I’ve so many memories of being with you in the beautiful house in Davis, little sweetheart, and the haven, the heaven, the sweet little retreat it was for the two of us to kind of get away from everything for a few days every now and then.
I won’t unpack every single one of them here just now but am thinking today of how lovely it was in the days after Christmas when, before we headed back to San Francisco, we first stopped off in Davis for a bit.
As ever, we started off by swinging by the Nugget Market for a few provisions, including all the ingredients I needed to make yet another batch of Christmas cookies. I had my mom’s vintage cookie cutters with me - stainless steel ones from the ’60’s in the shapes of a bell, a star, a snowman, an angel and a Christmas tree - but you encouraged me to use some cutters of your own and you retrieved them from the pantry to show me. I quibbled because they were decidedly non-Christmas shapes but you wanted to “shake things up”. Ha! Who could argue?!
I remember, even though California is not nearly as frosty as New York in December, that the house was a a little chilly when we arrived and that, instead of just cranking up the central air to a higher temp and heating the whole house - since we mostly stayed in the living room, your room and the kitchen - that we’d light the little potbelly stove just this side of the garden doors. It had a pilot light that required getting down flat on the title floor to find and engage its button. It was kind of a two person job - one person had to hold the button down from below and the other watch from the top to see that the flame went on. You took the hard part, the floor job, and we got it up and running after a try or two.
I also remember your “floor work” there because you’d recently gotten a new series of ear piercings, and ever vigilant, made sure to soak them in salt water for 2 minutes, three times a day. You’d lay on your side, little sweetheart, dipping your ear in a little teacup and ask me to time you. I have a picture! I’ve gotta find that!
Anyway, here is it, the third day of Christmas and my thoughts, as ever, are of you. Wonderful you. My treasure. With all my love…
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Davis Christmas
Monday, October 31, 2022
Halloween
When I think of holidays, little sweetheart, I invariably, of course, think of you.
Spending Christmas together was one of my favorite memories of all time. Our first Valentines Day together was pretty special, even though we weren’t technically “together” until a few weeks later - you sat next me at dinner when Edna took everyone out after Tir na nOg to a restaurant that had no power and was lit only by candlelight. In Irish tradition, everyone around the table was asked to tell a story or sing a song and I sang Roberta Flack’s “Let Them Talk” with such emotion, the proceedings fell entirely silent. But you squeezed my hand and told me that you wanted me to sing it again later, to and just for you.
Our second Valentines Day was that amazing trip your dad took everyone on to Lake Tahoe - our "trip to the snow" we came to call it. And we sure had a crazy and eventful 4th of July about a year later when your dad took us all up to stay on the Oregon Coast! Your brother Ryan shot off some fireworks from the porch that went off target and started a small brush fire at the edge of the property.
Our gatherings never lacked for drama, little sweetheart, and as you told me that first week we were together as we raced toward some last minute appointment you were a little late and a lot panicked about, “it’s always like this.”
All this to say, of course I think of you on every holiday but if someone were to ask me what your favorite was, although I’d be inclined to say Christmas, I think Halloween might give it a run for its money. You loved Halloween and it really revived my own affection for the day. I wrote about this in our book, little sweetheart, so it’s sort of on my mind.
I had gone down to LA for a double-workshop reading of my plays 7PGS and Real Real Gone, you were getting ready for the transfer of the production of Rock n Roll from ACT in San Francisco to The Huntington Theatre in Boston. You flew out just a day or two before I - me back to New York and you to Boston, were I would join you the following week in advance of your birthday. I was staying with my friends from the theatre company in LA and since they lived in Van Nuys, the Burbank airport was closer, so I arrived and departed from there instead of LAX. It was a much smaller and friendlier airport and it was nice way to end the trip, which had been successful and fun.
I’d forgotten until I got there that it was Halloween and when I got to my gate, all the Jet Blue crew and staff were in costumes. It was a really festive and cheerful atmosphere and it made me think of you instantly - how much you would love it. As I thought about that, it dawned on me that I hadn’t celebrated Halloween in years, had even come to find it a little annoying, people out on the street shouting, spilling out of bars in the wee hours. I was a curmudgeon before my time. When had I lost the joy, the childhood delight of Halloween?
Like some many things, little sweetheart, you brought the holiday back, you gave it to me again. As ever, you brought the light back into my life.
With all my love, always… Your Michael
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Nearest & Dearest
As ever, I talk or text with both your mom and dad most days, little sweetheart.
Through all this pandemic madness, it's been really hard because I haven't actually been able to visit them since January, when we all had a late post-Christmas Christmas together.
There's been even more difficulties with the wildfires that have been raging across the state, rendering the air unsafe, and I've been really worried about them both but they're doing okay and we spoke again last night.
You were so proud of your beautiful parents, little sweetheart (and they of you, of course!) and they are the very dearest people in the world to me.
You and they are always in my prayers. With all my love forever.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
July in Remembrance
July is drawing toward a close, soon, little sweetheart, and just as I said I thought it might, it is bringing to me memories of being with you that last July we had together.
Your folks had rented a house on the Oregon Coast for the July 4th weekend and invited the extended family along. Your brother nearly burnt the place down when the fireworks he was shooting off on the beach caught some brush alight. But even that was fun in the end, the crisis averted.
I have some breathtaking pictures of you from that time, my iPhone still quite a new thing, and a video of you magically appearing from the doorway of your room onto the balcony. We drove dune buggies (or rather you drove, I rode) along the shore, specifically where the rental guys told us not to go.
Staying on in California some additional weeks, we shot that short film based on my play Two From the Line, expanded with a role I wrote especially for you. And we spent several days together at the beautiful house in Davis.
My mom had unexpectedly passed away less than two months earlier. You’d gotten my home from London, then flew to be at my side. I knew that week and told you that whatever happened in my life now, I needed to be nearer to you.
We were figuring it out. They were the best days of my life.
I think somehow they still are there and that when I know that all you know now, I will find that - that we can live in all moments of our life simultaneously, ad infinitum, however we choose, because time is not what we think it is.
We, you, are forever. With all my love.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Finding Goodness
Little sweetheart, a couple of awful events have transpired over the last couple of days here across the country, which was already in the midst of a global pandemic. The murder of a black man by police officers in Minnesota, the most shocking of them, protestors, including myself, have taken to the streets, as I know you yourself would be moved to do.
And it’s made me remember, as ever, your beautiful, thoughtful, parents, who - half our age at the time, your mother not even yet 20 - took the streets themselves after hearing of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The news reaching them on campus at UCLA, your mom and dad immediately decided to hitchhike to Memphis, where Dr King had been murdered, and then on to Atlanta where his funeral was held. I think they twenty bucks between them, but they just set off east because they were compelled to do so.
Whenever I think of you, little sweetheart, the first thing that always comes to mind is your enduring goodness. And when I think of your lovely parents, I understand in part, how they helped instill and foster that very goodness in you.
I love you so very much and you, as ever, in my every thought.
And it’s made me remember, as ever, your beautiful, thoughtful, parents, who - half our age at the time, your mother not even yet 20 - took the streets themselves after hearing of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The news reaching them on campus at UCLA, your mom and dad immediately decided to hitchhike to Memphis, where Dr King had been murdered, and then on to Atlanta where his funeral was held. I think they twenty bucks between them, but they just set off east because they were compelled to do so.
Whenever I think of you, little sweetheart, the first thing that always comes to mind is your enduring goodness. And when I think of your lovely parents, I understand in part, how they helped instill and foster that very goodness in you.
I love you so very much and you, as ever, in my every thought.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Keeping Watch
The other night, little sweetheart, I had the urge to watch the first couple of episodes of "The Newsroom", again. It holds a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons, both to do, of course, with you.
It was you have first lent me your family’s box set DVD’s of "The West Wing". I hadn’t watched it when it was on TV. I’m not sure you had, either. I think you and your mom watched it a lot when you came home to Davis before and after your surgeries, and it was from Davis that you grabbed the set - it was the first four seasons - and gave it to me to watch. You were so proud to have been the one to turn me on to it.
Later, after your tragic passing “The Newsroom” began to air and the night of its premiere, I was a with your mom and dad in Yuba City where we watched it together. We did that many times as the original series aired and many more after when we just felt like seeing it yet again.
There is something about that that is so special because it seemed as if we were actively conjuring you to be at our sides and watch it with us. And I think you were and are, as you help guide us all through these days until we can all be together with you again in the Forever, for ever. I cried and cried tonight, little sweetheart, just thinking of it.
Be close beside me tonight, won’t you, my little sweetheart? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow.
With all my love forever.
It was you have first lent me your family’s box set DVD’s of "The West Wing". I hadn’t watched it when it was on TV. I’m not sure you had, either. I think you and your mom watched it a lot when you came home to Davis before and after your surgeries, and it was from Davis that you grabbed the set - it was the first four seasons - and gave it to me to watch. You were so proud to have been the one to turn me on to it.
Later, after your tragic passing “The Newsroom” began to air and the night of its premiere, I was a with your mom and dad in Yuba City where we watched it together. We did that many times as the original series aired and many more after when we just felt like seeing it yet again.
There is something about that that is so special because it seemed as if we were actively conjuring you to be at our sides and watch it with us. And I think you were and are, as you help guide us all through these days until we can all be together with you again in the Forever, for ever. I cried and cried tonight, little sweetheart, just thinking of it.
Be close beside me tonight, won’t you, my little sweetheart? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow.
With all my love forever.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
The New Month
Little sweetheart, it’s April and a flood of memories commit the turning of the month, each year.
I remember, for instance, that it was April 1st when I flew back out for the second long stay in SF that year we tried giving the city a shot together. I’d come out for two late January til mid March, gone back to sort out my sublet in NYC then back to SF, still looking for a place. The second leg was harder than the first and then I got a series of gigs back to New York, which eventually led to you thinking maybe you’d rather we were both here, instead of there. I just wanted to be with you whenever we found ourselves.
April reminds me, too, of our first days together, really begun that first year in February but growing so strong by April and your first visit here in May. I only really got to have my birthday with you one year, the second one, when you took me to see DCfC in Sacramento and made me spectacular birthday cupcakes as we decamped to the house in Davis alone for the week - possibly the happiest one of my life.
April reminds me too of the saddest, hardest days of all. Returning to New York for the three weeks between your funeral and my speaking at your memorial, held, incredibly on my birthday.
We’re twinned, my gorgeous girl, my beautiful spirit, my little sweetheart, forever. Two halves of the soul.
I remember, for instance, that it was April 1st when I flew back out for the second long stay in SF that year we tried giving the city a shot together. I’d come out for two late January til mid March, gone back to sort out my sublet in NYC then back to SF, still looking for a place. The second leg was harder than the first and then I got a series of gigs back to New York, which eventually led to you thinking maybe you’d rather we were both here, instead of there. I just wanted to be with you whenever we found ourselves.
April reminds me, too, of our first days together, really begun that first year in February but growing so strong by April and your first visit here in May. I only really got to have my birthday with you one year, the second one, when you took me to see DCfC in Sacramento and made me spectacular birthday cupcakes as we decamped to the house in Davis alone for the week - possibly the happiest one of my life.
April reminds me too of the saddest, hardest days of all. Returning to New York for the three weeks between your funeral and my speaking at your memorial, held, incredibly on my birthday.
We’re twinned, my gorgeous girl, my beautiful spirit, my little sweetheart, forever. Two halves of the soul.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Shelter
Little sweetheart, the strangest thing has happened. A very virulent strain of virus began spreading around the world, first in a tiny province of China and then pretty much everywhere. The US government still hasn’t exactly figured out what to do but some of the more forward thinking governors have taken the initiative to basically shut things down within their own states, cities and towns.
Both our home states of California and New York have done just that. It’s something called Sheltering in Place and we’re not meant to travel or really even venture out much from our homes at all except for groceries or medicine.
I’m talking to your folks everyday and your dad is very much on the frontlines being a doctor and so very essential. Your mom and I are very worried about him but he’s being careful and, as ever, looking after people and saving lives.
I’m doing my best to do what’s recommended and staying inside working on the book and the new album, listening to music and saying quiet prayers for you, as always. I know you’re watching over us and I’ll be listening even more keenly than usual for your celestial counsel. With all my love forever.
Both our home states of California and New York have done just that. It’s something called Sheltering in Place and we’re not meant to travel or really even venture out much from our homes at all except for groceries or medicine.
I’m talking to your folks everyday and your dad is very much on the frontlines being a doctor and so very essential. Your mom and I are very worried about him but he’s being careful and, as ever, looking after people and saving lives.
I’m doing my best to do what’s recommended and staying inside working on the book and the new album, listening to music and saying quiet prayers for you, as always. I know you’re watching over us and I’ll be listening even more keenly than usual for your celestial counsel. With all my love forever.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
The Greatest Gift - You!
It’s unseasonably warm today, little sweetheart, and although I got a late start on the day and then had things to do at home, I wanted to get out before the sun went down and enjoy the fresh air. I took my headphones with me, so I could call Sylvia before it got to be too late in France but they weren’t working. I could barely hear anything. I disconnected them and put the phone to my ear and could instantly hear much better. Something is wrong with the headphones, I thought, and when I got home I checked and confirmed that was the case.
Many Christmases ago, I remember, you gave me a very nice air of earbuds. I had a bottom of the line cellphone - the free one they used to give you just for signing up for service with AT&T - and you thought if we were going to be on the phone so much that I should have them. I thanked you and kissed you and we were sitting at the red table here in the apartment and I tried to connect them but the phone was so crappy they wouldn’t work. You were pretty annoyed by that and I apologized all over the place.
Just a week or so later we were back in California and one day we drove up to see your folks. You told your dad you thought it would be a great Christmas present if he wanted to add me to the Serafin family plan on AT&T and avail ourselves of a new iPhone for our trouble and give it to… me. A testament to the ineffable generosity of both you and your beautiful parents, he didn’t even flinch, just took me in the car with him, drove over to the AT&T store and got me a new phone, an iPhone, my first one. When we got back to the house, you immediately took it out of my hands and typed all your info into my Contacts. The first one. You. Entering yourself not as Summer but as “Cheeky”. Quite right.
Finally, I had a phone to fit the lovely earbuds you’d gotten me. They went with me everywhere, of course, and for years, even the lost, inconsolable ones after your tragic passing. One day I was walking through the park listening to an SF Giants baseball game and I noticed one of the earbuds, the left one, had gone silent. I looked all over the place for someone who could repair them even though everyone said it would be cheaper just to buy a new pair., Finally, I found some guys down in the garment district. Later they also fixed that crappy old bottom of the line phone I’d had so that I could save all the texts you’d sent me before I’d gotten the iPhone. I painstaking took a picture of each text with my iPhone, aiming it at the screen of the old phone until I had all 200 or so of them.
Anyway… the headphones. The were able to fix them but they had to replace the little speakers inside the earbuds themselves and although it worked both left and right again, the sound wasn’t quite the same. It was kind of toppy, more treble than bass. And anyway I didn’t want to wear them out again, so I slipped them back into the lovely little black pouch they’d come in and I had saved all this time and put them on the red table with all your things there, kind of part of the shrine.
Tonight, I took them out for the first time since then and still a bit toppy, I didn’t mind so much. I’m ordering another regular old pair of Apple earbuds but it’s lovely to have these so very special ones in my ears tonight, little sweetheart. It brings you close to me.
May it always be so. With all my love and gratitude forever. Your Michael…
Many Christmases ago, I remember, you gave me a very nice air of earbuds. I had a bottom of the line cellphone - the free one they used to give you just for signing up for service with AT&T - and you thought if we were going to be on the phone so much that I should have them. I thanked you and kissed you and we were sitting at the red table here in the apartment and I tried to connect them but the phone was so crappy they wouldn’t work. You were pretty annoyed by that and I apologized all over the place.
Just a week or so later we were back in California and one day we drove up to see your folks. You told your dad you thought it would be a great Christmas present if he wanted to add me to the Serafin family plan on AT&T and avail ourselves of a new iPhone for our trouble and give it to… me. A testament to the ineffable generosity of both you and your beautiful parents, he didn’t even flinch, just took me in the car with him, drove over to the AT&T store and got me a new phone, an iPhone, my first one. When we got back to the house, you immediately took it out of my hands and typed all your info into my Contacts. The first one. You. Entering yourself not as Summer but as “Cheeky”. Quite right.
Finally, I had a phone to fit the lovely earbuds you’d gotten me. They went with me everywhere, of course, and for years, even the lost, inconsolable ones after your tragic passing. One day I was walking through the park listening to an SF Giants baseball game and I noticed one of the earbuds, the left one, had gone silent. I looked all over the place for someone who could repair them even though everyone said it would be cheaper just to buy a new pair., Finally, I found some guys down in the garment district. Later they also fixed that crappy old bottom of the line phone I’d had so that I could save all the texts you’d sent me before I’d gotten the iPhone. I painstaking took a picture of each text with my iPhone, aiming it at the screen of the old phone until I had all 200 or so of them.
Anyway… the headphones. The were able to fix them but they had to replace the little speakers inside the earbuds themselves and although it worked both left and right again, the sound wasn’t quite the same. It was kind of toppy, more treble than bass. And anyway I didn’t want to wear them out again, so I slipped them back into the lovely little black pouch they’d come in and I had saved all this time and put them on the red table with all your things there, kind of part of the shrine.
Tonight, I took them out for the first time since then and still a bit toppy, I didn’t mind so much. I’m ordering another regular old pair of Apple earbuds but it’s lovely to have these so very special ones in my ears tonight, little sweetheart. It brings you close to me.
May it always be so. With all my love and gratitude forever. Your Michael…
Friday, February 14, 2020
Valentines, Pt 2
Our second Valentines together was the very next year when your Dad very generously invited a large group of extended family and friends to share a big beautiful house in Lake Tahoe for Valentines Weekend - what we came to call the vacation when “we went to the snow”.
Everyone was coming from different places - your parents from Yuba City, your brother and his friends from Portland, Michelle and the kids from Roseville and us from San Francisco - and meeting there.
Everyone else got up there ahead of us because you had a class to teach downtown at ACT’s Young People’s Conservatory that afternoon. We’d been walking along down there on the way to one of your classes earlier that week when I saw something catch your eye in the window at Macy’s. So, I made a note of it and that afternoon - when I was meant to pick you up from class so we could begin the long drive straight from there to Lake Tahoe - I stopped in first and bought it for you. It was a pretty top and bottom set of pink polka dot lingerie set against a black background. You loved it! I gave it to you in the car.
We soon hit a lot of snow driving through the mountains, We were listening to the first Bon Ivor album over and over. We’d just got it the week before and we were singing along to one another. We stopped for gas and when we went in to pay, looked around for a snack or two. I was getting myself a coffee, when I saw a pair of Valentines sunglasses - pink and white with hearts on the frames. I bought them for you and embarrassed you a little when I said to the cashier, breathlessly, “isn’t she (you!) the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen!”
You are and always will be, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full this morning thinking of you.
Everyone was coming from different places - your parents from Yuba City, your brother and his friends from Portland, Michelle and the kids from Roseville and us from San Francisco - and meeting there.
Everyone else got up there ahead of us because you had a class to teach downtown at ACT’s Young People’s Conservatory that afternoon. We’d been walking along down there on the way to one of your classes earlier that week when I saw something catch your eye in the window at Macy’s. So, I made a note of it and that afternoon - when I was meant to pick you up from class so we could begin the long drive straight from there to Lake Tahoe - I stopped in first and bought it for you. It was a pretty top and bottom set of pink polka dot lingerie set against a black background. You loved it! I gave it to you in the car.
We soon hit a lot of snow driving through the mountains, We were listening to the first Bon Ivor album over and over. We’d just got it the week before and we were singing along to one another. We stopped for gas and when we went in to pay, looked around for a snack or two. I was getting myself a coffee, when I saw a pair of Valentines sunglasses - pink and white with hearts on the frames. I bought them for you and embarrassed you a little when I said to the cashier, breathlessly, “isn’t she (you!) the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen!”
You are and always will be, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full this morning thinking of you.
Valentines Morning
It’s early morning on Valentines Day, little sweetheart and your mom texted me to say that the flowers I sent for each of you arrived safely.
You are so very much in my heart, today, as ever. I remember our first two Valentines Days together especially being noteworthy.
The very first was during rehearsals for Tir na nOg. Edna wanted to take us all to dinner but when we got to the restaurant the lights were out and there was no power in the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter). Instead of going somewhere else - and there was absolutely nobody else in the place, they would have closed for the night otherwise - the manager offered to have their sister restaurant cook dinner for us and drive it over in somebody’s car. We each had a choice between Irish Stew or a burger. You got the burger and I got the stew as they went around the table taking everyone’s order and offering free drinks while we waited, the place lit by candles.
We weren’t officially a “thing” yet, little sweetheart. That was still about 4 weeks away but I had such an enormous feeling of affection and protection for you. I think we would have been a “thing” far earlier had I not been so oblivious to the fact that that is exactly what you wanted (as you famously demonstrated one night a month later).
Anyway, you had made a point of sitting next to me and I was glad you had. You told me I could have some of your fries (ha!) and the two of us sat together very close, the only two not drinking, as it happened. To pass the time, Edna suggested that each of us either tell a story or sing a song. When it was my turn, I sang an old Roberta Flack song, a cappella, “Let Them Talk”.
It was an uncannily prescient choice, I couldn’t know how much at the time with its lyric about how…
“They’ll try to break up this romance.
Darling they don’t stand as chance.
We’ve got the kind of love that’s so strong
We’re going to be together from now on.
I don’t care what comes from the devil’s workshop.
True love is going to make it stop.
I want the whole wide world to know that I…
I love you so.
They’re envious of everything that we do.
But its so wonderful
When you love someone.
And that someone …
Loves…
You.!
Needless to say, the whole thing was very emotional. And seemingly out of place. Everyone seemed a bit embarrassed and keen to move on. Except, of course… of course, you, little sweetheart. You squeezed my hand and said, “I want you to sing that to me again, sometime when we’re alone. Just for me.”
You are so very much in my heart, today, as ever. I remember our first two Valentines Days together especially being noteworthy.
The very first was during rehearsals for Tir na nOg. Edna wanted to take us all to dinner but when we got to the restaurant the lights were out and there was no power in the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter). Instead of going somewhere else - and there was absolutely nobody else in the place, they would have closed for the night otherwise - the manager offered to have their sister restaurant cook dinner for us and drive it over in somebody’s car. We each had a choice between Irish Stew or a burger. You got the burger and I got the stew as they went around the table taking everyone’s order and offering free drinks while we waited, the place lit by candles.
We weren’t officially a “thing” yet, little sweetheart. That was still about 4 weeks away but I had such an enormous feeling of affection and protection for you. I think we would have been a “thing” far earlier had I not been so oblivious to the fact that that is exactly what you wanted (as you famously demonstrated one night a month later).
Anyway, you had made a point of sitting next to me and I was glad you had. You told me I could have some of your fries (ha!) and the two of us sat together very close, the only two not drinking, as it happened. To pass the time, Edna suggested that each of us either tell a story or sing a song. When it was my turn, I sang an old Roberta Flack song, a cappella, “Let Them Talk”.
It was an uncannily prescient choice, I couldn’t know how much at the time with its lyric about how…
“They’ll try to break up this romance.
Darling they don’t stand as chance.
We’ve got the kind of love that’s so strong
We’re going to be together from now on.
I don’t care what comes from the devil’s workshop.
True love is going to make it stop.
I want the whole wide world to know that I…
I love you so.
They’re envious of everything that we do.
But its so wonderful
When you love someone.
And that someone …
Loves…
You.!
Needless to say, the whole thing was very emotional. And seemingly out of place. Everyone seemed a bit embarrassed and keen to move on. Except, of course… of course, you, little sweetheart. You squeezed my hand and said, “I want you to sing that to me again, sometime when we’re alone. Just for me.”
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
In (more) Dreams!
Little sweetheart, I've been flat on my back for most of a week and am just now beginning to feel more myself. I think there's something going around. Your mom told me that the day after we left, she came down with something herself. Anyway, I'm feeling much better and even went for a run both yesterday and just now.
It was so wonderful to wake this morning, little sweetheart, because you were in my dreams last night. We were traveling together, you and I, in one car and your folks in another, meeting up with them somewhere along the coast, I think. It seemed to have a kind of commonality with that trip I just took with Sylvia last year along the PCH.
Something about it also reminded me that I have these recurring dreams that I've gone on a trip, sometimes with you, sometimes on my own, and forgotten to return the rental car! Like in the dream I'll be all the way home maybe even months later and suddenly remember that I parked the rental car somewhere and forgot to take it back to its place of origin. Isn't that odd, little sweetheart?
The kind of wonderful thing about this dream last night, little sweetheart, was its sort of complete normality. Nothing was crazy dramatic or out of place about it. Most of the details of it were kind of mundane. An alert came up on the dashboard that one of the tires was low on air and you looked up the nearest place to go on your phone as we drove along. We stopped and took care of it and the people at the service station wanted to know if we'd like to stay there at their adjoining motor lodge for the night but we were heading on to a different place that your dad had already booked, so we thanked them and got back in the car. We somehow got to the place before your folks arrived, even through we'd had to stop to inflate the tires. We parked and then before we even got out the car decided to park somewhere else so that we wouldn't block in your dad's car when they arrived.
It was all so perfectly without drama or conflict - just a nice day in our shared life together and that itself is magic because you are magic yourself. Every moment with you was and is a treasure. I love so very much, little sweetheart and always always will.
Thank you for finding me in dreams. Please remain near me today and take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
It was so wonderful to wake this morning, little sweetheart, because you were in my dreams last night. We were traveling together, you and I, in one car and your folks in another, meeting up with them somewhere along the coast, I think. It seemed to have a kind of commonality with that trip I just took with Sylvia last year along the PCH.
Something about it also reminded me that I have these recurring dreams that I've gone on a trip, sometimes with you, sometimes on my own, and forgotten to return the rental car! Like in the dream I'll be all the way home maybe even months later and suddenly remember that I parked the rental car somewhere and forgot to take it back to its place of origin. Isn't that odd, little sweetheart?
The kind of wonderful thing about this dream last night, little sweetheart, was its sort of complete normality. Nothing was crazy dramatic or out of place about it. Most of the details of it were kind of mundane. An alert came up on the dashboard that one of the tires was low on air and you looked up the nearest place to go on your phone as we drove along. We stopped and took care of it and the people at the service station wanted to know if we'd like to stay there at their adjoining motor lodge for the night but we were heading on to a different place that your dad had already booked, so we thanked them and got back in the car. We somehow got to the place before your folks arrived, even through we'd had to stop to inflate the tires. We parked and then before we even got out the car decided to park somewhere else so that we wouldn't block in your dad's car when they arrived.
It was all so perfectly without drama or conflict - just a nice day in our shared life together and that itself is magic because you are magic yourself. Every moment with you was and is a treasure. I love so very much, little sweetheart and always always will.
Thank you for finding me in dreams. Please remain near me today and take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Westward
Good morning my little sweetheart. Heading Westward to see your folks tonight. The flight is a bit earlier than usual. It’s the one direct flight each day to SMF.
I’m so looking forward to see your folks - Sylvia is, too. And I’ll come up to the Angel in Davis, probably tomorrow, and sit there - where I know you are not tethered but merely alight to comfort and guide me - to talk and listen for you.
I’m such a homebody these days, my little sweetheart. I’m very anxious and resistant to even leaving the house. Maybe I always was a bit. I certainly liked to just stay in with you, didn’t I, always?
There’s something both wonderful and bittersweet about getting on planes, my little sweetheart, and even the subway and AirTrain journey to JFK - it reminds me so of coming to see you and how you would be too excited to sleep the night before and not in the least abashed or cool about telling me so. Waking up before sunrise, I’d already have messages from you excited to meet me in a few hours.
May it be again and ever so. Let me fly to you where you are and be in your arms forever.
With all my love…
I’m so looking forward to see your folks - Sylvia is, too. And I’ll come up to the Angel in Davis, probably tomorrow, and sit there - where I know you are not tethered but merely alight to comfort and guide me - to talk and listen for you.
I’m such a homebody these days, my little sweetheart. I’m very anxious and resistant to even leaving the house. Maybe I always was a bit. I certainly liked to just stay in with you, didn’t I, always?
There’s something both wonderful and bittersweet about getting on planes, my little sweetheart, and even the subway and AirTrain journey to JFK - it reminds me so of coming to see you and how you would be too excited to sleep the night before and not in the least abashed or cool about telling me so. Waking up before sunrise, I’d already have messages from you excited to meet me in a few hours.
May it be again and ever so. Let me fly to you where you are and be in your arms forever.
With all my love…
Friday, October 11, 2019
Your Favorite Holiday/Time of Year
It’s nearly Halloween, little sweetheart - which I think is possibly your favorite holiday maybe even rivaling Christmas, because of its inherent drama and fun and dressing up and things.
Your dad has told me such lovely stories about Halloween parties they had for you kids when you were little out at the beautiful sprawling home in Moss Lane, including one where you and all your little buddies were on a hayride and your dad was dressed up like Frankenstein to come popping out of some bushes when the wagon went by. But it took a wrong turn, wound up back at the house for apple bobbing and further festivities and left your dad lurking confused, waiting for a hayride that never arrived for an hour.
One of the most beautiful things about you, my little sweetheart, is how proud you always were of your parents, how very much you loved and admired and wanted to tell people so. And that you had such a treasured, happy childhood.
I think of that and all the wonderful stories you told me, often. And today, too, when I imagine how lovely it would have been to have had a little brood of our own, showering them with love and taking them trick or treating.
I think in another world and time, the one where you are now, closer than I can imagine that is possible. Everything is possible there. And with faith and listening closely to your celestial instruction, I will find you and all of it there.
With all my love forever.
Your dad has told me such lovely stories about Halloween parties they had for you kids when you were little out at the beautiful sprawling home in Moss Lane, including one where you and all your little buddies were on a hayride and your dad was dressed up like Frankenstein to come popping out of some bushes when the wagon went by. But it took a wrong turn, wound up back at the house for apple bobbing and further festivities and left your dad lurking confused, waiting for a hayride that never arrived for an hour.
One of the most beautiful things about you, my little sweetheart, is how proud you always were of your parents, how very much you loved and admired and wanted to tell people so. And that you had such a treasured, happy childhood.
I think of that and all the wonderful stories you told me, often. And today, too, when I imagine how lovely it would have been to have had a little brood of our own, showering them with love and taking them trick or treating.
I think in another world and time, the one where you are now, closer than I can imagine that is possible. Everything is possible there. And with faith and listening closely to your celestial instruction, I will find you and all of it there.
With all my love forever.
Monday, September 30, 2019
In Dreams Again!
You were in my dreams last night, little sweetheart! Thank goodness! I always feel so much better and feel like I’m doing good things when you appear. Thank you!
The one I most remember is the one this morning just before fully waking. It’s still a bit cloudy but we were with your mom and a couple of friends - I can’t quite remember who, they were two guys I knew from the old days, I think - and we had just arrived. Your mom had expected us to fly but somehow we’d wound up driving all the way to California from New York. We’d started out just to go a little way and then wound up driving the entire distance across the country.
Everything was a completely normal with you and I. Nothing bad had ever happened and it was just routine and altogether lovely. I’d just been for a run, too, I think, because my hair was still all wet and sweaty from my skully. Your mom was talking about a movie they’d seen and that we shouldn’t even bother. We could see it when it came out on Netflix or something.
What struck me most about the dream was just how wonderfully mundane it seemed. Everything was fine. We were together, all of us, and happy. Unworried.
Thank you for coming to me. I’m so grateful and I love you always. Forever.
The one I most remember is the one this morning just before fully waking. It’s still a bit cloudy but we were with your mom and a couple of friends - I can’t quite remember who, they were two guys I knew from the old days, I think - and we had just arrived. Your mom had expected us to fly but somehow we’d wound up driving all the way to California from New York. We’d started out just to go a little way and then wound up driving the entire distance across the country.
Everything was a completely normal with you and I. Nothing bad had ever happened and it was just routine and altogether lovely. I’d just been for a run, too, I think, because my hair was still all wet and sweaty from my skully. Your mom was talking about a movie they’d seen and that we shouldn’t even bother. We could see it when it came out on Netflix or something.
What struck me most about the dream was just how wonderfully mundane it seemed. Everything was fine. We were together, all of us, and happy. Unworried.
Thank you for coming to me. I’m so grateful and I love you always. Forever.
Saturday, September 14, 2019
This Warmer Weather
It’s nearing the end of September, little sweetheart, but we had an unseasonably warm day yesterday and and even hotter one today - it was nearly 90f! I don’t like running on the weekend because the path along the river gets quite crowded but I do tend to go for a long walk instead.
Today I was just going to go up to about West End Collegiate and back, but I decided to stop in at Zabar’s for a little snack and then headed farther up into Riverside Park to have it. I hadn’t been up there in a while and it was prettier than I remembered. I sat on a bench there overlooking the Hudson, the late afternoon turning to early evening and the light brilliant.
It made me think so much of you and the long days of September in San Francisco with you when it’s at its most warm and sunbathed. I thought of the two of us taking one of our epically long walks, maybe one of those in Golden Gate Park around the botanicals or maybe all the way to the windmill.
The changing seasons are always so bittersweet, my little sweetheart, and I ache for you. But every thought and memory lets me know that you remain, that you are near and forever and that I will be with you again and always. With all my love forever.
Today I was just going to go up to about West End Collegiate and back, but I decided to stop in at Zabar’s for a little snack and then headed farther up into Riverside Park to have it. I hadn’t been up there in a while and it was prettier than I remembered. I sat on a bench there overlooking the Hudson, the late afternoon turning to early evening and the light brilliant.
It made me think so much of you and the long days of September in San Francisco with you when it’s at its most warm and sunbathed. I thought of the two of us taking one of our epically long walks, maybe one of those in Golden Gate Park around the botanicals or maybe all the way to the windmill.
The changing seasons are always so bittersweet, my little sweetheart, and I ache for you. But every thought and memory lets me know that you remain, that you are near and forever and that I will be with you again and always. With all my love forever.
Monday, July 29, 2019
NYC to SF - 1914
I was walking home after my run today little sweetheart and I saw something interesting.
There are little video displays on the bus stops in New York, now. The time and temperature and other info is displayed and sometimes little “On This Day in NYC” fun facts will appear. One of them day caught my eye.
It said that today - July 29 - in 1914 marked the first ever transcontinental telephone call and that it was placed in New York and answered in San Francisco.
It made me think immediately of you, of course, and our many many epic hours long call every night when we were apart, me here, you there. Before I had a decent cellphone, I’d lay on the plaid couch with my bottom of the line AT&T Nokia balanced on my left ear talking with you into the night or sitting on the floor of the kitchen under the window on the old landline. Hearing your voice every day made being apart bearable, little sweetheart.
And now, talking to you every day in my prayers and later night conversations before I fall asleep, devout in my faith that we will be together again and forever is the thing that fortifies me. Please by near me today, little sweetheart. Today and every day, until That Day. With all my love forever.
There are little video displays on the bus stops in New York, now. The time and temperature and other info is displayed and sometimes little “On This Day in NYC” fun facts will appear. One of them day caught my eye.
It said that today - July 29 - in 1914 marked the first ever transcontinental telephone call and that it was placed in New York and answered in San Francisco.
It made me think immediately of you, of course, and our many many epic hours long call every night when we were apart, me here, you there. Before I had a decent cellphone, I’d lay on the plaid couch with my bottom of the line AT&T Nokia balanced on my left ear talking with you into the night or sitting on the floor of the kitchen under the window on the old landline. Hearing your voice every day made being apart bearable, little sweetheart.
And now, talking to you every day in my prayers and later night conversations before I fall asleep, devout in my faith that we will be together again and forever is the thing that fortifies me. Please by near me today, little sweetheart. Today and every day, until That Day. With all my love forever.
Monday, July 8, 2019
First Burning Man
In those days that I had to wait so impatiently, ten years ago, for your arrival, little sweetheart, you surprised me by saying that you had decided to go to Burning Man for a day or two. You’d never been before and, frankly, I couldn’t understand exactly why you wanted to now - you hated being in the sun or being too hot and it didn’t seem like something you would enjoy but your friend Danya had been many times and she was going again this year and she convinced you to try it.
You found your way but mostly only coming out at night, staying in your tent and trying to keep cool and sleeping until the sun went down and then galavanting around the desert after dark when it was cooler and the nightlife was in full swing. You loved dancing, even just on your own, and that mostly what you liked at Burning Man, I think.
There were some things you didn’t like about it but mostly you wanted to do it again - with me. You thought of all the ways you could make a second time a bit more comfortable and you said you’d been thinking about how much you wished I was there for all of it with you. I remember how excitedly you told me about it after and even a month or so later when you and I were together in Davis - I can remember exactly where we were getting out of your car and continuing talking down the street to Blockbuster to get a movie - that you wanted to go the next year with me.
I never got to do that with you, little sweetheart. And even though I’m a bit sun averse like you and the desert and club scene didn’t immediately appeal, there’s nothing and nowhere I could be with you that wouldn’t be magic. I think of it still. And I love you forever.
You found your way but mostly only coming out at night, staying in your tent and trying to keep cool and sleeping until the sun went down and then galavanting around the desert after dark when it was cooler and the nightlife was in full swing. You loved dancing, even just on your own, and that mostly what you liked at Burning Man, I think.
There were some things you didn’t like about it but mostly you wanted to do it again - with me. You thought of all the ways you could make a second time a bit more comfortable and you said you’d been thinking about how much you wished I was there for all of it with you. I remember how excitedly you told me about it after and even a month or so later when you and I were together in Davis - I can remember exactly where we were getting out of your car and continuing talking down the street to Blockbuster to get a movie - that you wanted to go the next year with me.
I never got to do that with you, little sweetheart. And even though I’m a bit sun averse like you and the desert and club scene didn’t immediately appeal, there’s nothing and nowhere I could be with you that wouldn’t be magic. I think of it still. And I love you forever.
Monday, July 1, 2019
10 Years
It’s a new month, little sweetheart, it’s July and I’m thinking that ten years ago I had just returned to NYC. I’d been in San Francisco almost all of 2009 at that point, only coming back to New York once for a week at the end of March to deal with a few things. I’d deferred a jury duty notice to July 1 because I’d heard that that was a good time for scheduling your service - no one wants to impanel a jury over the holiday - so I flew back. It also coincided with me getting a call from Wilson to help him out on a play he was directing. Wilson and you & I had been working together on one of my plays and would continue, actually having a reading with you in the main role later that August - but right now he’d lost an actor in his show and wanted me to replace him.
So, I was going foo NYC for jury duty and to stay on for the play. It sort of turned out to be the end of my tenure in SF. I’d come back again and again to be with you and it didn’t seem final at the time but I think going back to NYC and getting this job and then another and then another after that, may have marked the end of my trying so hard to fit in San Francisco’s scene which seemed closed and uninterested after Chris had left the Magic. I didn’t miss that but I missed you terribly. And it hurts my heart even now to think of an email you’d sent me about a friend of yours looking for a housemate, which you’d sent on helpfully but added that you thought that time had passed for me to settle there.
The better news, developing, was that you too had become disenchanted with SF and were thinking more and more about coming here to live. Indeed, in a year’s time we had serious plans for you to move here and your parents were even on board offering their help too. Ten years ago, little sweetheart, ended one chapter of our story but began a second one when you joined me here a few weeks later to see the play and stay on doing a reading of 7PGS at Rip Torn’s house in Chelsea, meeting more people here and beginning work with the band in earnest.
You called me that weekend after I got here to say you were at Outside Lands, a music festival that The National was appearing at and that it seemed ridiculous at I was not at your side. It was for us. For us together. Soon everything would be and I would have you in my arms again. Just as I believe now with faith will happen again and forever because it the way of things. It is the Meant To Be. With all my love forever.
So, I was going foo NYC for jury duty and to stay on for the play. It sort of turned out to be the end of my tenure in SF. I’d come back again and again to be with you and it didn’t seem final at the time but I think going back to NYC and getting this job and then another and then another after that, may have marked the end of my trying so hard to fit in San Francisco’s scene which seemed closed and uninterested after Chris had left the Magic. I didn’t miss that but I missed you terribly. And it hurts my heart even now to think of an email you’d sent me about a friend of yours looking for a housemate, which you’d sent on helpfully but added that you thought that time had passed for me to settle there.
The better news, developing, was that you too had become disenchanted with SF and were thinking more and more about coming here to live. Indeed, in a year’s time we had serious plans for you to move here and your parents were even on board offering their help too. Ten years ago, little sweetheart, ended one chapter of our story but began a second one when you joined me here a few weeks later to see the play and stay on doing a reading of 7PGS at Rip Torn’s house in Chelsea, meeting more people here and beginning work with the band in earnest.
You called me that weekend after I got here to say you were at Outside Lands, a music festival that The National was appearing at and that it seemed ridiculous at I was not at your side. It was for us. For us together. Soon everything would be and I would have you in my arms again. Just as I believe now with faith will happen again and forever because it the way of things. It is the Meant To Be. With all my love forever.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Christmas in June
Little sweetheart, I have so long treasured your last Christmas present to me - the beautiful black leather jacket you gave me that December morning in 2010.
I've worn it almost every day since, even in quite warm weather and, sadly, the jacket had been showing signs of it. There had begun to be quite dramatic damage and tears to the leather particularly under the right arm. I'd been thinking about taking it somewhere but wasn't sure where to go.
When I was last out in NorCal seeing your parents, I told your mom about it and she thought maybe it could be patched, but when I actually showed it to her she thought it was too far gone. I'd very much underestimated its damage when telling her, I guess, because I didn't want it to be so. I stood there in the kitchen and cried and cried. But I didn't completely give up.
I looked up leather restoration places in NYC and found one that had been in business since 1930, and had really good reviews, over on Lexington Avenue. I sent them pictures and they told me to bring it in. Even they were shocked by the damage that looked worse in person than in photos. The woman there cautioned me that it was a very big job and would probably require replacing both arm panels. She asked if I'd ever wear it as a vest. That's how bleak things looked.
She could see how upset I was. I should've taken it off whenever I started sweating, I said. And I should've brought it in at the first sign of damage. But the lady was very kind, "you didn't do anything wrong", she said. "I'm not even sure we have this kind of leather, she added, but I don't know, let me see."
She went into the back and I felt like when you're at the doctor's office and waiting for the test results. She returned with a big piece of fabric. "We do have something!", she said. It was black and soft leather like your jacket. She said it was pigskin. Did I want to leave it and think about it over the weekend? It was 4:30pm and they were closing until Monday. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to call your mom. Finally, a bit lost, I said, okay, I'd leave it and think about it.
When I got home I told your mom. And I decided. There are so many things I can't change, little sweetheart. Things I would do anything to make right. But I can't. They're out of my control. But at least I could do this. I could try.
That was three weeks ago. Yesterday I got an email from them saying the jacket was completed, that it was beautiful and that she thought I would be thrilled. I walked over there this afternoon and it was true. The jacket is saved. It's perfect. No one would ever know there had been the slightest damage. They replaced both arm panels and it's impossible to discern they weren't the original. The lining is the same as it was but also completely mended without a trace of errant stitching. The cuffs have been redone and reinforced. And they treated the leather over all.
It's miraculous. Just like you, my miracle girl. I sent pictures to your mom and she agrees. I'll be more careful with it from now on but it is a treasure forever, as are you. Thank you, my love. Like Christmas in June.
I've worn it almost every day since, even in quite warm weather and, sadly, the jacket had been showing signs of it. There had begun to be quite dramatic damage and tears to the leather particularly under the right arm. I'd been thinking about taking it somewhere but wasn't sure where to go.
When I was last out in NorCal seeing your parents, I told your mom about it and she thought maybe it could be patched, but when I actually showed it to her she thought it was too far gone. I'd very much underestimated its damage when telling her, I guess, because I didn't want it to be so. I stood there in the kitchen and cried and cried. But I didn't completely give up.
I looked up leather restoration places in NYC and found one that had been in business since 1930, and had really good reviews, over on Lexington Avenue. I sent them pictures and they told me to bring it in. Even they were shocked by the damage that looked worse in person than in photos. The woman there cautioned me that it was a very big job and would probably require replacing both arm panels. She asked if I'd ever wear it as a vest. That's how bleak things looked.
She could see how upset I was. I should've taken it off whenever I started sweating, I said. And I should've brought it in at the first sign of damage. But the lady was very kind, "you didn't do anything wrong", she said. "I'm not even sure we have this kind of leather, she added, but I don't know, let me see."
She went into the back and I felt like when you're at the doctor's office and waiting for the test results. She returned with a big piece of fabric. "We do have something!", she said. It was black and soft leather like your jacket. She said it was pigskin. Did I want to leave it and think about it over the weekend? It was 4:30pm and they were closing until Monday. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to call your mom. Finally, a bit lost, I said, okay, I'd leave it and think about it.
When I got home I told your mom. And I decided. There are so many things I can't change, little sweetheart. Things I would do anything to make right. But I can't. They're out of my control. But at least I could do this. I could try.
That was three weeks ago. Yesterday I got an email from them saying the jacket was completed, that it was beautiful and that she thought I would be thrilled. I walked over there this afternoon and it was true. The jacket is saved. It's perfect. No one would ever know there had been the slightest damage. They replaced both arm panels and it's impossible to discern they weren't the original. The lining is the same as it was but also completely mended without a trace of errant stitching. The cuffs have been redone and reinforced. And they treated the leather over all.
It's miraculous. Just like you, my miracle girl. I sent pictures to your mom and she agrees. I'll be more careful with it from now on but it is a treasure forever, as are you. Thank you, my love. Like Christmas in June.
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