Every time I write for you, to you, about you, little sweetheart, I feel better. I often wake so very sad. It often takes hours for me to turn the corner on the day and get things done. But whenever I sit down and talk to you by picking up a pen or banging away at this very keyboard, remembering and calling to you, I feel better.
It's such a simple thing and I can even hear you saying "silly, of course it helps you!". I just need to remember in those darker moments, little sweetheart. To let the storm pass and to find you again. Over and over. Forever. Until That Day.
With all my love.
Showing posts with label brooding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brooding. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Sunday, December 1, 2019
First Snowfall
It's the first day of December, little sweetheart. Also the first day of Advent. And... the first snowfall of the season.
It's coming down very prettily right now. A little too warm to stick - 34f - but looking nice through the window.
It gets dark so early these short days of the year, little sweetheart, and being overcast all morning, the sun has never really come out yet.
I remember so well your coming here in mid-December right after the play closed in Boston and going up on the roof when we saw that it had begun to snow. You'd brought your trusty Nikon along with you and we took several pictures. One of them, with you all bundled up, the snow falling and the skyline behind you, became the back cover of one of the albums.
I'm feeling so sad today, my little sweetheart, but will try to busy myself with all the things I need to do. I know and have faith that you are closer than I can imagine. And my prayers and every thought flies to you!
Please be with me today. The beautiful snow, falling quietly in the darkness of this day, brings such memories - of you. With all my love...
It's coming down very prettily right now. A little too warm to stick - 34f - but looking nice through the window.
It gets dark so early these short days of the year, little sweetheart, and being overcast all morning, the sun has never really come out yet.
I remember so well your coming here in mid-December right after the play closed in Boston and going up on the roof when we saw that it had begun to snow. You'd brought your trusty Nikon along with you and we took several pictures. One of them, with you all bundled up, the snow falling and the skyline behind you, became the back cover of one of the albums.
I'm feeling so sad today, my little sweetheart, but will try to busy myself with all the things I need to do. I know and have faith that you are closer than I can imagine. And my prayers and every thought flies to you!
Please be with me today. The beautiful snow, falling quietly in the darkness of this day, brings such memories - of you. With all my love...
Monday, November 11, 2019
Restless
I’m not sleeping well just now, little sweetheart.
Sometimes the silver lining is that waking so often during the night, I better remember what dreams I’ve just been yanked from, but sadly that is not exactly the case just now. I need to relax. To quiet my mind before going to bed, so I’m going to endeavor to do just that.
But I do know that you’ve been hovering in my dreams, even though I can’t quite put a finger on recalling them with any detail. I know you’re there. And that is the best of good signs.
Please do help me to hang on and know, wont you, little sweetheart? And thank you for coming near to guide me. With all my love forever.
Sometimes the silver lining is that waking so often during the night, I better remember what dreams I’ve just been yanked from, but sadly that is not exactly the case just now. I need to relax. To quiet my mind before going to bed, so I’m going to endeavor to do just that.
But I do know that you’ve been hovering in my dreams, even though I can’t quite put a finger on recalling them with any detail. I know you’re there. And that is the best of good signs.
Please do help me to hang on and know, wont you, little sweetheart? And thank you for coming near to guide me. With all my love forever.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Trials, Memory, Gratitude.
The days are long here at the moment, little sweetheart, and also, somehow, not long enough.
Every morning I wake up and say prayers and before I've even made coffee, begin to feel a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to do. A lot of it has to do with my recovery from being run over by car three months ago, breaking bones, gouging my legs, collapsing days later after a pulmonary embolism, my heart stopping for ten minutes. I haven't really taken in all that I've been through, honestly, so maybe it's not surprising I get this feeling... that's it's all too much, that I don't have much time.
I'm trying, tho', little sweetheart. I'm doing physical therapy three times a week and doing all the exercises they give me like homework on the other days right here, three times a day. I'm working on our book and the next album and another with dear Sylvia, the earthly angel who has done so much to help and comfort me. Even on hard days, I try to get a little something done just to keep the flame going.
It feels like a lot and it sometimes brings me down.
At night, around 8 or 9pm, after dinner and before bed (I go to sleep much earlier these days, little sweetheart, often before midnight, usually a little after 11pm), I watch something - a baseball game or a show - like we used to. Remember? "Watching a story at the end of the day with your partner." That's what you used to say to me. And my heart swelled with pride to be called yours.
Lately, I've been watching The West Wing and it always makes me think of you because it was you who first lent me your own copy of the series on DVD. You told me that it made you so proud to have been able to give that to me, to show me that world yourself, and your mom told me that's exactly what you told her.
There's a lot of noise in the world just now, little sweetheart. And personally things are hard. Thank god for your parents and our dear Sylvia! But sometimes it feels very very hard indeed. These quiet moments before bed somehow help me. I need to know you're near. And when I most do, you still find ways to find me.
Thank you, my little sweetheart. However hard things get, you remind me - I've much to be grateful for. Please don't go too far away. Love you forever.
Every morning I wake up and say prayers and before I've even made coffee, begin to feel a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to do. A lot of it has to do with my recovery from being run over by car three months ago, breaking bones, gouging my legs, collapsing days later after a pulmonary embolism, my heart stopping for ten minutes. I haven't really taken in all that I've been through, honestly, so maybe it's not surprising I get this feeling... that's it's all too much, that I don't have much time.
I'm trying, tho', little sweetheart. I'm doing physical therapy three times a week and doing all the exercises they give me like homework on the other days right here, three times a day. I'm working on our book and the next album and another with dear Sylvia, the earthly angel who has done so much to help and comfort me. Even on hard days, I try to get a little something done just to keep the flame going.
It feels like a lot and it sometimes brings me down.
At night, around 8 or 9pm, after dinner and before bed (I go to sleep much earlier these days, little sweetheart, often before midnight, usually a little after 11pm), I watch something - a baseball game or a show - like we used to. Remember? "Watching a story at the end of the day with your partner." That's what you used to say to me. And my heart swelled with pride to be called yours.
Lately, I've been watching The West Wing and it always makes me think of you because it was you who first lent me your own copy of the series on DVD. You told me that it made you so proud to have been able to give that to me, to show me that world yourself, and your mom told me that's exactly what you told her.
There's a lot of noise in the world just now, little sweetheart. And personally things are hard. Thank god for your parents and our dear Sylvia! But sometimes it feels very very hard indeed. These quiet moments before bed somehow help me. I need to know you're near. And when I most do, you still find ways to find me.
Thank you, my little sweetheart. However hard things get, you remind me - I've much to be grateful for. Please don't go too far away. Love you forever.
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.
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.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
The Soul Mate
Little sweetheart, I saw a wonderful painting this morning by a Czech artist, Max Svabinsky - one of the country's most prominent. It's called "The Soul Mate" and was painted in 1896. He lived until 1963! It reminds me so of how I long for and need you - my own soulmate - and hope to fly to you soon. With all my love forever.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Mixed
Little sweetheart, sometimes I don't tell you about things that upset and worry me. At least not here. Sometimes when I lay in bed talking to you, I will. I actually feel much better when I do or after I do, so maybe it's not altogether a terrible idea to say something here and now.
There was such a mix of good and bad things yesterday, little sweetheart, that I'm confused and, as always, need your help. A wonderful thing happened in the afternoon and a rather disturbing thing last night.
The weather keeps fluctuating wildly from the arctic and miserable to the warm and lovely. Yesterday was the latter. I had a lot of work to do in the morning and early afternoon but I already knew the forecast and that the nice weather was going to turn overnight, so I was determined to get in a run before it got too late. I've been laid up a couple of times for extended periods last month with the flu and then a severe cold, so I haven't been running as much as I'd like. It was a bit overcast but unseasonably warm, so I set out along the river. I like coming across birds during my run. I always think of you when I hear their sweet little songs and usually say "hey, guys" to them as I pass. On my way back along the bit of boardwalk that runs very close to the water's edge and ultimately connects to points of the shared pedestrian and bike path, I came to a clearing. No one was around. No trace of a single person passing by. But in that moment I got the strongest sense of your presence because your scent - that sweet smell of you that is like cotton candy or birthday cake - came flooding forward. I'll sometimes get a whiff of it like this, turning onto an empty aisle in the grocery store or passing a stretch of sidewalk. Sometimes someone may be passing, so it's possible they share a soap or shampoo or fragrance similar, but other times like this, there isn't anyone remotely nearby and all I can think is that somehow you are. You're making your presence known to comfort and encourage and guide me. It fills me with love and gratitude and joy. It made my whole day so much lighter. So much so that I hate to even mention the darker thing that happened later that night.
I love when you come to me in dreams, little sweetheart. I pray for your visits and am so heartened by them. But sometimes disturbing things happen. Often you comfort me or things are simply as they were and I am grateful and relieved and returned to your side where I belong. But other times, you don't seem to know me or remember and it fills me with anxiety and fear.
This was one of those kind of dreams but even worse. You were simply indifferent. I felt crushed and so alone. And I wondered if I was doing something in my waking hours that had upset you, that was wrong, that you were angry with me.
Please help and guide me, my darling girl. Please forgive me when I do wrong and point me back in the right direction. Please don't give up on me. I need you so. Help me and please remember and love me. I need you. I hope you can hear me. I know you can. Just help me to know the right way forward so that I honor and do as you will. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please come again and let me know your mind and wishes. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever... xM
There was such a mix of good and bad things yesterday, little sweetheart, that I'm confused and, as always, need your help. A wonderful thing happened in the afternoon and a rather disturbing thing last night.
The weather keeps fluctuating wildly from the arctic and miserable to the warm and lovely. Yesterday was the latter. I had a lot of work to do in the morning and early afternoon but I already knew the forecast and that the nice weather was going to turn overnight, so I was determined to get in a run before it got too late. I've been laid up a couple of times for extended periods last month with the flu and then a severe cold, so I haven't been running as much as I'd like. It was a bit overcast but unseasonably warm, so I set out along the river. I like coming across birds during my run. I always think of you when I hear their sweet little songs and usually say "hey, guys" to them as I pass. On my way back along the bit of boardwalk that runs very close to the water's edge and ultimately connects to points of the shared pedestrian and bike path, I came to a clearing. No one was around. No trace of a single person passing by. But in that moment I got the strongest sense of your presence because your scent - that sweet smell of you that is like cotton candy or birthday cake - came flooding forward. I'll sometimes get a whiff of it like this, turning onto an empty aisle in the grocery store or passing a stretch of sidewalk. Sometimes someone may be passing, so it's possible they share a soap or shampoo or fragrance similar, but other times like this, there isn't anyone remotely nearby and all I can think is that somehow you are. You're making your presence known to comfort and encourage and guide me. It fills me with love and gratitude and joy. It made my whole day so much lighter. So much so that I hate to even mention the darker thing that happened later that night.
I love when you come to me in dreams, little sweetheart. I pray for your visits and am so heartened by them. But sometimes disturbing things happen. Often you comfort me or things are simply as they were and I am grateful and relieved and returned to your side where I belong. But other times, you don't seem to know me or remember and it fills me with anxiety and fear.
This was one of those kind of dreams but even worse. You were simply indifferent. I felt crushed and so alone. And I wondered if I was doing something in my waking hours that had upset you, that was wrong, that you were angry with me.
Please help and guide me, my darling girl. Please forgive me when I do wrong and point me back in the right direction. Please don't give up on me. I need you so. Help me and please remember and love me. I need you. I hope you can hear me. I know you can. Just help me to know the right way forward so that I honor and do as you will. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please come again and let me know your mind and wishes. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever... xM
Monday, February 26, 2018
Mighty Forces
Little sweetheart, it's been a funny month. I've felt so fragile - ill for parts of it and anxious about things during other days.
These weeks and those few ahead are always so loaded for me because of the bitter anniversaries they bring around the terrible tragedy of your passing. Our last days, which I couldn't possibly have known for being such at the time but feel somehow in retrospect full of ominous signs. I remember even resisting saying "the last day" the very first time I began to utter it, still in the hospital praying for your recovery. And as March approaches I feel all this so keenly yet again.
Help me to keep focused on the things you have planned for me, little sweetheart. Please help me honor and listen for you. Please help me hold your memory and sense your guiding presence because I know you will lead me, as you always have from the moment you found me, the way I'm meant to be going - our way. Together.
Reach for me, my darling girl. I will follow.
With all my love... xM
These weeks and those few ahead are always so loaded for me because of the bitter anniversaries they bring around the terrible tragedy of your passing. Our last days, which I couldn't possibly have known for being such at the time but feel somehow in retrospect full of ominous signs. I remember even resisting saying "the last day" the very first time I began to utter it, still in the hospital praying for your recovery. And as March approaches I feel all this so keenly yet again.
Help me to keep focused on the things you have planned for me, little sweetheart. Please help me honor and listen for you. Please help me hold your memory and sense your guiding presence because I know you will lead me, as you always have from the moment you found me, the way I'm meant to be going - our way. Together.
Reach for me, my darling girl. I will follow.
With all my love... xM
Monday, January 29, 2018
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
The Months Ahead
Little sweetheart, sometimes it doesn’t seem as if there are enough moments in the day and other times it seems that the days just go on and on without consequence. Most of the time it’s hard to leave bed and begin another day, I long for you so. Other days, when I do finally rise, I think of the things I want to do to honor and remember and keep you near.
Those are the better days and I have a little index card over my desk reminding me - do the work. I’ve got plans, as strange as it may seem, even to myself, to say so.
When I think of that word, I invariably think of you. Of our plans. Even, so very presciently, the DCfC tee shirt you gave to me with that very word on it.
In the months ahead, may I have more good days than bad. More good, productive days where I do the work left to me as I wait for the hour I may return to you. More days where I find ways to be kind to others and live according to the great example of your own true heart which lights my way.
Help guide me, my angel. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
Those are the better days and I have a little index card over my desk reminding me - do the work. I’ve got plans, as strange as it may seem, even to myself, to say so.
When I think of that word, I invariably think of you. Of our plans. Even, so very presciently, the DCfC tee shirt you gave to me with that very word on it.
In the months ahead, may I have more good days than bad. More good, productive days where I do the work left to me as I wait for the hour I may return to you. More days where I find ways to be kind to others and live according to the great example of your own true heart which lights my way.
Help guide me, my angel. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
October
It’s a new month, little sweetheart, and always a good time to look forward to making good.
I feel as if I’ve lost a bit of steam and focus in these last weeks. I think was feeling a little overwhelmed and it made me step away from my resolve. Please help me to hang in there and just take one day at a time, my angel. I know if I just keep building every day, even a little, I’ll be moving in the right direction and cumulatively. I know there’s something true sometimes in stepping away from a large endeavor - it has to come forward in its own time and we need to breathe and have patience. But tarrying too long we can become disconnected, lose the thread.
Please help me to know the difference, my darling. And to not be afraid. Help me to be as courageous as you always are, Great Soul. May I listen for and heed you in all things. With all my love forever.
I feel as if I’ve lost a bit of steam and focus in these last weeks. I think was feeling a little overwhelmed and it made me step away from my resolve. Please help me to hang in there and just take one day at a time, my angel. I know if I just keep building every day, even a little, I’ll be moving in the right direction and cumulatively. I know there’s something true sometimes in stepping away from a large endeavor - it has to come forward in its own time and we need to breathe and have patience. But tarrying too long we can become disconnected, lose the thread.
Please help me to know the difference, my darling. And to not be afraid. Help me to be as courageous as you always are, Great Soul. May I listen for and heed you in all things. With all my love forever.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Inside The Sadness
Little sweetheart, I’m trying to push through something and I think I’m hitting upon an idea - one I’ve known in my heart but I need to fully integrate.
It’s that it’s okay, more than okay, to be sad. How could I not be? But that further still, if I can go deeper, sitting in that sadness and taking it all onboard, drilling down and living it in without fear, that I will find something there, find you. Find my way to you and where you are.
The words that came to me and that I spoke aloud just now were this: “inside the sadness is a secret”.
Help me have strength and faith, little sweetheart, to hold my sadness without distraction and get to the place you’ve prepared for me. With faith and love I know you will find me, we will find each other. Help me be as courageous as you, my love. Help me find you. With all my love forever.
It’s that it’s okay, more than okay, to be sad. How could I not be? But that further still, if I can go deeper, sitting in that sadness and taking it all onboard, drilling down and living it in without fear, that I will find something there, find you. Find my way to you and where you are.
The words that came to me and that I spoke aloud just now were this: “inside the sadness is a secret”.
Help me have strength and faith, little sweetheart, to hold my sadness without distraction and get to the place you’ve prepared for me. With faith and love I know you will find me, we will find each other. Help me be as courageous as you, my love. Help me find you. With all my love forever.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Great Soul
Little sweetheart, I’m having difficulties. But you are the blessing of my life, even in my distraction and despair.
On Sunday, as I told you, I went up to that little church at West End and W77th St. The sermon was very interesting because one of the things he talked about was the scholarly origin of the Seven Deadly Sins. That it wasn’t set out as a fire and brimstone tract to excoriate us, even though it became appropriated and synonymous with that. It was really an attempt to identify what gets in our way habitually and how to free ourselves of what’s preventing us from being whole. He cited the word “pusillanimous”. A rather rare word to most people although as a couple of old theatre types like yourself and I, I think we’d recall its centrality to a speech in John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”.
What I didn’t know and what Osborne fails to share is that the Latin origin of the word is really something quite different from the modern, albeit rare, usage. It literally means “smallness of spirit”. The diminishing of our soul. And when we let things habitually sap this spirit that is not only inside but is the very essence of who and what we are - our very soul - we shrink and become lesser, less than what and who we truly are.
Little sweetheart, that happens to me. I get wrapped up in bad things, soul diminishing habits that keep me from hearing and heeding and following you and it makes me ache with longing and regret. Over and over I seem to keep banging up against the same pusillanimous walls. At least I ultimately recognize them and straighten myself out, get back on track, but how I wish I would just break the spell.
The thing I want to say that fills me with both regret and ultimately gratitude, is that you keep coming to me even as I fail. Last night you came to me in a dream that I can’t, sadly, so very sadly, recall nearly as well as I would like and need to. But the thing I do remember was that you were frustrated with me because you were trying to tell me something but I was distracted. Like checking emails or looking to see if I had a message or something. That fills me with regret. It’s enough to make me despair at my stupidity - that you would come to me in dreams but I would be too distracted (With what?! What could be more important than you?!) to heed or give you full attention.
But the hopeful part is that you were there. You did come for me. And though the day which also was filled with stupid distraction and no one’s fault but my own, that you kept on finding me. You were there at eleven eleven. And in birdsong and butterflies on my run. And my eye fell upon your picture at a crucial time and your words at another.
You don’t give up on me even when I’m not at my best. The very way you’d never give up on me in life. Indeed, in the moments I most needed you - even the ones against my stupid will - you never walked away or ever threatened to. You made your presence even more and greater known.
You are the exact opposite of pusillanimous because you are the greatest, fiercest, stoutest, most courageous spirit of all. You are The Great Soul.
Little sweetheart, I am so so sorry for all my mistakes. And eternally (literally) grateful for you and your resolutely never giving up on me. Thank you, my love. My I heed and follow and be worthy of you. This is my prayer. And I love you forever.
On Sunday, as I told you, I went up to that little church at West End and W77th St. The sermon was very interesting because one of the things he talked about was the scholarly origin of the Seven Deadly Sins. That it wasn’t set out as a fire and brimstone tract to excoriate us, even though it became appropriated and synonymous with that. It was really an attempt to identify what gets in our way habitually and how to free ourselves of what’s preventing us from being whole. He cited the word “pusillanimous”. A rather rare word to most people although as a couple of old theatre types like yourself and I, I think we’d recall its centrality to a speech in John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”.
What I didn’t know and what Osborne fails to share is that the Latin origin of the word is really something quite different from the modern, albeit rare, usage. It literally means “smallness of spirit”. The diminishing of our soul. And when we let things habitually sap this spirit that is not only inside but is the very essence of who and what we are - our very soul - we shrink and become lesser, less than what and who we truly are.
Little sweetheart, that happens to me. I get wrapped up in bad things, soul diminishing habits that keep me from hearing and heeding and following you and it makes me ache with longing and regret. Over and over I seem to keep banging up against the same pusillanimous walls. At least I ultimately recognize them and straighten myself out, get back on track, but how I wish I would just break the spell.
The thing I want to say that fills me with both regret and ultimately gratitude, is that you keep coming to me even as I fail. Last night you came to me in a dream that I can’t, sadly, so very sadly, recall nearly as well as I would like and need to. But the thing I do remember was that you were frustrated with me because you were trying to tell me something but I was distracted. Like checking emails or looking to see if I had a message or something. That fills me with regret. It’s enough to make me despair at my stupidity - that you would come to me in dreams but I would be too distracted (With what?! What could be more important than you?!) to heed or give you full attention.
But the hopeful part is that you were there. You did come for me. And though the day which also was filled with stupid distraction and no one’s fault but my own, that you kept on finding me. You were there at eleven eleven. And in birdsong and butterflies on my run. And my eye fell upon your picture at a crucial time and your words at another.
You don’t give up on me even when I’m not at my best. The very way you’d never give up on me in life. Indeed, in the moments I most needed you - even the ones against my stupid will - you never walked away or ever threatened to. You made your presence even more and greater known.
You are the exact opposite of pusillanimous because you are the greatest, fiercest, stoutest, most courageous spirit of all. You are The Great Soul.
Little sweetheart, I am so so sorry for all my mistakes. And eternally (literally) grateful for you and your resolutely never giving up on me. Thank you, my love. My I heed and follow and be worthy of you. This is my prayer. And I love you forever.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Everything Hurts
Little sweetheart, I sometimes wonder if mornings will ever ache less than they do and have every single morning since your tragic passing. I open my eyes and simply despair each day. I try to quiet myself and say our prayer and then turn to your side of the bed and quietly talk to you, softly touching your things there. Telling you how much I love you and asking you to be with me and take me to you as soon as heaven will allow.
Every morning I say these words to you, that I don't like it here without you and only want to be with you. This morning, even before those words, I found myself saying this: "nothing works and everything hurts".
So very often, little sweetheart, I simply don't know what to do. But I say our prayer and kiss your pictures good morning and make coffee and try to go about the day - writing for you, writing about you, writing to you. Working on the new album. This morning I also wrote a letter to your mom. I bought her a book I know she wants. I got it yesterday at The Strand and I'm sending it all off to her this afternoon.
I'll do my work and little errands and go for a run and make myself dinner and fall away to sleep again tonight. I just wish you would come for me in my sleep and take me to you. I don't like it here without you. I don't like it here at all. I miss and need and long for you. Please, please come soon.
With all my love forever.
Every morning I say these words to you, that I don't like it here without you and only want to be with you. This morning, even before those words, I found myself saying this: "nothing works and everything hurts".
So very often, little sweetheart, I simply don't know what to do. But I say our prayer and kiss your pictures good morning and make coffee and try to go about the day - writing for you, writing about you, writing to you. Working on the new album. This morning I also wrote a letter to your mom. I bought her a book I know she wants. I got it yesterday at The Strand and I'm sending it all off to her this afternoon.
I'll do my work and little errands and go for a run and make myself dinner and fall away to sleep again tonight. I just wish you would come for me in my sleep and take me to you. I don't like it here without you. I don't like it here at all. I miss and need and long for you. Please, please come soon.
With all my love forever.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Lost
Little sweetheart, I’m running aground again. So badly. So badly, I couldn’t even speak of it until now when I think, I hope, I’m finally turning a corner.
Sometimes, my darling, I’m just plunged into despair. Even, maybe especially, in moments when just before I seemed to have gotten myself together. I’m not drinking or about to hurt myself but I just lapse into other, slightly less mortal but altogether unhappy habits, simply out of loneliness and emptiness and a feeling there’s no where it turn.
And I know that’s not true! In my better moments, I do know exactly where to turn - to you. To simply quiet myself and listen. You’ll find me there, won’t you?
Please help me to remember that, little sweetheart. Please help me to go on past the darkest moments when I’m so overwhelmed by my grief and solitude and hopelessness and to know it’s okay to feel this awful because it is awful. But it’s not the end. You stand at the other side of this divide and will catch me when I fall. I just need to push through, have faith.
It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. How could it not be?! But your shining soul, your infinite goodness remains. Please help me remember that, little sweetheart. Even if I need to crumple in a heap to the floor and lay there weeping, help me to pass through, feeling all of it, to the other side and find you. You are my light. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please help me to do better. For you. For us both. With all my love forever. Unto The Forever…
Sometimes, my darling, I’m just plunged into despair. Even, maybe especially, in moments when just before I seemed to have gotten myself together. I’m not drinking or about to hurt myself but I just lapse into other, slightly less mortal but altogether unhappy habits, simply out of loneliness and emptiness and a feeling there’s no where it turn.
And I know that’s not true! In my better moments, I do know exactly where to turn - to you. To simply quiet myself and listen. You’ll find me there, won’t you?
Please help me to remember that, little sweetheart. Please help me to go on past the darkest moments when I’m so overwhelmed by my grief and solitude and hopelessness and to know it’s okay to feel this awful because it is awful. But it’s not the end. You stand at the other side of this divide and will catch me when I fall. I just need to push through, have faith.
It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. How could it not be?! But your shining soul, your infinite goodness remains. Please help me remember that, little sweetheart. Even if I need to crumple in a heap to the floor and lay there weeping, help me to pass through, feeling all of it, to the other side and find you. You are my light. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please help me to do better. For you. For us both. With all my love forever. Unto The Forever…
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Ominous
Little sweetheart, I just came back from a run and I have the strangest feeling of foreboding. There’s something very strange in the air. A dark energy that is ominous and even feels a little sinister. Like violence is imminent or something horrible. You’ve taught me to pay attention to these signs and so I am, my love. I hope everything will be alright. Saying quiet prayers and calling on you. With all my love forever.
Monday, May 15, 2017
Help Me To Do Better
Little sweetheart, I’m feeling odd and disconnected from you. And that’s when I know things are going wrong. It not only makes me sad, it worries me. It makes me believe that I’m losing my way. Please help me return to your guidance and care. You know me better than anyone and want the best for me always. I feel safe and loved in your presence. Even when we were apart, just waking and knowing I might already have an overnight text from you or would hear from you in an hour, gave me the greatest sense of well-being, of belonging, I have ever known in my life. Now that I must wait to cross the divide between life and The Forever, it’s so much harder, but when I have a sense of your celestial presence - and I know you try to best to assure and come to me - it’s such a great relief. Please help me, my darling, to do better, won’t you? I need you. And I love you with all my heart and soul forever.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Loneliness
I write lots of little things down, sweetheart, as I think of them. Usually it’s some idea or a question and because I’m on my way out the door or in the middle of something without the time to sit at the keyboard here or open my notebook, I’ll grab whatever is nearby - maybe the back of an envelope or something - and write down the germ of the idea or a question for discussion or something that alludes to the thought that I want to write about in greater length later.
I’ve got quite a few of them going at any given time but the one I’m looking at right now written on the back of a piece of unopened mail is about loneliness. It reads as follows: “Loneliness is not doing laundry. Not washing your hair. Rarely going out.”
In just those three short sentences, little sweetheart, I can remember exactly what I was thinking and how terribly I was missing you in the moment I put pen to paper. And to be honest, those thoughts are rarely far from me. There’s often an underlying bit of unspoken thought narrating my everyday life and it is largely this: what does it matter?
Much of the time I can’t find a reason to do anything. In the moments when I am most activated it’s almost always because of you - something I want to tell you, or something I want to write about you, or something I want to share with someone else that is entirely about you - some precious memory or special story that conveys what a treasure you are and how unlike anyone I’ve ever know. Something to cherish.
I’ve said many times that you are my reason. When Danya told me long ago now, shortly after your tragic passing - and how tragic it is now too to realize that that itself is “long ago” - when she told me that I mustn’t harm myself, mustn’t take my own life or I “would never find you” - I took those words to heart. They cut deep into my being. Even after I asked her, so very moved and curious, what spiritual beliefs led her to know that and she had none to back it up, it didn’t matter.
Sometimes a great truth can be spoken by someone with their knowing its root, its source, the divine truth within which it is so manifestly grounded, like an anchor deep into the earth’s core set there by God himself. Faith need not come from a believer, from one awoken. It only need be received. And held. And treasured. As I treasure you. I know I mustn’t harm myself but must instead wait for you to call and take me when it is my time. I cannot know when. Like a million things out of the grasp of my mortal mind, I cannot know that. I can only have faith.
And in my best moments I do. In my best moments my faith is firm and I am calm. But many more moments are filled with such terrible longing for you, my little sweetheart. And unmoored from the life-staining nourishment and the very gravity of your love, like ballast, that keeps me from simply blowing away, scattered into bits with the merest breeze, I cannot find my way. Cannot find my reason. Cannot go on to even try.
I heard something the other day, my love, or read it, I can’t remember which, it might’ve been Laurie Anderson quoting someone in “Heart of a Dog” that we must try to be able to “feel sad without being sad.” That’s a lot to unpack right there, let alone take up. But maybe there’s something to it.
I’ve got another one of these little notes that I mean to write upon and it relates to this. That note reads: “On Accepting Your Fate”. That’s a much bigger conversation and a separate one but it does have a relationship here to this theme of being so desperately lonely and not knowing what to do. I think it’s this: I’m going to be lonely. Of course I am. Remember how I told you what my friend Gina said when I read her what I wrote for your memorial. How she said “what a loss!”? Of course I’m going to be lonely. I don’t have you at my side. Even worse I’m not at your side. That may sound much like the same thing, identical, but the second thought has more power for me.
Of course I’m going to be lonely. But maybe knowing that, knowing that whatever is left of my life is going to be lonely one, a much reduced and smaller one, and that I just must go on until it is my time, maybe knowing that will help. Of course I’m going to be lonely. I need to get used to it. Not long so hard for what cannot be just now. Just for now.
Later, because I have faith and I know, we’ll be made whole, made one again, won’t we, my darling? I just need to hold on. And you… you’re still and always my reason. With all my love forever…
I’ve got quite a few of them going at any given time but the one I’m looking at right now written on the back of a piece of unopened mail is about loneliness. It reads as follows: “Loneliness is not doing laundry. Not washing your hair. Rarely going out.”
In just those three short sentences, little sweetheart, I can remember exactly what I was thinking and how terribly I was missing you in the moment I put pen to paper. And to be honest, those thoughts are rarely far from me. There’s often an underlying bit of unspoken thought narrating my everyday life and it is largely this: what does it matter?
Much of the time I can’t find a reason to do anything. In the moments when I am most activated it’s almost always because of you - something I want to tell you, or something I want to write about you, or something I want to share with someone else that is entirely about you - some precious memory or special story that conveys what a treasure you are and how unlike anyone I’ve ever know. Something to cherish.
I’ve said many times that you are my reason. When Danya told me long ago now, shortly after your tragic passing - and how tragic it is now too to realize that that itself is “long ago” - when she told me that I mustn’t harm myself, mustn’t take my own life or I “would never find you” - I took those words to heart. They cut deep into my being. Even after I asked her, so very moved and curious, what spiritual beliefs led her to know that and she had none to back it up, it didn’t matter.
Sometimes a great truth can be spoken by someone with their knowing its root, its source, the divine truth within which it is so manifestly grounded, like an anchor deep into the earth’s core set there by God himself. Faith need not come from a believer, from one awoken. It only need be received. And held. And treasured. As I treasure you. I know I mustn’t harm myself but must instead wait for you to call and take me when it is my time. I cannot know when. Like a million things out of the grasp of my mortal mind, I cannot know that. I can only have faith.
And in my best moments I do. In my best moments my faith is firm and I am calm. But many more moments are filled with such terrible longing for you, my little sweetheart. And unmoored from the life-staining nourishment and the very gravity of your love, like ballast, that keeps me from simply blowing away, scattered into bits with the merest breeze, I cannot find my way. Cannot find my reason. Cannot go on to even try.
I heard something the other day, my love, or read it, I can’t remember which, it might’ve been Laurie Anderson quoting someone in “Heart of a Dog” that we must try to be able to “feel sad without being sad.” That’s a lot to unpack right there, let alone take up. But maybe there’s something to it.
I’ve got another one of these little notes that I mean to write upon and it relates to this. That note reads: “On Accepting Your Fate”. That’s a much bigger conversation and a separate one but it does have a relationship here to this theme of being so desperately lonely and not knowing what to do. I think it’s this: I’m going to be lonely. Of course I am. Remember how I told you what my friend Gina said when I read her what I wrote for your memorial. How she said “what a loss!”? Of course I’m going to be lonely. I don’t have you at my side. Even worse I’m not at your side. That may sound much like the same thing, identical, but the second thought has more power for me.
Of course I’m going to be lonely. But maybe knowing that, knowing that whatever is left of my life is going to be lonely one, a much reduced and smaller one, and that I just must go on until it is my time, maybe knowing that will help. Of course I’m going to be lonely. I need to get used to it. Not long so hard for what cannot be just now. Just for now.
Later, because I have faith and I know, we’ll be made whole, made one again, won’t we, my darling? I just need to hold on. And you… you’re still and always my reason. With all my love forever…
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Candles and Prayers
Little sweetheart, today is Ash Wednesday.
I went to services up at that little church I told you about. It's the usual Wednesday night for the candlelight meditation, so it was part that/part Ash Wednesday-ish. When they put the little cross on your forehead, they call that "the imposition of ashes." They did that and I said my prayer for you, for us, and I sang and I was filled with thoughts of you.
Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Lent, little sweetheart, when people "give up" things. Another part of the service was an opportunity to write something down, maybe something that you wanted to unburden yourself of, and then burn it in a little bowl. I wrote down something that weighs very heavy with me, little sweetheart - all my mistakes.
I'm so very sorry, my darling, for every mistake, any time I may have hurt your tender feelings, any cross word that I may ever have uttered. I know that we are both terribly emotional and passionate - that's one of the wonderful things about our finding each other, we could never scare the other away, only match one another and cling together even stronger. And I know both that little arguments or rough patches are just a part of relationships in general and that any of ours always came with and from the underlining great need that we just wanted to be together even more. Any little flare up only ever had at its root a plea from you to me or from me to you just to hold each other a little tighter and never ever let go. I know it's mutual. But I still just ache and want to kill myself for every and any mistake or ever hurting your feelings, even if we made everything okay moments later and I cried and you forgave me and understood. It still haunts me.
So, I wrote that down, little sweetheart. I wrote down how sorry I am for all my mistakes, little sweetheart. And I folded it up and burned the piece of paper in the little bowl there and then I prayed.
Before I left, I talked to that nice lady minister, Jes, I've told you about. And we prayer together for you, too. And then I asked her if she believed that you and I would be together again. I cried and cried as I said the words. And she yes. She said we believe that and she said that she believes that and she will believe that for us and that I can believe too.
And I do, little sweetheart. I believe and pray for that. And when I came home, I made sure your candle was burning and then I took a little picture with my head titled close to yours.
I love and miss you, my love. My True Love, my best friend, my soulmate, my partner, my gingersnap, my little sweetheart. My Summer, I love you with all my heart and soul. Please help and guide me today, my darling. And please take me to you the minute that heaven will allow. With all my love forever...
I went to services up at that little church I told you about. It's the usual Wednesday night for the candlelight meditation, so it was part that/part Ash Wednesday-ish. When they put the little cross on your forehead, they call that "the imposition of ashes." They did that and I said my prayer for you, for us, and I sang and I was filled with thoughts of you.
Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Lent, little sweetheart, when people "give up" things. Another part of the service was an opportunity to write something down, maybe something that you wanted to unburden yourself of, and then burn it in a little bowl. I wrote down something that weighs very heavy with me, little sweetheart - all my mistakes.
I'm so very sorry, my darling, for every mistake, any time I may have hurt your tender feelings, any cross word that I may ever have uttered. I know that we are both terribly emotional and passionate - that's one of the wonderful things about our finding each other, we could never scare the other away, only match one another and cling together even stronger. And I know both that little arguments or rough patches are just a part of relationships in general and that any of ours always came with and from the underlining great need that we just wanted to be together even more. Any little flare up only ever had at its root a plea from you to me or from me to you just to hold each other a little tighter and never ever let go. I know it's mutual. But I still just ache and want to kill myself for every and any mistake or ever hurting your feelings, even if we made everything okay moments later and I cried and you forgave me and understood. It still haunts me.
So, I wrote that down, little sweetheart. I wrote down how sorry I am for all my mistakes, little sweetheart. And I folded it up and burned the piece of paper in the little bowl there and then I prayed.
Before I left, I talked to that nice lady minister, Jes, I've told you about. And we prayer together for you, too. And then I asked her if she believed that you and I would be together again. I cried and cried as I said the words. And she yes. She said we believe that and she said that she believes that and she will believe that for us and that I can believe too.
And I do, little sweetheart. I believe and pray for that. And when I came home, I made sure your candle was burning and then I took a little picture with my head titled close to yours.
I love and miss you, my love. My True Love, my best friend, my soulmate, my partner, my gingersnap, my little sweetheart. My Summer, I love you with all my heart and soul. Please help and guide me today, my darling. And please take me to you the minute that heaven will allow. With all my love forever...
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