"Saving" Christmas...

Little sweetheart, it’s been quite a day, this Christmas Day.

Last night, we still had more than a few things to do to get ready. I had my presents all wrapped but we were still making little adjustments trimming the tree. Your dad was on call, so he got home a little late and had to leave early this morning. Before we went to bed we had the lovely tradition of getting our new pajamas. I love mine!

We went to bed not too late but your mom is such a perfectionist and so generous that she couldn’t help but stay up far too late working on everything. Your dad had to leave early for the OR and when I got up your Mom had only been asleep for a couple hours. We got a big turkey and lots of things to make dinner yesterday at the market but I didn’t want to start until we both were up. I went for  run and when I came back I had several messages on my phone. Your dad was worried because he still at the hospital and your mom was a still asleep because she’d been working so hard all night. Your mom is so lovely, little sweetheart, and wants everything to be perfect and he was afraid she’d wake up in a panic. There wouldn’t be time to make such a big dinner before the kids got here.

But I had an idea - instead of trying to cook that enormous turkey in time, I could get together a big lasagna instead. I’d already made a pie. I told your dad that and he said to try that and to gently wake your mom and see if it was okay. I just told her I had things under control and not to worry and, incredibly… it worked.

So, I headed out to get what I need but… all the markets were closed. I couldn’t think what to do. Finally, I tried a Walgreen’s that was open. They had three jars of nice pasta sauce, so I grabbed those and went looking for cheese. They didn’t have parmesan or ricotta but they had those long mozzarella individually wrapped string cheese packages. I grabbed that and some shredded mixture and remembered that sometimes you can substitute cottage cheese for ricotta. They had one tub of low fat cottage cheese so I grabbed that too. They didn’t have the noodles but I thought if we had just 10 noodles in the pantry from last year, if your mom hadn’t thrown them out, I would be fine. I got to checkout and they told me they didn’t have any bags. So, I carried the whole things in a cart to the car and then brought the cart back. I tried to think where to go if we didn’t have noodles at home. I stopped back at the house first, tho’, to check and we had exactly 10!

There were lots of vegetables already because we had plans to roast them. I often sautee different vegetables but I used everything we had including parsnips that we were going to use with the mashed potatoes. I cut everything up fine and sautéed it all in olive oil. I added the red sauce and seasoning and got the noodles on, grated the cheese one string at a time (!) and made the layers and got it all in the oven. I made a salad and by the time everyone showed up, it was all ready. Your mom and dad didn’t get stressed and there was plenty to eat and I even had time for a shower - I’d been going since my run hours earlier. Your dad said later that I “saved Christmas”. I don’t know about.

I do know that you saved me and that while I’m still here waiting to join in The Forever, that I need to take the lessons of love you taught me and do my best to take care of our beloveds as best I can. When I do, I can feel you near me. And that’s what it’s all about, isn't it, little sweetheart? Happy Christmas, my darling. With all my love forever.

Christmas Eve Day

I'm sitting on your bed in your room at your parents house, little sweetheart and filled with thoughts of you. Your mom and I talked for long time last night, all about you, of course, and I went to bed with your things around me (not exactly unusual since it's that way at home too). This morning I heard a little bird singing sweetly outside the window and he awakened me. We've lots of little things to get done for Christmas - grocery shopping before it gets too late, trimming the rest of the tree, wrapping gifts - but I'm already thinking about the year coming to an end the start of a new one. May I do all I can to honor you and listen closely for your presence, instruction and guidance. I need you desperately. Perhaps more than ever. With all my love forever.

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.

The First Snow

We had our first snow today, little sweetheart.

I took a picture or two from the window and then ventured outside to take a few more. I was heading to the post office to mail a few Christmas cards - with the black and white photo of you and I together on the roof here during the first snow just before our first Christmas - it’s a card that I send out to a handful of friends (there seem to be fewer and fewer of them each year, sadly) annually.

Also in the outgoing mail today -  a copy of our Christmas album to that new DJ, WFMU’s Samantha Simmons, who seems to have taken a liking to us.

Afterwards, I walked to the market to get a few things I needed to bake Christmas cookies and I took a picture of the playground there at W52nd and 10th covered in snow. When I got home, I went up to the roof and took a couple more.

I’d been thinking about it because I’d remembered, just a few days ago, that I had some film of last year’s blizzard, also from the roof. So, I edited that footage and dropped it over a bed of music - our version of “Emmanuel” from BPXmas - and made a music video. It’s here. 

It’s getting close to Christmas, little sweetheart. And as you said in your beautiful letter to me on our very first one, “I am missing you.”

May our separation be a brief one, my darling girl. May it be only a preface to the Forever, where I long to be reunited with you in eternity. With all all 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…

That Movie

Little sweetheart, I’m watching a Christmas movie. Can you guess which one? You used to tease me about this because I'd never seen the movie until you and I were visiting London several years after it came out and I happened upon it on telly (in the front room of Kris & Joy’s house in Kentish Town).

After that I bought the DVD and you would say "are you watching that movie AGAIN?!" But the thing that you don't know, my angel (or maybe you do- honestly, I think you know most everything) is that you cracked my chest open with your radiant love and left my heart so full I feel so much more and it can't be stopped, my darling girl.

I think The Guardian famously gave this film half a star. Not even one whole one. But I'm an easy mark for the sentimental. You found and loved me. And that makes all the difference.

Yes, I'm watching it again. And missing you. With all my love forever.

December 1st

Little sweetheart, on this day, exactly ten years ago, my life was changed utterly.

On this day ten years ago, I woke up early in the morning, before dawn, took the “E” train to JFK and flew across the country, arriving before lunch, to San Francisco to do a reading that afternoon at The Magic.

When folks from the theater, including our friend AD, Chris Smith, picked me up, they were enthusing rapturously about a young genius little whirlwind that had blown them away at the auditions and callbacks and who they’d hired to head the cast. When I sat down at the big table they’d set up on the stage of The Shepherd, the writer, company and cast gathered around, I came to understand they weren’t exaggerating.

During the act break, I found myself alone. Everyone had stepped into the outer hall of the lobby or all the way outdoors (The Magic is nestled into the Marina and it was a beautiful California day, sweeping vistas of both bridges in view). I was getting myself another cup of coffee when the aforementioned little genius whirlwind - you - made her way over to talk to me.

I wish like hell I could remember verbatim every word you said in those first moments but I think even at the time I might not have taken it in fully because I was too busy being taken in fully by you. At first sight, you were quite a first sight. Like something out of a Botticelli or maybe any one of those amazing heroines that Waterhouse painted. A red-headed angel with ivory skin so fair its purity was blinding. A classical beauty trying vainly to dress down and fit into these screwball times. Ariel in black yoga pants and a band t-shirt.

Aside from being completely knocked out by your breathtaking talent, I wondered how they were going to work out you being in rehearsals everyday. Had your high school principal signed on? It wasn’t until you shuffled over to talk to me (all things had to go like this - you always making the first move, the first kiss, wrestling me to the ground, because you always knew sooner, knew better, knew so much faster and more than I), it wasn’t until then that I knew you already had a diploma, three of them, including a Master’s Degree.

If I track it, I think that is what we talked about - London, New York - places we’d both called home. The coincidence of locations in common without knowing one another. Not then. Not yet. That was for now. That was for this moment - ten years ago on this very day - that you found me.

Later, we often called March 19th our anniversary because it was the moment we both knew unquestionably it was ours and that we were each others. But even before that night and everything leading up to it, my life, my heart, was utterly changed, little sweetheart, looking into your big beautiful blue eyes. Before I ever loved you romantically and forever (and like everything you knew better, sooner, faster than I could know myself) I loved and adored and wanted to protect and be near you. My heart recognized you right away and you came over and found me.

Ten years ago on this day, exactly, my life was changed utterly. Ten years ago today, little sweetheart, I met you. You found me. Find me again, won’t you, my darling girl? And take me where you are. Where I belong. Home.

With all my love forever.