When I was young, just 25 or 26, a flimsy bit of a thing, fresh and new, her desk was next to mine. I could whisper over the insubstantial divider to her when I needed her and she was there. Her gray curly hair pulled up in concentration, she would look at me over the glasses perched just so on her nose, the glasses that hung round her neck and pressed against my heart when she hugged me, and she would laugh or sigh or just listen.
Her voice is like a warm soup to me, a hot steaming mug of tea with honey, exactly what is needed to soothe my broken optimism, my raw and new frustrations. She judges nothing, has heard it all and always always answers my frailty and mistakes with love. We walk our lunch hour away, circling the streets of power, lost in conversation that tumbles like a fast moving river over stones, in her fluent English, in her native Spanish, back and forth, like birdsong. I tell her things I uncover from my heart and she looks at me in amazement…”Que chevre” she says, slow and drawn out and deep inside for the first time I know I am. When we are together I know that I am precious, beloved. I call her my second mama. I drink wine at her home and cook with her, sing revolutionary songs and build circles of sisters.
I buy a house down the street and around the corner from hers. But before we have a chance to be neighbors she rents that house. Heads out on an amazing adventure in organizing that takes her and her husband all over the Western hemisphere. Organizing in South America, Central America, caring for her old ones, welcoming granddaughters. She sends a beautiful handwoven tablecloth for my wedding. She pops by one Christmas to hold my fat baby. But then in the crush of life, she fades away An occasional email, a phone conversation from far away, the everyday and in the moment takes hold of my attention. I let her go without even realizing it. I lose her.
I walk by her house on the way into town and I wonder where she is. “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego” I sing under my breath as I smile in the direction of the threshold that once promised comfort and silliness. I smile as I think of her, her missions, her work, her goodness touching the far corners of the globe. I think of all the young women who will stitch themselves back together in the circle of her arms. I think they are lucky.
And then, suddenly, she is there. In her yard. After more than 10 years and three continents, moving boxes back home. And suddenly she is there walking through the door to come to dinner, kissing the fat babies who have grown into lean kids. Suddenly she is there, her warm smile as radiant as the Puerto Rican sun that birthed her. “OK girls…tell me…” she says and I wonder how we cover 10 years over dinner. But when you speak the language of a heart, just a few words are all that is necessary, stories can be told with knowing looks and a sentence, data transmits almost instantaenously and we are, in a heartbeat, caught up and giggle as though that long pause had never transpired, as though she had held my hand (and I hers) through the journeys of the last 12 years.
Her hands are like butterflies that flit about as we laugh and tell stories, thrilling me when the land for a moment on my hand, my shoulder, my face. She has come home. And so have I.
Somethings are as true today as they were years ago. This is a re-post , an oldie but goodie, an ode to a friend who has remained constant despite the ways that life has tossed us each around. He is still walking through the door, playing his music, goofing around with my boy, making his bad jokes and teaching me about faith in the most unlikely of ways. From May 12 2008. Happy Birthday dear friend. I am so happy you were born.
A year ago today I was sitting with my dear friend Jen Lemen at a neighborhood potluck in the park. We were talking about my fruitless efforts to get Max’s dad to be more active in his life. I was frantic about what would come of him without a strong male role model. I was interrupted when suddenly, chaos broke out at the picnic table. Being a curious girl, I stopped my anxious rant and I wandered over to see what all the fuss was. A bunch of neighbors I barely knew were singing Happy Birthday to some guy.
In an attempt to determine whether the cake was chocolate (an important fact that would determine whether I would stick around) I looked toward the birthday boy. I was stunned by what happened next.
It was one of those moments where the past, present and future all seem to exist in exactly the same moment. One of those moments where time stands still–where the world stops spinning for a second or a lifetime.
This may sound weird but it happened just like this: I laid eyes on him and instantly knew that I would love him. Not in a swooning, romantic way. But with love weighty and substantial like a boulder. I had a flash of recognition–I knew him from somewhere in my long ago past or my far ahead future and I knew, the way I know my own name, that I would love him–or to be more accurate–that I already did.
And then a breeze blew or someone called out to me and the world started spinning again. I shook it off. He was just a guy I didn’t know. The cake was (regrettably) not chocolate. So I slipped away unnoticed leaving him with his family and friends, returning to talk to Jen about blogging. I chalked up the experience to two too many glasses of rum punch on a warm afternoon and the blissful way I feel about my community. These things happen.
The months tumbled on. Summer events and parties filled our schedule. I bumped into this neighbor of mine from time to time and we exchanged pleasantries. I learned that he is a steadfast friend to some of my dear ones. I made note of the fact that he seems to give with a wide open heart. That he really knows how to pack a moving van. That he throws a kick-ass party.
But I never again thought twice about the picnic table and the cake and the rush of warmth I felt for him that day. I had forgotten it already. The summer was big and ripe and full and there was so much to think about and May felt so far away.
One night in August, Max slept over at the house of neighborhood friends. I stayed awake reading, waiting for Jackie to call me to let me know her kids were sound asleep. We had plans to sneak away to her porch and have a glass of wine. But I was sleepy and my book was very good and so when the phone rang, I almost told Jackie that I was done for the night.
But I didn’t. I met her on her porch and then walked with her to a dinner party that was winding down. I didn’t know these people and didn’t feel the slightest bit social but felt somehow that going there was what I needed to do.
I shyly sat at a table where a neighbor, none other than the birthday boy who didn’t have a chocolate cake, reigned as a king of the stories. Drawn in by the storytelling, I found myself laughing harder than I had in months. One by one people peeled off and then it was just four of us in the yard under the stars with one last glass of wine and it dawned on me–I really wish I had a good guy friend. I miss this.
I wish I could really say how it happened that we became friends as summer gave way to fall. But there really is no story to it. It happened so gradually and naturally I barely knew it was happening. I didn’t try to make him my friend. He didn’t try to make me his either. In simple acts of neighborliness he eased into our lives.
For the last 8 months or so he has taught me to play guitar. We camp together and hang out with Jackie on her front porch. He has becomes my conspirator–the one I know I can drag out to go listen to live music. He will crack open a beer with me on a school night. He will stay up late around a campfire and chat.
We can spend hours talking about guitar, hockey, food, parenting and music. We are a built in audience for each other’s stories. He is the only person in my life (other than Jenni Ballantyne) who can sing with me the entire score of Jesus Christ Superstar from opening note to closing curtain. As an added bonus he can play the guitar parts.
He is my accidental zen teacher. He will casually say something while working with me on music that will resonate at a deeper level. I will turn over what he said like a koan, a little zen puzzle that leaves me thinking for days. Like Superman with x-ray vision, he can see right through my carefully constructed pretenses and nail my insecurities. He calls me on them in a way that makes me laugh.
He helps me pick out the outfits I wear on first dates. He helps himself to beer in my fridge.
But what really turns my heart inside out is the friendship he has built with my son. He gets Max. And he gives to him from a seemingly bottomless well.
Sometime this fall he realized that Max was a guys’ guy stuck in an all-girl house. Even more importantly, Max who is all yang energy, all boy, had no mirror to look into to imagine himself all grown up, a healthy, strong, compassionate man. Little by little he has adopted Max. Or maybe Max has adopted him. They have adopted each other.
When we went ice skating he took Max by the hand and Max looked up at him with eyes that sparkled. He brought him to his son’s hockey games and sat with him in the scorebooth explaining each play. He is becoming a regular fixture at pick up at Max’s school and he takes Max swimming almost every week. He comes by the house early on guitar lesson nights so that they have some “guy” time before Max needs to settle in. Sometimes they wrestle, sometimes they talk, sometimes they play killer attack duck vs playmobile guys. But then always Max snuggles into his lap, wraps his arms around him and never wants to let go. At bedtime I literally need to peel Max away from him. Sometimes I just want to let Max stay there, cuddled up against his chest. I want to kiss them both on the forehead, turn out the light and be warmed by the glow of their affection for each other.
He has filled a wide expansive gap in Max’s life. When Max and he are together I see deep wounds healing right before my eyes. Our whole tribe has all noticed it–how Max is knitting himself back together in some of the places where he hurts most–the parts having to do with trust and consistency and men. And I know that a major part of it is the friendship he has found with this neighbor.
So yes–it is a year later and I find that sure enough I have come to love him with a boulder-like love: plain and ordinary, unmovable and solid . I love him for all that he has given Max, for the everyday ways he gives to us both. I love him for the blues he plays and the way that he sings for me. I love him for packing the van when we go camping and for cooking soups when we are hungry. I love him for dozens of small kindness he extends our tribe, the hundreds of ways he cherishes his family, for the thousands of ways he teaches his children to care. I love him for his stupid jokes and his strong opinions but mostly I love him just because he is good.
People ask, “How long have you known him?” When I measure the time in months people are always shocked. And I am too. Even as the words exit my lips I realize that I want to say “I have known him always. He has been my friend ever since I can remember. ”
One night, a few months ago, he got ready to leave my house after our weekly guitar lesson. I reached up to casually hug him as is my habit now, it is an act that feels as natural as breathing. And suddenly out of nowhere the birthday cake, the singing and the lighting strike of recognition came to me. In fact it almost knocked me over.
And I realized that that afternoon flash forward in May was not about the rum. It was a call to pay attention. As he walked out the door, I stood rooted in the belief that yes some things just unfold exactly as they should without us having to do a thing. We find the people we need without searching. We go looking for chocolate cake and we don’t know what other sweet gifts we will find.
From that day forward, I have found myself completely relaxing into faith, letting go of old tired habits of worry. I may fret now and again for dramatic effect, but that horrible anxious stuff that used to fill my brain, the voice that used to tell me it was all going to hell in a handbasket-its now gone. Somehow, the whole experience of this friendship which unfolded so effortlessly, this friendship which has answered my most fervent prayers for Max, has changed me at a cellular level. I now believe that whoever, whatever we need will arrive at exactly the right moment if we are just open enough to welcome it/them in. It may not be what we expected or even what we imagined but it is what we need.
Love is going to carry us, like a river, home.
Every once in awhile over the last few years here I mentioned my housemate Odette. I spoke about her soothing voice and how she sang in the kitchen in her native African language. I spoke about how she and Max love each other. I spoke of her wisdom, her sambusa and mandazi I spoke about how my heart broke when she moved out and into a home of her own. But I never told her story here. Her story is hers and hers alone. She was and is simply a sister, as truly family as if she was born my twin and I didn’t feel the need to say more.
So unless you follow Jen Lemen, you might not know that Odette is also a mom. She has been separated from her girls for 4 years. They have been kept apart by two continents, unthinkable bureaucracy, illness and a host of circumstances worth of Kafka. But love and miracles and faith pay off and next week, when the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano finally clears (or a plane that will fly from Africa via a route not impeded by silica can be located) they will land in the US and begin their life as American teenagers, Silver Spring style.
Two years ago we threw a party to raise money to help the girls get here. That money has been spent many times over on this journey, through illness and relocation and schools and tutors and extreme measures that needed to be taken to against all odds get their visas. Jen Lemen is now raising money to pay for the tickets to bring them home. If you are so inclined and can give even $1 or $5 your kindness will go a long way.
Build a fire.
Shovel early and often. Create the clearings even if you need to do it over and over again.
Go outside. Marvel at how the world can change so quickly.
Clear more.
Trust that when the power goes out you will find a warm place to shelter.
Pack a back pack with the essentials.
Bring wine.
Surround yourself with the people you love.
Build a snow fort. Have a snow ball fight. Catch the last of the falling snow flakes on your tongue.
Shake the snow off the cyprus.
Eat chili. Cook chicken over a fire. Make hot chocolate.
Walk back and forth.
Play board games.
Say “yes please” when you are offered a warm bed.
Snuggle with the neighbor’s dog.
Call often to check in.
Take turns cooking.
Sit together and work quietly.
Take walks.
Trust. Even as the snow starts to fall again. Trust.
I am in the process of doing a lot of dreaming these days. Leaning into long cherished visions of how I always wanted to live, wondering if it is at all possible to let go and really leap. I don’t know if I am standing on the edge of breakthroughs or breakdowns but it can get a little hairy sometimes.
At these moments, when all seems like my life is both breaking open and welded impossibly shut, I have these primal practices that I do to settle myself. I do laundry. I light candles. I make chai tea and breathe in the sweet spicy goodness that is warmth and comfort. I clean closets or sweep the floors. And then, I dance.
I often dance alone to music turned up way loud. Lately, however, there is another way. I am blessed that I have stumbled into a community of musicians who find each other on the weekends. A good Saturday night is a circle of guitars, a bass, a mandolin, a harmonica, maybe a fiddle or viola, some drums and if we are lucky a keyboard or peddle steel. And me, in the corner, dancing.
And it is here, that I touch the edges of that dream life I have always wanted, a life filled with music and authenticity. A life built around a community doing what they love, creating something out of nothing. It is here that I know that all that I ever dreamed of is unfolding, however slowly.
I wonder if they know, these musician friends of mine, how I delight in them. I wonder if they know how their play breaks me wide open in the most unexpected of ways. I wonder if they know how the sweetness of their voices opens up cracks, unsticks, unanchors and feeds me. Can they feel it is my laughter and hugs, the way I make my requests? Or do they simply just think I am their friend who comes to dance, nothing more? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Sometimes the music is transcendental. Sometimes it is just funny. Sometimes it is off, or no one can quite end the song. Sometimes it falls apart in laughter. Sometimes the harmonies don’t work out. Sometimes it just stops. These friends of mine are talented, each of them, but it is not their technical skill that matters. It is the joy, the silliness, the playfulness, the soul, the vulnerability and rawness that touches me. Do they know this? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
When they play, the totality of joy and grief and goodness and love seems to unfold. My dance is the only response I can offer. They only thing I can do in the face of such beauty. The only way I know to honor the gift. My dance is my gratitude not only for them, but for my whole world, the good, the bad and the ugly. I am not sure they notice. Not sure, as they eye each other for cues on where to take the song, as they sneak their smokes in the garage, as they pour their tequila, as they move to and from the mic. My dance a gift to them, but is it? Do they receive it, take it in? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
These friends of mine
They have lives
They work hard to live them right
And when they laugh it makes me high
They take a trip ten thousand miles
Before they fly…
And when the show is over, how I hope that they discover
The joy that they bring
And I hope that they remember
This bond we have together
And how they love to sing
–Rosie Thomas
Two weeks ago, in the very moments that one dear friend lay dying, the most extraordinary thing occurred.
My phone rang. And I said hello.
On the end, from an airport city very far away, was an old friend, an old love, the one who had held my hand as I passed from innocence to knowing. It had been over 20 years since I last heard his voice which now sounded both familiar and strange. We talked light heartedly as I drove toward home, catching up on the basics of life, until his flight was called, until I pulled up at a neighbors to pick up Max. We would talk again we promised. I felt a circle drawn complete in the sweetest of ways.
I picked up Max. I talked to Jackie. I went to the grocery store. I came home and checked email. And then, only then, I learned that my friend Jenni had died, ending at long last her long painful struggle with cancer. As I wrote down time she had passed away for my journal, I did the math and realized that as I was saying a hello to one I thought I would never talk to again, another I held dear was saying goodbye forever.
And I held that simple fact in my heart. For days, I held it.
*******
This fall I have been learning about letting go. I have been mourning my friend Jen for so long, but I have been working through other changes as well. I have been letting go of old habits, letting go of my favorite defenses, letting go of my most cherished stories. Our foundation has been wobbly as the cornerstones of our life have been, one by one, shifting, transitioning, creating space. Its been hard, scary, at times heartbreaking to see things I loved so much dismantled. As we have managed the bumps and the inevitable fear, I have carried around a mustard seed, convincing myself that I only needed a tiny bit of faith. Stumble forward onward onward–a path would appear that would make it all make sense.
One day, I asked my soulsister Kaiya, “What ever happened to the burning bush? It would be very convenient to see one, you know, with a booming voice and everything. It would be lovely for that voice to let us in on the plan. I am all about the small and subtle, don’t get me wrong, but these days I am feeling so dense and tired and lacking in faith that I would like someone to please let me know what this is all about through something as concrete as a burning bush. It would be a great comfort.”
*******
I don’t think that phone call was a burning bush. But I do think it was a bell. A bell telling me that there is no such thing as goodbye. No such thing as forever.
Nothing is ever really lost. No matter how far away, no matter how long past, no matter how faded-it is there, tranformed perhaps, but accessible in some way, at the end of a ring, a simple as saying hello.
The other night when we returned from our Sunday family dinner, Max was undone. It a full weekend of lights and latkes, hockey and treehouses, Grinches and pancakes and too much sparkling apple cider. He was tired. But it was more than that too.
This time of year seems to stir it up–the sense of what we don’t have. Is it the Christmas list making? Or is it the darkness that descends way too early and lasts way too long? What is it that brings up the greatest longings? The biggest needs and wants?
He sobbed in the kitchen trying to explain. “I hate that you guys divorced. I hate that Papi doesn’t live here. I hate that I don’t get to see my dad except for a few hours a week.” (I know baby, I hate it all too). “I hate that I have no brothers and sisters. I hate that I feel so left out. I hate that I am the only one without a dad at these things.”
It all started when Max got his feelings hurt by someone he adores. When he was literally shoved into a corner. It happens, the shoving, life is full of unintended bumps and pushes. They in and of themselves may be no big deal but they can bring up the deepest of wounds, can stir up dragon and gremlins.
Long after he had fallen asleep, cried out and complete, I too grieved all that we have grieved over and over again and wondered how in the world to stent a broken heart? This unhealed wound, this sense of being not quite whole, makes him so vulnerable. And nothing undoes me like this, his pain exposed.
There is something about the holidays that make it worse. The endless Christmas specials with their perfect families. Just recently, we saw not one, but two stories with a magic happy ending when mom and dad got back together and families reunited just in time to open gifts.
I have spent much of the last few years knitting us a tribe, patching together our broken hearts with a community, filling the empty places with laughter and food. Inviting ourselves in to other people’s families and claiming them as our own. We have created something beautiful out of something that was broken and that is a miracle. But it can’t replace that that bright shiny big family Max always wanted, or dare I say it, that I always wanted too. I need to keep reminding myself not to attach labels or expectations to this that we built. For while this community is many things, it is also not many things. I can lose the joy of it while I point out everything that it isn’t.
Tonight I curled up under covers in Max’s red bed and together we talked about the pros and cons of being an only child in a house with a single mom. There is no one to play with when Mom does her chores, her work, the cleaning and laundry. There is no one to pinch hit when mama is busy which makes him feel lonely and a little bit unsure. The house can feel big and empty and life can seem like too much with just us chickens. There is noone to interrupt us while we read for hours on end together–books out loud, one more chapter, why not? There is no one to take away his mama when he is sick or sad or simply just needing the attention. This bed can feel just the right size for a boy and his mom and two favorite books. Truth is, nothing is all one thing and every family can feel broken and whole all at the same time.
Our family at the holidays is a meditation. About seeing. Not what is missing but what is really there, right at this moment–ugly, beautiful, broken but real, and shiny and full of goodness. Our life is a meditation about not comparing what we have against check-lists that promise unending happiness but always disappoint. As I lay in bed long after little eyes had closed, I wondered about how to move him from longing and grief to gratitude and appreciation. I know that it starts with me and my practice. Somehow it always does. He learned to speak by emulating me. Maybe he can learn to let go of wanting by watching me too. And yet, tonight, I light a little candle on my altar, say a prayer to the universe, to make it a tiny bit easier, a little bit smoother to let go and want nothing for Christmas but what I have so that he too can learn just how whole he already is.
Before I post again, I needed to stop to offer a huge thank you to the many people who have stopped by this blog, emailed, called, or facebooked in the last few days. Your kind, loving, beautiful words are a gift.
The overwhelming emotion for this week has been great gratitude for the gift of Jenni that we all shared, that indeed we all continue to share. Jenni lives on in all us, whenever we reach out to stranger, whenever we are courageous enough to be raw, and real, when we speak truth to power, when we find humor, grace and beauty in the most difficult of situations. Jenni lives on when we hug our children, when sing at the top of our lungs, when we make our art (whether it is with paper, dance, music, paint, fabric, clay or words). Jenni is with us when we cry at night, when we worry about our babies, when we contemplate the suffering in our homes, our communities, the world. Jenni is with us when we giggle with our girlfriends, when we pour “a cuppa” and sit for tea with our sisters, when we tell our stories over and over again in the hopes that we will find healing there. If we follow our stories, we will find as that in the end, there is only love–love so big and messy and wide and deep. That was the lesson of Jenni.
I have been holding a small moment of silence over here for Jen, until she be laid to rest. But now it is time to keep doing what Jenni and I enjoyed doing together–writing, connecting, watching, witnessing, living and growing.
I will. I will. I will. Everyday I will.
Will you?
Several years, or maybe it was a lifetime ago, I was sitting at my desk checking email. I got a comment on my old blog, from a woman named Jennifer Ballantyne. She had been reading me for a while and had finally decided to comment, because the post I had written was so similar to one she herself had just penned. It was as though we both moving out from the same heart writing about our sons, about the experience of single motherhood from one perspective. That night I read her blog from start to finish and walked away thinking, she is me-or I am she…or maybe we were soul sisters cut from the same cloth.
Slowly, very slowly we started talking off blog, by email about writing, about creating. She had ideas for my blog, thoughts about my writing. Most of her opinions were strong and most of them were exactly what I needed to hear–my platform was awkward, my writing was better than I thought it was, I needed to showcase myself better, have more confidence. She told me I should write a book. I was touched by support, I found her easy to “talk” to, she could call me out on my writing insecurities without any of my gremlins joining in the party.
One day, while responding to an email where she was helping me with a tough piece, I mentioned to her, “shhh….don’t tell anyone but I am going on a date. My first date since Juan left”. “Tell me all about it, dear girl” she responded. At that moment the floodgates opened, and our friendship really began.
Within weeks and for a long long time after that, not a day went by that we didn’t talk. By email, by phone, by skype. We talked about our kids, about what we loved about our towns, about what we were making for dinner, what we would give our kids for Christmas. We talked about being single moms, our ex-husbands, our relationships with our siblings. I felt that she got me. She understood when well-meaning but thoughtless comments were made about how I was trying to parent Max. She understood when no one else did. She understood all the ways we single mamas struggle–all the guilt and sadness and worry we carry that sometimes feels heavier than those of our partnered up sisters. She was like a mama bear and defended me fiercely when someone hurt my feelings.
She was my confidant on the ins-and-outs of my heart. My crushes, my heartbreaks. My joys. I told her all my old love stories and she told me hers too. I was baffled by the fact that someone I had never met face to face could know me so well. She was taken back too. After awhile we stopped being baffled and would laugh about the day when we would meet, wrap our arms around each other and sit on the beach laughing…remember back then, when we were penpals and emailed long emails every night–pouring out our hearts to a stranger who would become a sister. What a crazy leap! Aren’t we glad we did it? Look how wonderful it has all turned out!
The reality was Jenni was so far away, she could see me clearly.
One spring night, when loneliness covered me like a heavy blanket, I called Jenni and we talked for 4 hours. One summer night, when she was feeling blue, my friend Jeff, some other musician friends and I and I called her and played music for her loud –giving her her own private concert via speaker phone.
Jenni’s cancer was something we talked about. Alot. But it wasn’t the basis of our connection. Almost two years ago, Jenni’s cancer came roaring back after a brief respite. We promised each other we would live each day as though it was our last.
I have been losing Jenni slowly, over the last half a year or so. Her pain has required a full-time move to hospice. She was writing less and less. At various points, we have said our goodbyes–never quite final–but making sure we knew the important stuff. That it never went unsaid. One night, on the phone, we came to a peace that we might never make it to that beach, to that moment when we would wrap our arms around each other and whisper our secrets in person. “We found each other from halfway across the world” we said. “We will find each other again. Next time. I promise.”
*******
Tonight my friend Jeff came over for a guitar lesson. He walked in the door. He asked me how I was.
“Jenni died tonight”. I told him.
He put down his guitar. He put Max to bed. He then settled down on my couch and he said, “tell me”. I began to re-tell him all the stories he already knew–how Jenni and I first met, how we laughed and chatted and skyped and stayed up late talking on the phone. He listened as I told him about her opinions, her Jack, her dream to come to the US, her blog. He listened as I told him how Jenni understood things no one else could truly understand. I told him all I had learned from Jenni. How I learned to tell my friends that I love them, no matter how crazy or silly or odd it sounded. How I learned to listen to strangers. How I learned to push back when people hurt me. Telling stories was the only way I knew to keep Jenni alive. Telling stories was what Jenni and I did. So I told him my love stories, all the old ones I had told Jenni. And I ended with the love story about the about two soul sisters who would never meet.
Jenni is a gift to me. The lessons she taught me are rich and deep. She is with me, even if she isn’t. She always has been with me, even though she never actually was, and so, I suppose in that way nothing has changed. We have talked so much, I can hear her voice, know exactly what she would say, what she is saying. I will have it to carry with me, as I did each time we ended.
“Good night gorgeous girl. I have so much more to say to you, but for now it is late. And it is time to let each other sleep”
Good night dear Jenni. I love you. Good night.
Take care of each others children.
Walk each others dogs.
Feed each other. Regularly.
Make bread, make soup, make cookies. Leave care packages on door steps.Cook together.
Pray together. Even when, especially when, our prayers are not the same.
Light candles.
Sing.
Dance.
Laugh.
Search for buried treasure.
Go to parties.
Step in with a helping hand at the moment it is needed.
Know when to hold space and do nothing more.
Share good fortune, surprises and exciting adventures.
Visit each other’s past.
Venture into the woods together.
Stay through the rain together.
Make art. Make music.
Tear down walls and defy boundaries.
Play games.
Watch each other blossom.
Take big risks with the heart. Cry if needed. Its ok, really.
Retreat if you need to, but leave a trail of bread crumbs to find your way home.
Expect nothing but receive joyfully and completely.
