SF Set

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

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

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

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

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

With all my love forever.

New Moon, Supermoon

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

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

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

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

With all my love, forever. Forever.

Listening For Signs

We’re right at the point of the autumn, little sweetheart, where we’re listening every night for some signal or sound that the radiators are going to whir to life. During the day it’s warm enough but by nightfall we’re both bundled up in hoodies and socks and straining to hear some indication that maybe a regulator has begun whistling and the pipes will fill with steam and warm the place up a bit.

I remember so well one of your last times here, little sweetheart, with that heat pipe in the WC so hot to the touch and you accidentally bumping up behind it and coming running back into the apartment to tell me.

Everything around me is evidence of you - thank god! It’s such an enormous comfort to have this shared history in events and phenomena, so that each time it comes around, my mind is flooded with thoughts of you. It’s such a blessing in your absence. And you are the blessing itself made flesh and spirit. You are the blessing of my life.

Miracles Alight

One night we drove in Bantry, which is sort of the biggest town nearby. There was a lovely little place we always liked to go called The Snug. The food was good and it had a very homey vibe. The tables were almost like big tree trunks and there were vintage signs hanging on the walls and a big fireplace. It was very comfy and cozy.

The only problem ever was that it was sometimes quite crowded but this night we were about the only people there. Kris & I always had sat at the bar because you couldn’t get a table. This night we had our pick of them.

You loved the place. Neither of us often had red meat but all their meat was local and organic and grass fed, so we often would actually have steak there. You wanted a burger. And they had something on the menu that was actually two burgers. So, as was often your wont, you eat one and saved the second for later.

We stayed for some time, enjoying ourselves and we stepped back into the night and looked out at the bridge over Bantry Bay, we could see that a dozen swans had alighted there. We stood there and watched them for a quite a while.

It was another magical night with you, my little sweetheart. Swans, butterflies, all manner of miracles come near when you are with me. With all my love forever.

Visited!

Little sweetheart, I had my first dream last night where you came to me in the hospital. God knows (literally) that is the last place I want to be again let alone dream about but it was also in that kind of dreamlike way where a place is both like a place you know and completely different at the same time. It was, in a way, more like being home and more like you coming to take me home, too.

You were very concerned and concentrated on making sure i was taking the medication they'd prescribed me. And I ... was overjoyed at the sight of you.

Sometimes in dreams, you and I are as once we were, as we were before all that's befallen, and fine. Other times, in dreams that can sometimes be darker even in the light of your presence, the terrible thing has occurred but you're either still here or returned.

In this dream, somehow, you had never gone but were simply 'laying low', having wanted to get away from all the things that were confounding your life and just quietly regroup. You were here now both out of concern for me and also to let me in on your secret, sorry that you hadn't been able to before but knowing that wherever I was would be the first place they'd come looking. So, like a relocated witness under Federal protection, you'd had to keep up the fiction even with me.

But you were here now, in my arms and altogether real and whatever happened before was past, the future ours and forever.

I'm not sure exactly what the dream may foretell but it seems altogether hopeful, uncannily current and, as ever, comes as a relief and blessing - because whenever you alight in my sleep, my treasure, I am again and finally whole. How grateful I am!

With all my love forever.

Morning Light

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

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

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

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

Sights & Signs

Just on the way back from my run, little sweetheart and I stopped, as ever, in front of the little shrine in the garden of the rectory at Sacred Heart to say our prayer. As I did, and as there often is, there were sweet little birds fluttering overhead, some alighting on branches, others enjoying the little birdbath there and singing their glorious little songs. One in particular was taking a prolonged dip as I spoke our prayer and as I finished he was splashing, fully-soaked, quite happily, his little wings stirring up quite a watery uproar.

As I turned, I suddenly smelled your signature sweet scent - like cotton candy or the best birthday cake anyone ever made for you. And there was not a person in sight. It only lasted a moment but I knew you were there.

Just as I watch for the angel numbers 11:11 to appear and as they did this morning, I know you are letting me know, as best you can, to do my very best and to have faith that you are both nearer than I can imagine and will take me to you so very soon and forever.

Thank you, my angel, my True Love, my soulmate, my little sweetheart. I love you with all my heart and soul.

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

Blessed With Signs

Little sweetheart, I’m trying my best to try my best. And when I do, I feel your presence ever so keenly.

I love when you find me in dreams. I’m not often good at remembering them - the details or even the larger picture, but I know when you’ve been with me. It fortifies me through the day.

Sometimes, the morning light will hit a picture of yours illuminating it celestially or the light will manifest itself in a floating, shimmering shape than seems to dance before me and I know that you are near.

Birds sometimes alight at the window only an arm’s length from me here at my desk or will greet me on my morning run along the frozen river, cheering and encouraging me, as I know you do.

And sometimes in a store or on the street or even, incredibly, in the hall of our building just today, I will recognize your signature scent, as sweet as cotton candy or the loveliest of birthday cakes.

I am blessed beyond comprehension when these signs of your eternal presence make themselves known to me, my angel.

May I do as you wish and urge me. May I quiet myself and listen. May I serve and honor you. Now and right to the very moment when you are finally allowed to come collect and take me to your side again and forever. May I be steadfast. May I be true.

In all things, I love you my darling girl. Forever. With the Truest Love. Forever. Always.

Resolved

Little sweetheart, it’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve come up here to sit on your bed and write this before returning to talk to your mom and dad as we await midnight (I’m not too sure your dad will make it - he’s been on call at the hospital and barely slept in the last 24 hours.) Earlier tonight, I made beef stroganoff and salad and dessert. We walked outside - it’s incredibly warm and lovely - and the sky was amazing.

The moon is full and luminous and so bright it’s lighting the sky almost as if it were daylight. And it - the moon - is somehow magically floating as if it were in front of the clouds themselves. The clouds look as if they are passing behind the moon, not in front. And behind that, the corona itself, the sky is a bright blue. Truly as if it were day. It’s magic and it feels as if you are near, quite near, nearer than readily imaginable. And tonight, as there was also last night, there is a single unseen bird quietly, sweetly singing his song. A nightingale, perhaps?

It’s a warm and unusual and beautiful night. Full of magic and promise as a new year approaches. And I’ve come up to your room to tell you that I love you. That I’m so very grateful to and for you. And to ask you to please help and guide me. Please lead me the way I’m meant to go in these days I’ve left on earth, on these days - of unknown number to me - until I may join you and be with you forever in The Forever. In this year ahead, help me to best honor and follow you, little sweetheart. Help me to be the man you were molding. And take me to you the very moment heaven will allow. With all my love.

Our Avian Friends

Little sweetheart, the prettiest little bird alighted at the window this morning, just a couple of feet from my desk, where I was sitting here writing about you. He sang a little song and looked around, turned about, looked at me, before he finally flew off.

I’m so aware of our avian friends, now, my darling girl. There are a couple of spots along the river where I run that they seem to favor. One is just at the edge of the boat basin and a second is along the trail just past the footbridge. I always say, “hi, guys”, as I make my way past them and they lift as one in flight.

Sweet little birds gather in the trees inside the little garden at the rectory I’ve told you about, too. That little brick house where the nuns of Sacred Heart reside. I always stop there when I’m walking by to say our prayer for you, for us, and the sweet little birds flutter overhead and serenade me, often.

Another spot is the little grove of low bushy trees that line the concourse between buildings on the crossover between blocks at 66th and West End. I take the shortcut there on my way to the little church where I attend those Wednesday night candlelight meditation services. The birds swoop in and out of there, too, and there always seem to be a couple of them high up, as high up as can be, having a little chat, answering one another in super special birdcode.

I stop and listen there, too. I’m not in a hurry. I’m never in a hurry anymore, little sweetheart. Only to be with you again. Only when it’s my time. I hope it’s soon. As soon as today.

Meantime, I try my best to listen for you. I try my best to try my best. And our little avian friends seem to know. With all my love forever…

Flying

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

November 13, 2017 - part one

It's your 38th Birthday, little sweetheart. The planets crossed paths for you this morning. I suspect you had a front row seat for that. Thinking of you always. Love you forever.

Just listen...

Birdsong above, heart shaped leaf below, as I walk so sad and lonely. You're trying so hard to find me, aren't you, my angel? God bless you. Please take me to you the moment heaven will allow.

The Rains

Little sweetheart, we had incredibly hard rain today all day and into the night. For much of the spring there was a leak in the ceiling in the bedroom…right over your spot in bed! I moved the entire bed and all of your stuff, of course, into an entirely new position for months. The roofer couldn’t get it right, so I didn’t want to take any chances. They finally changed roofers and it got sorted but I waited through several rains until I was sure before I moved everything back.

Today though, it started leaking in an entirely different place in the front room - where all the guitars and amps and computer and everything is. And lots of your pictures. I got so upset and worried. I moved things and I even went up on the roof in the rain to try to see if there was anything I could do.

On top of all that, I was very disappointed about something today. Something I was looking forward to and had been promised but didn’t happen. I got very upset - anxious and worried and angry and resentful. And then I started to cry.

But that was a good thing. I started to cry as I looked at a pretty picture of you, little sweetheart. And I started to talk to myself, say things that I know you would tell me. I told myself just to be grateful for you - for my sweetheart. And for your mom and dad. And for faith that reassures me that I will be with you again and forever. And to just concentrate on the important things - being a good person, doing my work, our work, and finding ways to be kind.

I said all this out loud as my tears began to subside and I got up to move another picture of yours to safety. And after I sat it down on a music stand safe and sound, I went over to where my phone was charging and there was an email from the person who had disappointed me. A lovely message apologizing for forgetting to do the thing they promised and vowing to make it up. I heard you tell me “see?”

Yes, I do, little sweetheart. Whenever I get upset I need to quiet myself and just listen for you. You always make everything better. Thank you, my true love.

Open Water Ahead

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

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

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

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

And When I Wake

Little sweetheart, often I fall asleep listening to an online radio station - SOMA-fm - based in our one-time home of San Francisco. They have several stations each dedicated to a genre. I like the Ambient one. It’s called Drone Zone. I’ll put it on in the background on my iPad next to the bed and it will play through the night.

Sometimes something will awaken me and I’ll be so taken with it that I’ll make a note of who it is and then look them up in the morning. That’s how I found Bass Communion’s Ghosts on Magnetic Tape and Chris Russell’s Adoration.

This morning when I awoke something lovely was playing. I looked over and it said This Summer Night. 

May you always be near me, little sweetheart. Please guide me through the day and soon back to your side forever. All my love…

Just an Hiatus

Little sweetheart, walking home yesterday I saw this sign about a class being on break over the season. "On Summer Hiatus" it said. And that's how I should think of this, too, isn't it, my love? You're just a little ways away. We're just a heartbeat apart. It's just a Summer Hiatus. And I'll be with you soon, again and forever in just the blink of an eye. Isn't that right? I just need to quiet myself and do good things while I'm waiting, things that will make you proud of me and keep your spirit close. And soon, so very soon, I'll be back at your side. Isn't that so, my darling? With all my love forever.

Just Like Me

Little sweetheart, it's so very lonely here without you. Some days, sometimes, often, I don't know what to do with myself at all. I try to busy myself with work and, perhaps too much, distractions. But sometimes I simply ache and cannot find my way. I know in these moments it's important that I listen for you the most intently.

The weekends are often among the hardest. It all seems so lonely here. If I stay at home I get a little stir crazy but if I go out I somehow feel even more alone. It may well stem from the earliest of days after your passing when I rented a car and thought to drive down the coast, stopping in Carmel - a place that was holy to us, full of wonderful memories. But when I got there, its magic was gone and I felt cripplingly alone. Every place was changed in your absence. I walked the pretty streets in tears and I couldn't even go to the ocean - I hid behind a tree and wept. I fell to the floor in the little hotel room I booked - one I'm almost positive was the same one you and I had stayed in together once before - and cried and cried. I got a friend on the phone and she told me to get out of there. Just turn in the key, get in the car and drive back north.

That spooked me from all further travel. Indeed, maybe spooked me from doing much of anything. It all seemed so terribly sad and lonely to go anywhere without you. It remains so to this day.

But one thing I have been trying to do a little is at least make myself go for a walk on Saturday or Sunday. I have a membership at The Met. I hardly ever go unless someone is visiting from out of town or at Christmas when they have the big tree in the Gothic Hall. Remember how you and I used to go and I would take you to all my favorite rooms? Well, I've been trying to stop in there the last couple of weekends. It's a nice long walk up to and through the park. And on Saturdays they're open till nearly 9pm.

I went today, little sweetheart, and I looked at all the works - the paintings and sculptures and artifacts and period rooms - we like. Courbet's "Woman in the Waves", Jan Steen's "Merry Company on a Terrace", the huge Pollock's and Rothko's and the Delvaux and Balthus in the Modern section. The French rooms (the English ones are closed for renovation). The Panorama was closed both days but the Frank Lloyd Wright room and the McMead Stair Hall were open. And I went all the way over to the back of the museum to see that little ceramic ring flask that's so beautiful and amazing before I settled into the wonderful room there in the very rear with the red velvet walls and the blue love seat that you're allowed to rest on and take in the two big El Greco's and two large Rembrandts looming above.

I especially love these two El Greco's - the one of a satin robed Saint Jerome and the one of Christ at Gethsemane, carrying his cross, his eyes heavenward and tear-filled. I've both been here curled up with you and been here alone looking up at his watery eyes feeling my own sorrow well up in my chest and my tears come, so desperate for your company, for you - the other half of my soul.

As I sat there today in a quiet moment that found me alone in the room after a few people had passed through, I saw a young couple approaching. They were Italian, I think, or maybe Spanish. European. They looked nice. He had a very kind face. I thought for a long time after that he reminded me of someone. Either someone that I actually know or someone from a film or something I'd seen. I finally figured out that he reminded me of Mathieu Kassovitz - the boyfriend in "Amelie". They were speaking in their own language, of course, but when I addressed him, he immediately picked up in English.

I got up and said, "I think you guys should sit down here together and look at these two El Greco's." He smiled and said, "you think we should sit here?". I said, "yes, it's a beautiful room." And as I walked away they settled in together, having the room to themselves.

Somehow I felt that you were with me right after that, my little sweetheart, and I spoke to you. "Let's get out of here, right, little sweetheart?". I left, crossing back out through the Gothic Hall and on downstairs by way of the side entrance and started walking home through the park at 79th Street.

As I walked on the path there just before getting to the Great Lawn, I saw something - a helium balloon. It was tied to a park bench with no one around it. It was a mylar balloon, the kind you get for a birthday or some other occasion. It said "I Miss You". And there it was all on its own, just like me, doing a little dance in the breeze.

One could think of it as a terribly sad sight but in this context I saw it more as a sign. A sign of you telling me you know how sad and lonely I am and that you miss me too but that you are here. You are far closer than I can imagine. And I just need to remember that, look and listen for you, and keep the faith. Thank you, little sweetheart. Thank you, my darling girl. Love you forever.

Secret Dream

Little sweetheart, I had a dream last night/this morning part of which is a recurring one.

Also, it was one of those dreams where when you’re with someone, the person is really almost two different people in the same person. That happened twice in the dream. In the beginning of what I remember, I was in a car with some combination of JFK and your brother Jesse. I'd just come from having talked with your dad who was excited and overjoyed about a trip we were, all of us together, about to go on with Jesse, himself.

Back in the car, I’m with Jesse/JFK. And he’s telling me some secret something that he’s also written down in its entirety in a sealed letter he gives to me. After he tells me, we’re sitting at a traffic light. He says bye for now and gets out.

When the light changes, I’m in the drivers seat (I think I may have been the entire time but I’m not sure) but it’s pushed all the way up and I can’t see or feel what I’m doing. This is the part of the dream I now recognize as recurrent - behind the wheel of a car I don’t know how or cannot control, having forgotten how to drive or simply impaired in trying to do so. But I try anyway - take a leap of faith and somehow get things straightened out, maneuvering through the danger and traffic. I get there.

“There” turns out to be someplace beautiful, ceremonial, official - The White House? - where I try it give the letter to someone, again a combination of persons in one person. Something like both Jackie Kennedy and your mom. She’s a little more like your mom than Jackie but still… She’s wary about taking the letter. It’s for me, she says. But you - in the very best part of the dream that I can still feel the most vividly and the most tactilely, the feeling lingers - you are there behind me with your hands on my shoulders, pushed up close, your body against mine, your cheek to my my cheek, your breath in my ear, encouraging me.

I tell your mom/Jackie what’s in the letter. You are urging me on. It is important and resonant to us all. We all need to know the letter’s contents. It’s for each and all of us. A secret we need to know and hold dear. It’s good news and explains everything.

Naturally - much like the Arthur Miller dream where he put his arm around me and told me he had three things to tell me about playwrighting - when I woke, I couldn’t remember the message, the content.

But, perhaps that’s not important. What is, I think, was how happy your dad was. I think he already knew. And that you were there so palpably that I can still feel your hands on my shoulder. I know exactly what your touch feels like and this was it.

It’s the best dream I’ve had in ages, solely for that. Thank you, little sweetheart. Always be with me. I suspect you already are. Closer than I can imagine.