Now Playing -
what do you think?
Now Eating -
drinking, water.
Now Feeling -
not great.
Now Tweeting
- Melanie
I'm sorry I haven't written more lately. Between being busy at work and busy with the show, I've had precious little time to myself. And when I do have time to myself, late at night when I sit in the rocker and listen to the sound of synthesized waves on my white noise machine, I am sad.
I am so tired of crying, and of wondering why I am still so sad. Like I said, I haven't done this in a long time, and then it was for people who I'd known intensely, yes, but not very long. Not for sixteen years. And memory blurs as to how long the process of grieving takes.
I keep thinking, is it just me? And wanting to ask people, am I alone in this? Is this still so incredibly hard for you, too?
But then I look at my friends, who are still tearing up at his name or a song or a photograph or a phrase of his, and I tell myself it's okay that I am not okay, because no-one is just yet.
Sunday I did what I did almost a-year-to-the-day ago, closed a show and caught the next available ferry to go stay with the boys in Cherry Grove.
Except this year was different. This was the first year without him, without being able to walk in and see him standing at the kitchen island, creating a new cocktail or mixing up tuna salad or simply smoking a cigarette. Without hearing him say my name, and receiving the welcoming embrace that would leave the scent of his cologne on my cheek for the rest of the evening. Without.
And as the ferry crossed the bay, the storm clouds cleared and the churning water calmed, and by the time I reached the house the beginnings of another beautiful pastel palette of sunset (that he will never see, will never set down on canvas) were beginning to paint their way across the sky.
And then we walked down to the beach, and stood in a circle and spoke of him and wept, and cast our flowers and his ashes upon the waves, and said another in what promises to be a long, long series of goodbyes.
And I'm not sure how to do that. People keep saying he is here, he'll always be here. But he's not. And that he wouldn't want us to be sad. But I can't help it just yet. I keep waiting for a sign, something more definite than just a dream, something to tell me that he's okay wherever he is, and that I will be, too.
And I haven't found it yet.
While I was on the beach, I would occasionally listen to my iPod and put one Wilco song on repeat. Kept it low so I could hear what people were saying around me, and because it works well as lilting, swoony background music.
And after all the talk of love and death and relationships and what was and what will be, I finally looked at the lyrics yesterday, and...
I couldn't believe what I saw.
On And On And On - Wilco, from Sky Blue Sky (2007)
On and on and on we'll stay together yeah
On and on and on we'll be together yeah
You and I will try to stay together yeah
On and on and on we'll be together yeah
Please don't cry we're designed to die
Don't deny what's inside
On and on and on we'll stay together yeah
On and on and on
On and on and on
One day we'll disappear together in a dream
However short or long our lives are going to be
I will live in you or you will live in me
Until we disappear together in a dream
Please don't cry we're designed to die
You can't deny even the gentlest tide
On and on and on we'll be together yeah
On and on and on
On and on and on
We're going to try
Please don't cry
This world of words and meanings makes you feel
outside
Something that you feel already
deep inside
You've denied
Go ahead and cry
On and on and on we'll stay together yeah
On and on and on
On and on and on
You and I will stay together yeah
You and I will try to make it better yeah
I am trying. But it is so hard.
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
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