This day...

Thinking of you and dreaming of waking with you where you are, my little sweetheart. I know that it's even closer than I can imagine. My best friend, my True Love, my partner in all things, my beautiful lover. Soon, my darling girl. Soon. With all my love...

Feb 12...

On a Virgin America plane to SFO four years ago today to attend the premiere of the short film I made with Summer the July before, spend Valentines Day together and see her Opening Night of "On The Waterfront" in San Jose - wound up replacing her castmate in "Blackbird" so then meant to stay on to do the play with her and then both of us return to NYC in time for my b'day on April 25, to workshop "My Before and After" and see Low in Philly that night. We almost got there, little sweetheart. But I'll see you very soon and forever in the Beautiful New Place. Remembering those last weeks just now and loving you with all my heart and soul. Until that day, my love. Until that day...

On Thanksgiving...

I'm thinking of you on this cold and snowy Thanksgiving Day in NYC, my sweetheart. On my own. With Christmas coming. The holidays are filled with memories and longing too. I am glad and grateful that I got to spend some of the very best ones with you, my love. Still, I miss you terribly. Someone asked me lately if I had experiences that made me feel you are near me and I told the story about the watch. The watch I had that my mom gave me (and who died just 10 months before you, my darling girl.) Remember how I was wearing it when I was in California with you after Valentines Day and the wristband broke, so I threw it into my laptop bag? And there it sat, forgotten amidst the tragic events.  Months later, I came across it, looking for something else and it had stopped because it's self-winding - you have to be wearing it and moving around for it to work. I put it on the mantel behind a bunch of framed pictures of you. And one day sitting on the sofa beneath it, inconsolable, I heard it begin quietly ticking. And it's happened since. Sometimes when it's quiet or I'm terribly sad, I have heard it simply start up. I told that story to the person who asked - a friend. You know him too, my sweetheart. And he said he thinks our loved ones, our beloved, like you, are definitely around. "Oh, they're still here," he said, "and, actually, not that far away". I like that idea. Always be with me, Summer. Don't go too far away. With all my love... m

Today...

Happy 35th birthday, my darling girl. My little sweetheart. Love you forever.

In Dreams (con't)...

I was up so early this morning, my sweetheart, and through the day, stamping about the city - a thousand tasks (mostly) cheerfully performed - and carrying you, as always, with me. Finally at home in the early evening, I had to lie down, just as you were wont to do (oh, just to have a nap with you again! Waking disoriented, wrapped up in each other, entwined...), NPR on low in the background. I couldn't have been out for long. Maybe 20 minutes. But I dreamt of you. And I was so very sad to wake without you beside me. Again. Each time is much like the first - impossible. Yet, my darling, photos of you, much like your constant if invisible presence, surrounded me. And as I looked up from the bed, one of them - this one of you I took as you leaned on the kitchen island counter at the house in Davis just before Christmas - seemed to glow. You were glowing, a celestial illumination, my angel, my true love, my little sweetheart, haloed as I lay there, my heart aching and longing for you. Remember, my sweetheart, how whenever you would begin to stir - it didn't even have to be to another room, even just slightly shifting your weight to one side - that I would say "don't go too far away"? Don't go too far away, Summer. Don't go too far away, my love. My sweetheart, always be with me...

"Sound Out..."

Heard that our friend Johnny Donovan passed away two days ago. He was one of the people we got to know over the years in our travels to Kilcrohane in West Cork. That's him there third from the right, at Eileen's (aka Fitzpatrick's) pub in the village. There were several years where we made multiple, wonderful visits to Kilcrohane, even spending three Christmases there. When Summer & met, I told her about some of these Irish adventures and she wanted me to take her, too. Thank god we made that trip. She got to meet everyone, and Johnny, of course, who had us over for tea (aka: whiskey and biscuits) before we adjourned to Eileen's, as seen here. We had plans, Summer and I, to meet up again with Kris and Joy (also pictured) that next spring and make another trip there in time for Johnny's b'day (I think it was to have been his 69th) but sadly... sadly... Anyway, I'm so glad you got to meet him, sweetheart. Turns out you get to see him sooner than the rest of us. Bless you both. And as Johnny used to say on his way out the door well after last call, "sound out". Sound out, Johnny Donovan. Sound out, my friend. See ya soon...

In the stars...

I saw this quote today, my sweetheart, and thought of you, of us. How you liked to say that you found me. And how grateful I am that you did. How I know and believe and have faith that you will come for me in my sleep, take my hand and lead me to the Beautiful New Place to be with you forever. This little quote evokes, reinforces that:

 

“Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?
Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences.” 

The Heart Knows (Its Home)

There’s a beautiful picture of you, my darling, I think it’s always been there, in the window looking out to the garden in the house at Davis. You’re a little girl, perhaps twelve, wearing a pretty reddish pink polka dot dress and holding a kitten in your arms, a slender red watch on your little left wrist. I have gazed at this photo – like others – so many many times, boring my eyes into yours, willing my soul to leave my body and inhabit the place with you where you now reside. When last I looked upon it, I was with your mom. It was the last day of my visit and your dad was taking me to SMF in a few hours. As I sat there at the indoor patio table gazing at the little girl you, I asked your mom about it. How old were you, exactly? What was that little watch you were wearing? Which of the collection of famous family cats was in your sweet little arms? Your mother told, my sweetheart, that you were about twelve (as I say), that she had just picked you up from your ballet class, that the watch was one of a pair of them that both she and you used to wear out together. She told me the name of the kitty, too. I’ll have to ask again. It’s slipped my mind because of what happened next. She left the room and came back a moment later with the very same pretty little dress you were wearing in the picture and put it down on the table by me. I burst into tears that grew into great, heaving sobs of hyperventilation. I sat there, my love, lightly touching your little dress, my heart aching and soaring and longing to be near its home – you. And I’ve felt this way from the first - I know you know – so overwhelmed by the beauty and rightness and true compass of your spirit that my very being trembles and quakes to have been found by you. For it is you, Summer. It is you, my love, that I was born for. Whatever life has left for me is a just an unwinding until I am returned to you. My heart knew it from the first. And as I sat there falling apart I was reassured – it is you, my love. My True One. My little sweetheart. It is you.

Time Travel, pt 1

For the longest time, little sweetheart, I've come across random works of art and memorabilia that bear uncanny, wonderful resemblance to you. Not unlike the way you come to me in dreams, these images bring my conscious self to you with a hint, a glimpse, a clue, that you are eternal. That we are. That I will be again with you soon and forever. And in a way most wonderful that my mortal mind cannot yet begin to grasp, only take in these little fragments, these slivers of what will be, what always was, and to give me hope and faith to persevere until that day, that blessed day you come for me. It's a rainy Saturday where I am, my love. Lonely and grey. My every thought, my heart and soul yearn for you so. And I will love you forever because it was ever thus. My True Love, my little best friend, my sweetheart, my gorgeous girl. Until that day! Until that day...

Carry it with me...

Back in NYC, my little sweetheart. It's the day after Labor Day. There's work to do and I will endeavor to do my best. I carry you with me, just like you told me. And one day, one day soon, I fervently hope, I will join you where you are. I love you forever.

Just to hold on

Wherever we were, my sweetheart - at home or visiting somewhere or in a hotel together -you always seemed to make your side of the bed nearest to a clear path in case you needed to get up in the night. Except at our apartment in NYC, where you slept closest to the wall. And I liked that because it meant you had to try to quietly crawl over me on your way out and then I could catch you up in a full body embrace, my arms and legs entangling you and holding you close and tight. And never letting go. Never ever letting you go...

Forever now...

For Summer

Collected Plays comes out in print today, my little sweetheart. And it is, like every breath and moment and act of my life, for you. For you, my darling. For you, my love. For you, Summer. For you.

A Story with My Partner

Some of the best moments of my life were with Summer in my arms, her sweet head on my shoulder as we sat on the plaid couch here at my hovel or the big plush sofa in Davis or on her crimson colored bed in The Sunset, watching a movie. My sweetheart told me that it was important. That she liked to end the day watching a story with her partner. It filled me with such joy and pride when she told me that. Few things ever made me that happy. Sitting together, giving her a foot massage. Wrapping her in a blanket. How she would look at me, those eyes of love -oh, my heart. Holding her sweet little hand. In Davis, we’d hit the Blockbuster on the way back from The Nugget Market, picking up a selection or two. In The Sunset there was a great place called Le Video. I still have my membership card. At Christmas, Summer’s mom had one gift specially marked for Summer & I to share. It was a box set of the first two seasons of a show we’d been looking forward to. The gift came with explicit instructions that Summer & I were to watch it together. That made me very happy. Here in New York, Summer & I frequented the wonderful, iconic Alan’s Alley at W.22^nd and 9^th Ave. We checked out the whole of Brideshead Revisited. And Jewel in the Crown. And many many more. It was our go-to, that lovely little place with thousands of titles. On a long walk today back up from way downtown, I happened past and it was gone. A “For Lease” sign from some fucking developer in its papered-over windows. I was heartbroken. But I just looked them up online. Yeah, some thoughtless money-grubbing landlords ousted them – perhaps the last video store in the city. But they’ve found a new smaller space, still in Chelsea, on 25^th St. From the pictures it almost seems like they’re working out of an apartment. Cool. Punkrock. Returns, a notice on the website says, can be left afterhours at the Rail Line (formerly Moonstruck) diner, across the street from the old location. They gather them in a bag and Alan picks them up in the morning. They’re back. I haven’t been yet, but I’m going. I can feel my Summer smiling. God bless. God bless…

My darling girl...

Love you with all my heart and soul, my little sweetheart. Going to bed now to dream of the day you take my hand and lead me to The Beautiful New Place to be with you forever. I love you, Summer. I love you, my darling girl.

Nights and Days...

Nights were, for the first many months, the hardest for me to get through, my little sweetheart. It probably didn’t help that I started drinking again in those early days. And hadn’t you told me, my love, that I should never do that when I was lonely or sad or upset? So, I stopped again, my darling. In fits and starts at the New Year but on a clear path and righted course by the early days of February, so nearly six months now. And I’m getting to sleep better. I’m getting to sleep better, too, because I always talk to you, my love, as I take to our bed. I lay down quietly on my side and hold on to the open sleeve of your little purple shirt, taking it in my hand where it lay on top of your pillow and I talk to you. Take inventory of the day. Tell you how much I love you. Say a little prayer that you are kept safe and that I may meet you in the New Place come morning. Come soon. The nights are a little easier for that, now. It’s the dawn that has become so hard. Each morning waking is as heartbreaking as the first, with the terrible realization, coming out of the dream state, that you are not physically on this dark planet, not in body by my side. That in that way, I am all alone. Terribly lonely and alone. It hurts so much every time I wake that I can scarcely draw breath. But I say our prayer again and kiss your pictures and put on my necklace and say good morning to your beautiful spirit and make myself rise, make coffee, fill the daylight hours with a thousand little chores and tasks and projects to temper the horrible sting and muddle through until evening falls and I may lay me down and whisper again to you until I fall asleep. Dreaming of you and the Beautiful New Place. Hoping to wake there at last with you instead of this lonely world without you. How I pray to be delivered to you, my love. How I wish with all my heart and soul for that day. For you, my little sweetheart. For that day I join you, my love. Oh, Summer. My gorgeous girl. For that day… 

Every everything

I sometimes remember something about you or something that you told me or something that we did or any kind of anything, some little detail, my little sweetheart and it so delights me. But then also it makes me terribly sad, even angry at myself that it could've alluded memory long enough to actually be "remembered". But then maybe that's okay because it's all inside me, isn't it darling? All of you, everywhere we've been, everywhere we will go. I hold it all inside me. Just sometimes one piece or another of it comes a bit forward to say "hello". Isn't that right, sweetheart? And do you know what one came to me that made me think all of this, my gorgeous girl? It was your teasing me about being such a "brooder". Your texting me sometimes to say that you were thinking of me and sending love to me "(your) brooding partner". God, how I love you, Summer. Thank you for every visitation. I feel you with me and my heart is full. Thank you my little sweetheart, my little best friend, my every everything.

Treasure....

Summer was unafraid. The bravest person I've ever known. And she wanted to know. She wanted to know what had made me so sad. She wanted to know what had happened in my life and what was inside of me that made me feel that way. And she would hold me and she would stroke the well of my chest and she would calm me and she would call me her treasure. Like a mantra, she would whisper it lovingly again and again in my ear and soothe me. "My treasure", she would say, "my treasure..."

The Most Beautiful Sound...

The sound of Summer calling from another room, her pretty voice trilling up in the inflection of a question, "Michael...?" My instantaneous and always response "Yes, my sweetheart?" as I come running. "Are there any more of those little yogurts left?", I think I hear her ask. Missing and loving you forever...

At the Edge of the Other World...

It’s meant to get sweltery and into the 80’s this weekend but the last few days have been terrifically mild. Cloud cover and temps in the 60’s to low-70’s. Some might call it grey, overcast. But I love it. It’s gentle. “Soft weather” as they say in Ireland. Perfect for running. Occasional light rain. Even a touch of fog as I pad along the paths near The Hudson. And it’s put me in mind of a film I saw some time ago.

Tree of Life is a difficult watch for a number of reasons. My primary one is the relentless brutality of Brad Pitt’s character. Others might howl with boredom and impatience at the film’s 20 minute opening sequence (not unlike Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) as the beginnings of life on Earth are chronicled at the most leisurely of paces. But despite all that, its ending is among the most haunting and beautiful ever committed to celluloid – a fog-drenched beach where we walk along water’s edge joining every one of our lost dear ones in youthful, harmonious, joyful eternity. I have not been able to get this image out of my head for the last several days and have begun day dreaming of somehow vanishing into one of those clouds of fog I routinely spot in the middle distance as I run north toward the bridge hoping it will envelope and deliver me to that other world, that Beautiful New Place I yearn for, and find you, Little Sweetheart, find you, my love...