissed me and we lingered together for an hour.

A beautiful day, warm and glistening and filled with love and promise and adventures together, that ended in tragedy and left me forever broken.

I look for you everywhere and seize upon anything that might be a sign, a trace of you trying your best to comfort and guide me.

This morning, after saying our prayer and stroking the things that lay upon your pillow, talking to you softly, after texting your parents and just sitting inconsolable on the bed in tears, I rose and walked to the kitchen to make coffee and begin the day, however sadly, however lost. There upon the counter was an inexplicable ring of condensation. A circle of tiny water dots like a speech bubble in an illustration waiting to be filled in with some message. At its outer edge the sun glanced off the surface in a kind of arrow, as if to indicate directions.

I can't know the day. I can't know the hour. I can't even know why I remain. But I must listen quietly and simply have faith that someday, some hour, sometime (and may it be soon), I will be returned to you.

I've a picture of us, a selfie before people called them that, of you and I, our faces pressed together, your lips upon my cheek, standing within a stone circle at the edge of the world - the end of the Sheep's Head peninsula out beyond the lighthouse on our trip to Ireland.

Moments after it was snapped and we began trekking back to the village, we got lost, taking a wrong turn and losing the path. It was becoming dusk and I got worried. I ran ahead looking for a fork that would return us before it got dark and we were truly lost. You cried out, because I was walking too fast for you, and I turned. When I did I saw a sign - only visible from this direction, only able to be perceived because I was turned away from the rogue path, only visible because I was turned to face you - an arrow that showed me, showed us the way. The True Way.

And that way is you, my little sweetheart.

In all things, how you have saved and changed and guided me, from the day I met you to this very moment when I can't touch or see you, when I ache to do so, still you find a way to help me find the way. Ever grateful, I love you forever. And trust my soul, which is best equipped to hear you, which is itself half of your own, to perceive your guiding presence and lead me home. For home is you.

With all my love forever. Forever, Summer. Forever, my little sweetheart. Forever. 

L'udovit Kochol

Little sweetheart, I saw the most amazing painting today.

It's a work by L'udovit Kochol called "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel". I think the artist is possibly Czech. I'm going to write the National Gallery to see if I can find out more.

But it's just breathtaking and such a resonant image for me - how I long to hold you in my arms and have you take me to you, take me to your side again and forever.

I'll let you know what more I find out, little sweetheart. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Please Guide Me

Little sweetheart, I’ve been back in New York for a couple of weeks. Usually on Wednesdays I go to that little meditation service I’ve told you about. I missed a week (or was it two?) but have been twice also since returning, last night among them.

It drained me, darling. It’s become so emotional, maybe it always was, sitting alone, aside, to myself, singing my harmonies and repeating the prayers and coming forward and lighting a candle and whispering my own, whispering our prayer, that you be in the safe care of The Forever and that I might join you there as soon as possible, as soon as allowed, tonight if it is so willed. The silent meditation is after that part, the candle lighting. I return to my seat, the lights are lowered yet further, and we sit in silence for 10 or 15 minutes.

After the benediction, the musicians play once more and although others begin to rise and speak to each other breezily, tonight and often, I sit and pray and talk to you. And I wept so hard tonight, my little sweetheart.

I feel so lost and so alone and miss you so terribly. I don’t mind the pain, the longing. It feels a part of us, it feels like something to honor - this hole in my heart that only you can fill.

But I wonder if going there on Wednesday nights is really helping or if my time would be better spent here at my desk working feverishly on telling our story, telling you my thoughts, speaking to you from the depths of our shared soul.

It’s an hour walk there, an hour long service and an hour walk back. Those three hours have value, especially if they are a quiet block of time that focuses my attention in communion with your spirit. That, I treasure. I think, aside from the waves of emotion that hit me (and I do value), the exhaustion makes me wonder if maybe I should just try to keep those three hours here at home instead of in public, such as it is.

Will you please help me to decide, little sweetheart? Will you please guide me and let me know? I need you more than ever. And I love you with all my heart and soul.

As I used to say just if you were only going to the kitchen for a moment or shifting your weight a bit as we lay together in bed - please don’t go too far away. With all my love forever… xM

Needing You

I feel so sad today, little sweetheart, and I'm not altogether sure why.

It's cold out and gets darker early -it's not even 3pm and it appears like dusk. The new album is in production and I've nothing more to work on it, just await its arrival from manufacturing. Christmas is coming and I'll be headed to see your parents next week.

I think maybe somehow all of these things together bring a kind of sadness and longing for you. However much I hope the new album is a wonderful tribute and brings you vividly to presence, it doesn't bring you here to my side or I to yours. It can't. Perhaps that's part of of my dark mood - that no matter what I do what want the most - just to be with you - I can't have or conjure.

In these moments I need to quiet myself, even crying, and try to do my best to honor you, to work at being the man you want me to be. That's all I can do really isn't it, little sweetheart? Just do the best I can and have faith.

I'm remembering right now something you used to say when we both would get upset. You'd tell me that we both couldn't fall apart at the same time! One of us would need to rally and be strong so the other could get on their feet. You didn't mean it always had to me, either. You were just saying, in your inimitable way, that we both needed to buck up and that we would if we helped each other. No one ever did that for me except you, little sweetheart. No one ever before or since.

Every day when I wake up after saying our prayer, I talk to you and ask that you be with me today, help me do the right thing and to take me to you the moment heaven will allow, because I don't like it here, I don't like it here at all without you and that I feel happy and that belong only when I am with you.

I need to listen for you and do the best that I can, don't I little sweetheart? Please help and guide me. I feel so lost today and I desperately miss and need your help and presence. Don't let me lose sight of this or lose faith that I will find you soon and forever.

I'm sad and lonely for you. Only you will do, as you said to me in one of your beautiful, generous, unafraid texts. I printed it and it hangs above my desk right here.

"Lovely you madly. There is no substitute. You are my treasure. Forever. ", it says.

Yes, my darling. Same. There is no substitute. Only you will do. Forever. Please take me there. With all my love.

Flying

Little sweetheart, I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was with you. That’s always a wonderful thing. We were outside walking together you in front and I put my arms around you as you led the way. I think you were showing me something. A place you had been, maybe many times, maybe as a child, even. I’m not sure. But as we walked we got to… not a cliff, exactly, but what turned out to be the top of a very steep, very long hill. There was no way to go forward without picking up speed. So much speed that we’d most likely fall over and tumble down the test of it. And we did go faster and faster but instead of falling we began to fly. I just kept my arms around you as we left the ground. And we went a great expanse. We may have touched down once or twice, it was little like jumping as well as like flying, like gravity only lightly effected us, we could soar when we wanted and walk when not. And we did. We soared over the wide expanse of earth beneath us until, we came to a large body of water. Maybe a lake or more like a sea because there was water all the way past the horizon. And we flew together, my arms around you until we touched down on ground again. It was amazing and lovely. And you were a little surprised, you said, that I was so quiet. Not more excited. Isn’t that funny, little sweetheart? So like you. But I was! I was very excited, just marveling. And I told you so. I told that more than anything I just was so happy. So happy to be with you. And that I wanted to always. Always be with you. Yes. Forever. With all my love…

To The Other Half Of The Sky - Bipolar Explorer

For your birthday, little sweetheart. Video for "To The Other Half of The Sky" from our sixth album, Dream Together. Love you forever.

Assurance

Little sweetheart, I saw this poem yesterday and it made me so grateful. It's a new month (more about that later) and a new week and I want to redouble my efforts to quiet myself and listen for you, to find you and be with you soon in the Forever and to spend the intervening time being kind and mindful and writing for you, of you, about you. I love you with all my heart and soul. Here's the poem that so moved me: 

“Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled our hair, our breath, and came and went,
As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
Spake in mine ear her voice: “And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? This could be sleep?
And love be thrall to death! Nay, whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; this is the thing that is!”
Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.”

—

Emma Lazarus, Assurance

Open Water Ahead

I had a dream this morning, little sweetheart, just before I woke, that your dad and I were on a boat - not the boat he has but another, something more like a motorized raft that was flat and open at the ends so that water could come over and on board. He was driving and we were in open water. I'm not sure who all was on board, maybe everyone, but he was at the wheel and all was so well, even with the water coming on, that I was asleep.

When I woke (on the boat, still in the dream) some of our things - sunglasses, water bottles, my hat, were sliding off the edge. I tried to grab them before they fell out and I caught most of it except my hat which went rushing away behind us.

But your dad told me not to worry, he knew exactly where it was and we would pick it up on our way back. That he knew it would still be there. And we continued on in open water toward the horizon. He knew where we were going and how to return. The sun was setting, so he wanted to reach this spot before we turned around.

I texted your dad this morning and told him all this and he said he wished he could take us back to that spot, thinking, I think, that where the hat was was where you were. But I told him he knew the way. And that I thought he was so determined to carry on because he was going to pick up passengers - you and your brother Jesse on the way.