Dream Notebook

Little sweetheart, I write down dreams I remember as often as I can. I’m not too good at remembering them for the most part, but I’m trying harder to now. The album, of course, is filled with dreams - some of the songs, their melodies, even the words sometimes, straight from dreams and in other cases, the story of a song coming from one.

Anyway, I was looking over some of them and I found this one from a while ago. I don’t know if I ever told you about, so I will do now, even if I have before…


“…Dreams of you, my sweetheart have been ever more vivid somehow this week and I awake knowing that you are trying to find and guide and remind me. "Remember" was such a word of yours and I find so potent in my waking hours, missing and longing for you. And trying to do better. To be the person you were trying to help me become and I know even still are now from beyond my earthbound consciousness. Last night into the morning hours I dreamt you were with me. I'd bought some funny old car. I think now awake and writing of it that is a kind of recurring dream of mine. That I have some weird old car some place left forgotten and that I happen upon it or go looking. In this dream, my sweetheart, you were with me and we needed to get the funny old thing back to Davis but we had your Prius with us, too. I was so afraid to part with you. I knew we'd each have to drive one of the cars and had asked if you wanted to take a turn behind the wheel. You said you might like to in a while. Somehow I had the feeling that I was so lucky to have found you again and couldn't bear the idea of leaving your side even for a minute. But the sweetest part of the dream, my darling, through all of the strange, mundane logistics - what a normal, silly thing to dream of, no? - is that we kissed, my lovely girl. We kissed and kissed. And although I always used to close my eyes as our lips met, in the dream, again I couldn't bear to. I kept my eyes open and watched your mouth approach mine and I swear I could feel you. The way only you could ever feel in my arms. The way only you could ever kiss me. And for those moments, be they minutes or hours, in the other place of dreams, I was finally and again at home. You, my home, my love…”

From Dream Notebook. With all my love. 

Read(y) For You

Little sweetheart, tonight is the anniversary of the terrible accident that took you from me. I'll never forget what a wonderful day we had had right up until the worst, cruelest thing that could ever be. Today is Wednesday, so I went to that little church I told you about to pray and sing and sit quietly and send every thought to you. They asked me to read one of my poems for you, one of the Dream Together poems. It came near the end of the service when we name aloud or silently those dearest ones in our prayers. I spoke a little about you and then read this:

She sent him a dream so he would know. 
And she whispered "remember when you wake." 
It was the spot where she often stood 
on the opposite nearer-than-he-could-imagine middle distant shore. 
Ever faithful. 
Watching the other half of the darkened sky 
for him to pass from his world and fall gliding safely into her own. 
Forever and returned at last. 
Two halves of the same soul.

You are in my every thought and prayer tonight, my angel. And always always will be. With all my love forever.

 

Please Find Me

Often, little sweetheart, I spend far too much time trying to distract myself just to get through the days. There's something in that, I suppose, that isn't entirely bad but it depends on what the distraction is and it begs the question: why am I not doing the more important things? What am I so afraid of?

In a way, the answer is simple - I don't like my life and I'm lost, so lost, without you. One of my distractions is scrolling through endless images online. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing, I guess. It did lead to my finding several of the artists we've worked with for images used on the band's albums. But it isn't always the best use of time, I know.

That said, I saw an image this morning that I've seen before and I think even saved. It's a wonderful shot of a red-headed girl leaping into a man's arms on the street. You can't see either of their faces but it makes me feel happy a little because I like to imagine it is you finding me, the two of us finding each other again across space and time and eternity - all those boundaries that I know you can see beyond and transcend now and that I desperately long to see fall away so that I might finally join you in The Forever and leave this lonely, idle, hopeless existence of mine behind. (the photo is below)

Oh, my darling, please be with me today and guide me, won't you? And take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

A Song I Heard Today

Little sweetheart, on Fridays I often listen to a show on WFMU that plays a lot of bands featuring female vocalists (like you!). And today the DJ, Sheila, played a wonderful song by a band called Elizabeth City State (Elizabeth is a town in NJ) that made me think so much of you it made me cry. Its lyrics mirror exactly how I feel about you - the only one who ever saw and understand me, how I hurt I was, and came into my life and loved me like no one could but you.



It's late-February here but it's warm today and I have the windows open. Sometimes when the breeze is coming in on a warm day like this I can feel, can sense you in the air.



Please be near me, my little sweetheart. Please let me know you are with me, Summer, my darling girl. Help be all you want of me. And take me to you as soon as heaven will allow. Love you forever. Forever!

In These Days

Little sweetheart, I am missing you so keenly in this moment. Things have been busy of late and while that's good, I also need those moments everyday when I can quiet myself and call to you.

I hadn't been up to that little church for the candlelight service they have on Wednesdays for a while. But I went last night and sang and prayed and lit a candle for you, my love.

This is the time, these weeks, that begin to feel so heavy in my heart each year, little sweetheart, because they were our last together. It can feel the weight of your loss closing in on me and I need to quiet myself and call to you and listen for you and strengthen my faith to know you are safely in the care of the eternal and that I will be with you in the blink of an eye. But it's hard.

Help me to know, Summer. Help me please to do your will, little sweetheart. No one knows better than you. Help me do, help me be what you want, what you mean to show me. I miss you, my little sweetheart. Help me quiet myself and know that you are near - closer than I can imagine - and just to trust and love you and know.

Perhaps I need only to look at my arms where your words, in your own handwriting are with me always. The right arm: "I love you. Your Gingersnap, Summer." The left: "Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased."

All my love. Forever, Forever.

Elle EST la raison. Elle est ma conscience.

Little sweetheart, last month the new album got a very kind review in France (of all things) and today the same publication, Indiemusic, followed up with a feature and interview. It's here. They asked a lot of great questions but my favorite parts are, of course, telling people about you, my darling. How you changed and saved my life. How very much I love you. What a wonderful, brilliant, kind person you are - the best I've ever known. How grateful I am to and for you - my treasure. There's a lot about you, of course, and a couple of lovely pictures. But one thing I've been thinking about today reading it is this passage:

"...Summer isn’t the main reason BPX goes on, she’s the only reason. She is the reason. And I think I can trust that I’m doing things for the right reason if I always know the reason for it is her. Not out of any ambition other than to honor and conjure her. She’s my conscience..."

May you always be, my little sweetheart. May you be with me and guide me and take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow. With all my love forever...

In An Instant

Loving you is why I was born, little sweetheart. It is the only thing that ever mattered. I'm here tonight having left my MacBook Pro in the shop for repairs and just charged and opened up my previous MacBook, one I haven't had on since about a year after God took you from me, took you home, took you where I hope I may fly to your side again soon and forever. As I sit here in front of the old laptop, I see playlists I haven't heard in 5 years. Music that was ours and meant everything in the way that you always will. Just a note takes me there instantly and I can nearly touch our beautiful, magic lost life. Please let me know you're near me tonight, won't you my love? And take me to you the second that heaven allows. With all my love. 

 

Signs, Omens and Not Knowing

Little sweetheart, there’s something, a few things really, that have always haunted me. Strange little goings on just before your sudden tragic passing, that have in retrospect, seemed like possible little omens. Warnings or signs that couldn’t be fully read or understood at the time.

I remember reading aloud the play - Blackbird - we were working on at the time, just a week or two before your accident. We were sitting at the table in your apartment by the big windows. The director was there, too. We took a little break. I got up to look outside and there were two raven-feathered birds sitting there. I think I even took a picture. It seemed like a good omen at the time, given the title of the play, but in the tragic afterwards and forever now it seems just the opposite.

Another instance came at Christmas. Our only one together there at your folk’s house. The old clock on the mantel that chimes on every quarter hour was acting strangely. On the third note, something would ring discordantly. A blue note not usually heard. I think your mom said something about it needed to have a crank or a battery, I’m not sure which, replaced. But now, as I say, it haunts me, as if it was some warning that things were awry and that if I’d only somehow known and heeded this sign, you’d still be here safe and sound and in my arms.

I’m flying in a few hours to be with your folks at Christmas, little sweetheart. And for the last two days, an odd thing has been going on with the little clip light that you and I perched in a corner of the red table room here. It’s been flickering constantly. And I have a foreboding that something is about to happen.

I feel like the worst already has. I remember you saying sometime once about things that have already leveled us making us, now bereft, somehow “disaster-proof”. Maybe if this is a sign, it’s good sign, a sign that I too will pass and be again in your arms in the forever.

I’ve taken to looking for signs. A beautiful, speckled-breasted bird has alighted this week, on two different mornings, singing outside my front window. I tried to take a picture of him/her the last time, but he/she flew away in the instant that I snapped the shutter. Maybe a spirit avoiding photographic capture.

Birdsong and clocks (especially at the 11:11 hour) capture my attention and imagination. And what could be more attention-grabbing that a literal big flashing light.

Let me know what I need to know, won’t you, my love? Are you telling my to change course? To work harder to be a good boy who you can be proud of? Are you telling me to quiet myself and be ready, for my time is nearly here? Let me know, my little sweetheart. I long to follow you. With all my love forever.

Quietly (and not so quietly, too) ...

Remember, little sweetheart, how I was telling you the other day about the little notes I leave for myself? Sometimes they suggest a subject for further examination and writing. And other times they are a little instruction or reminder. Here’s one of the former. I mean to write about it at great length.
The introduction, the back story to it, is that I made an appointment with a new dentist. There are so many things that I have neglected in the horrible void of your physical absence, my little sweetheart. I haven’t entirely neglected my teeth. Don’t worry! But I hadn’t been to a dentist in quite some time. I found out that my health plan allowed me to - thank you Obamacare (seriously) !

So, I did my research and selected my provider with my usual narrow prerequisites - a new Jewish (preferably female) doctor on the Upper West Side. She did the initial check up, X-rays and examination, then had me come back to see her colleague.

And that’s what the note is about.

Her hygienist is a woman named Tatiana. She’s tall and gentle and has a vaguely east European accent. As she worked on me, I noticed that she spoke very softly to herself in a way that seemed to mirror her gentle actions. Although I couldn’t exactly make out the words, it seemed she was telling herself to remain mindful and gentle and cautious.

It was very lovely and quite resonant. And what I wrote later (when I was flossing at home - she told me I was doing it too roughly, “glide,” she said, “softly, never in an X, always in a C”!) was this:

“On we inveterate self-whisperers”.

I mean to write more on this because it is something I do constantly - I whisper and talk quietly (and sometimes quite emphatically) to myself and to you and to God. It’s a kind of prayer, certainly, but it’s more (Can anything really be “more” than a prayer? I guess I don’t mean “greater than”. I just mean “in addition to”, I think…) than that.

It’s the ongoing conversation even if I have trouble making out the words on the other end, on your end. And it’s about Faith. Knowing that you hear me. And quieting myself to listen for your answers. Awaiting instruction. With all my love forever…

The Love of My Life. Always.

Remember yesterday, little sweetheart, when I was talking about the little notes-to-self I write sometimes? Sometimes they’re a quick topical sentence or two meant to prompt me in writing something at far greater length later. Sometimes, they’re a kind of koan or mantra. Some little nugget to hold dear, to hold on to, to help me cope in these days before I’m allowed to join you in The Forever.

Sometimes they’re on index cards awaiting me at my desk. Sometimes, they’re hastily scrawled on a bit of scrap paper and left on the little table next to the front door, something to see and remind me before venturing out into the world and a new day. Sometimes, I tape them to the walls.

Here’s one - of the latter stripe (the instructive kind) - from a little while ago. It’s sitting right next to the keyboard:

“It may be a mouthful, but always say “The Love of My Life” not simply “My girlfriend”.

That’s a little instruction for me that I needed to get down on paper, my darling, because every time I would say it, it felt so inadequate. You are so much more than that - my true love, my best friend, my soulmate, my partner. The Love of My Life. My heart knows that. And my words need to reflect it. Always. With all my love…

Notes

I write little notes to myself, sweetheart. Sometimes to remind me to sit down and write about something in greater depth and at greater length that just a sentence or two of quickly scrawled handwriting is meant to conjure and remind me.

Sometimes the sentence or two is the complete thought, a kind of mantra or direction or encouragement to myself as what I need to remember and do. Something to guide me. Something I need to do for myself in the terrible void of your physical absence. Perhaps, like I find in dreams sometimes, the very thought is you telling me so. You helping me, guiding me, willing me from where you are, unseen but urgent, to listen closely for you. To quiet myself, to block out all the noise and distractions and to listen for your counsel, your instruction, your encouragement. Your presence.

Let me reaffirm my commitment, little sweetheart, to listen closely to you, for you, forsaking all other voices, beings and noisy unnecessary things. And I will take note. And I may share some of those very notes, at greater length or quite briefly and concisely, here. With all my love forever.

Only You

Sweetheart, I was just thinking now of one night early when we we'd just started seeing each other but no one really knew yet. We were supposed to meet up but I was with friends without a car of my own and you were an hour away and we were supposed to go to some stupid play downtown in San Francisco that was maybe sold out so there might not even be tickets and we talked on the phone and you didn't think you could come. I was stuck there without you, sitting in some gastropub waiting to go see the show and I was so sad and miserable and then all of a sudden I saw you outside walking down the street toward the bar.  I shouted out "she's here!" and I literally leapt to my feet from the chair. I could feel my heart flying out of my chest! And I ran to you. Crying. I don't know how much of a secret it was after that. Or during the play when we couldn't get seats together so I kept looking back several rows to lock eyes with you, and that look on your face that said "I know, sweetheart, but we can't do anything right now". I never felt so much for anyone in my whole life, little sweetheart, and I never will again. You are the reason and the treasure of my life. Love you forever .

Thankful... for You!

Little sweetheart, it's Thanksgiving and when I woke this morning, as I sat at my desk with a cup of coffee, a pretty little bird with a beautifully speckled breast sang to me, alighting briefly outside the window and I knew he was sent there by you. You're doing your best to let me know you're near and encouraging me to do my best and have faith and know that I will be with you again, soon and forever. 

I went to the little candlelight service last night. It was a bit different than usual. It had a Thanksgiving theme, of course, and as we arrived we were given a little blank sheet of paper that had a heading that read: "Blessings". We were meant to write down a list of things we are grateful for and then share those thoughts aloud near the end of the service if we cared to. 

I sat down and wrote about you right away. And when it came time, I'm told them about you. That you are the reason I am there. And then I read what I wrote. Mostly how grateful I am for you. How grateful I am to you. That you filled my life with light and love and that I ask God to strengthen my faith to let me know you are safely in His care and that you and I will be together again and forever in just the blink of an eye. 

It's Thanksgiving today, little sweetheart. I'm all on my own. But I decided to cook for myself and light a candle for you, like always, and to listen quietly and attentive for further celestial instructions. 

It's Thanksgiving today, little sweetheart, and I am so grateful to and for you. I love you with all my heart and soul. Forever. Forever. 

For You. Always.

On my way home from meditation service last night, little sweetheart, I saw the prettiest little pair of pajamas I think you would like. They were sorta light pink almost white but with a kind of rose hue too and they had double decker buses on them. I immediately thought how I'd so very much like to get them for you. And that made me remember how much I liked doing things like that. Getting little presents for you. Maybe I'll get these and start a new or resume an old tradition and just set them aside with a nice letter or card for you telling you all about it and saving it for you. I think I might do that. Love you forever.

At the ready

A little note I found this morning as I'm gathering things and writing about you, little sweetheart. Thinking about the checklist of things I would help you remember and have at the ready for you before we'd head out for the day. "...tissues and chapstick and holding your hand.." Love you forever.

Shh...

Little sweetheart, I had a bad day yesterday. I don't know how it happens but sometimes a day just unravels. I lose my way. I can't find the path back until I've closed my eyes and slept and woken and tried again. I think it's because I'm so lonely, my little sweetheart. I can easily be distracted without the True North of your presence to guide me. I say this often but it bears repeating because I need to be reminded and to heed the simple advice to just listen for you. Quiet myself and listen to you. To practice mindfulness, so that when I feel myself beginning to careen out of control, I recognize it and slow down and just unpack what's happening to me. To remember your love and your guidance and listen for you right that very moment. You always try to help me. I just need to be mindful. Be with me today, won't you, my love? I need you. More than ever.

Listening

Little sweetheart, I've been telling myself that if I just quiet my mind and listen for you, I will hear. And it's not even limited to auditory senses. Listening for you can also be finding you by seeing signs of your reaching out for me or even the scent of something suddenly, unexpectedly in the air. Some things that seem to bring your near me are birdsong, sweet unexpected aromas, numbers appearing on devices or clocks.

This morning I was sending an email - it was another one for the Skylanding project, this time to the Imagine Peace Tower in England. I clicked on the link and it opened up Apple Mail on my laptop. I've mostly been using mail from my browser not from the app because it takes a good while to load otherwise. I let it do its thing and went about other tasks.

When I came back to it, instead of opening on the most recent batch of emails in my inbox, it landed on an email from you from from August 28, 2009. There was no text, but wonderfully 11 photos as attachments and your subject line which reads "picks from my most recent visit". There's an entire series of the two of us  - including the one below - and several of you on your own.

What a miraculous thing to begin the day with. Thank you for finding me, my angel. I will do my best to honor and conjure and listen for you today and every day until you come collect me and take me with you to be together again and for all eternity in The Forever. With all my love...

PS: Also, little sweetheart, I like this photo. Even though it looks like I'm sad, I'm not! I'm just holding on to you so gratefully because you are so precious to me. The first few moments in The Forever with you will be like this for sure - I won't want to let go. I don't know how time works there. It might be a couple of centuries of my squeezing you tight to me before I can loosen my grip and fly everywhere you want to take me...

Skylanding

Little sweetheart, Yoko Ono has an installation in the UK and another in Chicago asking for people to write and send their one special wish. It can be for the themselves, for the planet or for someone precious to them. Mine is for you and I to be together again and for all eternity in The Forever. Here's a photo of my prayerful wish going live. With love.

On My Best Days...

Every morning I wake up longing for you. Aching for you. I say our prayer and I caress your things on the pillow next to me- your pillow, your side of the bed undisturbedly made up just the way you like because maybe somehow all magic you will return. Every morning it’s terribly hard to face another day. Sometimes attempts to rise are more successful than others. Some days I can’t move from bed at all, I have to cry myself back to sleep and try again in a few hours. Other days I make myself go on. But all days are hard. And what I wanted to say is that on the best of them - and I need to remember this - I strive to honor and conjure and listen for you. On my best days I get things done. I tell your story which is also my own. It is ours. I find some well of strength and I try to find you. For that is all I want. That is all I ask prayerfully of God - just to let me be with you again and forever.

All Roads Lead

Little sweetheart, it's late. I'm watching West Wing and trying not to eat an entire box of gingersnaps. Every thing is about you, little sweetheart. All roads lead there... 

I remember that before I came to SF to do the play and meeting you, I also liked cookies. I didn't have a sweet tooth in all the years I was drinking but I was sober now and I liked Chips Ahoy. They were my go-to. But for some reason when I was living in that little basement back apartment in Bernal Heights where they put me up during the play, I started eating gingersnaps. My grandpa liked them, I remember. I would come home to that place after rehearsal and just be alone. There was a Blockbuster Video a little ways away and I bought a few DVDs marked down as 4 for $20. I'd watch them on my laptop and snack on gingersnaps and sometimes text people I knew asking them to come see the play. They were all out of town. Either in LA or back in NYC. I was lonely. No one would come over. But you did. 

And you changed my life. You were there. You made your way in. I didn't have to ask. 

And I'm still feeling every wave of what you set in motion. Your pictures and things surround me. You are in my first thoughts as I wake and my last as I lay down to sleep. You're not here but in a way - ways I can't entirely describe - you very much are. I need you. You're everything.

Love you forever.