The Grief Report: Week 7

Daughter M and Dan in the Library Bar at my MFA graduation Jan. 2010

I'm sitting in this very spot as I write this. The plant in the corner has been replaced by a smaller pot of the same plant and now sits on the end table. M is a slightly older version of her amazing self--but back at home with my mom so I can be here. I have with a glass of white zinfandel instead of my customary lemon martini. Dan, however, is gone, no longer of this world. Part of grieving, I have discovered, is finding more and more places where the person you loved is not.

But I am breathing. Living. Talking. Listening. Relishing. Mourning. Rejoicing.

There's been a nice battery recharge for me here. Connecting with fellow writers, faculty, and mentors--and getting to read from my book. I will return to my reclusive corner of writer-ville, seeking community--wholeheartedly intending to build one.

Top Ten Reasons I Love Living With My Mother

1. Well, she's my mom.
2. I get weird living alone.
3. I actually cook things--whole meals--and I eat them.
4. I sit at the dining room table while eating the meals I cooked.
5. There's someone to talk to while I sit at the dining room table eating the meals I cooked.
6. It's fun to have another bird nerd in the house. (We will both get up from the table if a blue heron comes in for a landing.)
7. I never have to do the dishes.
8. Due to my new motto, "There ought to be one sober person in the house," I'm hardly drinking at all.
9. She has cookies hidden in her bedroom.
10. Since I can't really go anywhere, my writing life has revved up.

I've been writing a novel for a while. The first 150-some pages were my MFA thesis. I was, at that time, in the absolute worst physical-mental-intellectual-psychological condition of my life due to my fucking hell-hole of a divorce. A few months back, I finally opened the  novel file on my computer and completed a first draft. Today chapters 4 and 5 traded places. Then chapters 3 and 4 traded places. New scenes were added to all of the above. Chapter 7 ate chapter 6. I think I  have 55 much-improved pages.

Thanks, Mom
Here's a fuzzy photo of me and my diploma.

Dogs, Desserts, and Further Disposition of Thanksgiving Leftovers

I walked dogs this morning. Two and a half hours of trudging off leftovers was one of the most fabulous ways I could have spent the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I'm not really a small dog person. The smallest dog I've ever owned was a 35-lb. terrier mix named Lulu, but at the Humane Society, in order to be kind to my back and shoulders, I walk mostly chihuahua mixes. If I could have a dog in my life right now, I would be making plans to adopt a 5-month-old brown chihuahua mix that has black markings like a German Shepherd. He's larger than most of the chis, and looks like a miniature version of my shepherd-collie mix, Lola, who died last year. Before she turned white in the face, her markings were dark. Never in a million years would I have ever thought I'd be interested in a tiny dog.

The leftover project is proceeding quite well. Cabbage and mashed potato soup was not made today, but a 41-page application for the 1st MFA program on my list was. C's husband who is here with her visiting made her some gnocchi out of the mashed potatoes. Tomorrow he will make a pot pie and use up the last of the dark meat turkey, the gravy, and the mashed potatoes that remain. I have just taken leftover sweet potato custard out of the oven.

And here's a dog named Sweet Potato.

I feel Christmas melancholy nibbling at the edges. It's a precarious time for me. Desserts and dogs might keep it at bay.
Oh! This guy has been adopted!

The Bad, Bad Nanny

I'm obsessed with dreams right now. My dreams to be more specific. Why I'm having them and remembering them when for years I awoke feeling that I had dropped into a cavern in the center of the earth when I slept--or that I hadn't really slept at all--just lain there all night almost asleep, but not quite.

I tried to dream a dream for my friend Elizabeth last night. A dream of something light and healing for her and her daughter Sophie. All I managed was a setting that would be perfect for them--a fabulous beach house on a rocky cliff that dropped to the sea. Elizabeth sometimes says Sophie is like a mermaid or a selkie because she always seems better by the ocean. There were tide pools in my dream. A path. A wooden platform at the bottom for sunbathing and a ladder bolted to the rocks for climbing out.

I was a nanny in this house. One of two nannies because I needed time off to attend something that was very much like the MFA program in creative writing that I graduated from last year. Sometimes though the other nanny and I were both in the house together tending to a little girl and a little boy. And both of us were having  affairs with their father. The physical attraction I felt for this man was intense. We couldn't pass one another in the hallway without groping. If we both ended up at the refrigerator at the same moment, we'd stand there with the door open, the cool air and the light bathing us while we kissed with one hand on the carton of milk. He was tall and trim and movie star handsome. Straight sandy-colored hair with a craggy complexion. Not someone from my real life.

When I went off to write, I spent a lot of time walking around with a friend. A short skinny man with glasses and hair that fell across his eyes. We walked with our arms around one another, talking and  adoring each other platonically, and there was something we were worried about, but I'm not sure what. I have no idea who this man is either.

When I returned to the house, I came back with a poet I know named J. V.  J. V. was wearing a dark business suit and a tie. He went crazy with happiness when he saw the house. We walked along the cliffs, the wind blowing his black hair so it stood straight up from his forehead. He laughed and laughed because the beauty of the place made him happy. So happy he  ran down the steep slope to the water and jumped in business suit and all. I went down to the water by a more gradual route and slipped in too. We paddled around in the waves and climbed back to the house drenched.

One thing I know about J.V. in real life is that he's terrified of flying--like me. Once I gave him my instructions:  Hit the bar as soon as you get to the airport. Also bring your own little bottles of booze--the 3 oz. size that you can fit in your one-quart zip-lock bag. After you go through security, buy your mixer. Then you can fix your drinks on the plane without having to wait for the cart.

Three different men in this dream. An affair. Children. A house by an ocean. A refrigerator. A carton of milk. A ladder. A platform. A job.