Monday Morning Grief Report

Mondays. Bottom of the crater. Mondays. No salvation.

Dan always spent Sunday night at my place. Awake before dawn. The lingering. Out of bed at the last possible moment, bolting through the shower, then downstairs to the coffee pot. We took our coffee into the car, me always reminding him that the clock in the car was twelve minutes fast. Driving in the pale light. Warm coffee. Warm hands. Train station kisses. Call me, baby. Or I'll call you, doll. Sometimes he liked to say my whole name: Good-bye, Denise Emanuel Clemen. My name seemed so extravagant next to his. He signed his emails to me d--. I signed mine D--.

The dawn sky was pure drama this morning, but I could not get up. Sit up and take a picture from bed, I told myself. I did not. C'mon. No. When you argue with yourself you always win.

At 6:06 I thought about reaching for the phone. Thought about calling the caregiver and canceling. Skipping yoga. Staying in my pajamas all day. Telling my mom she could stay in hers. I thought about it a long time. At 7:30 I bolted into the shower, then downstairs to the coffee pot. Still brushing my teeth when the caregiver arrived.

Yoga is always good. Body. Mind. Spirit. I hate that we divide ourselves that way. Whatever. Afterwards I sat in the hatch of my car. Outdoor office, the yoga teacher said. Room with a view, I said.

I declined an invitation to walk with friends. Made a doctor's appointment for my mom. Ordered one of her prescriptions. All the while fighting the sadness billowing inside. Errands. Errands are the cure. Do what must be done. One does not weep while shopping for a toilet seat riser in CVS. Well, one could. I did not. Study all the slippers. One does not weep shopping for slippers. Maybe there's a pair that would be better for her. Feel all the soles. Feel all the souls. Too slippery? Too much grip? What else? What else can I buy to make her life easier?

Finally I make it to the beach. I walk with a cup of coffee, warming my cold hands. The day looks like this.

24 Hours

This is the So Cal talk of the town this evening. But not for me.

I slipped out the door yesterday morning, simply telling my mother that I was off to an evening of theatre with old friends. (M is here.)

It was a much bigger day than that. It was a drive through the past, recent and not-so-recent, in a grid-lock through L.A. way where you have time to inhabit years of your life, taking it all in, remembering this and wondering if you'll ever forget that.

I had lunch with my dear friend Elizabeth, a friend I know "in the memoir way." You want to get to know someone? Take a memoir writing class. Write down your story. Read it. Listen while they read some pages from their story. Repeat, repeat. Thereafter those words will always hover between you. They are the basis for how you know them. How you trusted them with your story. How they will always be able to trust you with theirs. Sprinkle some of that over your Greek salad.

She and I went to the memorial service for the husband of the beautiful and fabulous women who taught that first class we took something close to a decade ago. This must be hard for you, Elizabeth and other friends said, acknowledging my own recent loss of the man who loved me. A dark place I chose not to step into. One cannot go to the service for another's beloved and wail. T'ai Chi Chih has taught me to place my feet flat on the floor, to feel the earth beneath the floor, and connect with the energy there. To breathe. To recognize my t'an tien. Your friend's grief is not your grief. All grief is all grief, said the voices in my head. Both are true. So I let those voices just talk it out while my feet stayed flat.

There were prayers, and poems, and remembrances. One learns so much at a memorial. Memorial. Memoir. Both peel open the story. The music, performed by the church choir and a soloist from the Los Angeles Opera was probably the most stunning I have ever heard at a church service. The soloist, a beautiful young soprano, was from South Korea. Dan's face seemed to materialize from her face in the moments I felt most transported. There he was in front of me, my beloved.

Then came the driving. I drove through one old neighborhood after another on surface streets, crawling along in traffic that seemed just one car short of gridlock, contemplating the three decades of my life with a man who discarded me like I was nothing. How incredibly lucky that was in the bad luck good luck sort of way. I shuffled my plans around to this and that as if all the time travel was unhinging my brain and after, a stop at a favorite museum, ended up in the new incarnation of the very restaurant where, for years, I ate dinner nearly every Sunday night with The Someone, Finally, I went to the theatre with friends and saw a play that I performed in myself forty years ago. I slept at the house of those dear old friends who gave me oranges and almonds this morning that I ate in my car with a perfect latté I bought at an old-haunt coffee shop.

It was a lot to think about.

And 24 hours later, an empty cup in my cup-holder, I was back. Not singed from the re-entry, but warmed.

Monday Morning Beach Report

Long weekend crowded beach or Why I love it here.

Holiday beach goers.
Bikinied girls boogie boarding into the waves, screaming.
The water is cold and there's a dead sea lion on the sand.
I traipse along in my orange polar fleece jacket, sipping the last from my coffee mug.
On the gritty pavement next to my car is a penny.
Just superstitious enough, I pick it up, put it into the cup holder, hope for the best.

Monday Morning Beach Report on Martin Luther King's Birthday

Islands lost behind a smudge of clouds.
Lone surfer.
Man above it all in an improbable flying machine.
Weekenders debating the temperature of the water.
Young couple overheard: How long do you plan to be out here? he asks.
I'm walking all the way to the harbor, she says.
Get on a boat. Sail away from him, I telepathically advise.
And me. I clumsily drop my mug of coffee into the sand, filling its spout with grit.
Cursing the loss of comfort's brew, I pick it up, spilling what remains on my pants.
Later, in the coffee shop, a young black man enters with his two children. His tee-shirt reads
"I can't breathe."

My Feet

Yesterday, my feet stood on my kitchen floor in front of the coffee pot while I made coffee for my friend, Ellen, and me.

Then my feet (and her feet) went here, where she talked to me about reverse faults, and mountain ranges, and tectonic plates. I taught her the difference between snowy plovers and sanderlings, and how to tell a whimbrel from a curlew.

beautiful gull

Then our feet stretched out on yoga mats, supported our weight, more or less, until after an hour, we lay on our back, all of that stretching and strengthening and conscious breathing finished.

Then with one of my feet pressed to the gas pedal, I took us here--A Buddhist temple.

We went inside and took off our shoes, and our feet stood in front of this.

And this.

And then we stood in front of several pieces of art by THIS ARTIST.

I'm planning a trip to India in 2015. I feel it all the way down to my toes.

Devices, Dessert, and Other Good Things

There are three main indicators that my mom is feeling well: 1) She heads for the coffee pot immediately upon waking. 2) She has a martini at 5:30. 3) She spends a lot of time at the kitchen island reading the newspapers on the iPad. Her iPad (well, mine actually) is behind the Kleenex box in this photo of the goings on after dinner last night. If you look past the ice cream and the cake, you'll see her not-quite-finished martini, but she did indeed drain it sometime after dessert.

It was a pretty fine weekend here in Margaritaville. We didn't just stare at our respective screens all weekend.

There was beach walking.

And coffee-talking at  a quaint place with crocheted table legs.

On Friday I installed some of the crochet-work of my mom's that we brought back from the East Coast.

my bathroom window

the bedspread

All in all, it was a more than fine weekend with the many good and sweet and amazing things over -shadowing the alimony mediation that swallowed a portion of Saturday. My mom is recovering. M was here all weekend. And the man who loves me managed some extra hours in Margaritaville too.

My Life as Expressed by Signs

My brain reads this sign as "stark reality." While there are some parts of life that do feel rather stark currently--today, well, not so much.

The man who loves me is here, and we visited the local farmers market where we saw a turquoise ling cod.

The fish was for sale, but was whole so we purchased a regularly pigmented ling cod that was already filleted. The fisherman swore that the meat of the turquoise fish is actually turquoise.

We had a cup of coffee in a neighborhood where there appears to be a guerilla crochet artist on the loose.

We prowled the Ventura swap meet where, for a brief moment, I wondered if Margaritaville might need a kitchen appliance called the Margarator.

But tomorrow I will call my attorney, think of a certain Someone, and as I ponder the recent goings on, I'm likely to share a certain sentiment expressed by a Chinese restaurant that the man who loves me visited recently. Now there's a stark reality for you.

Living Inside an E. E. Cummings Poem

"Yes," my mother said when I asked her if I should flip the switch on her coffee pot. I was already paying homage to my little single cup machine when she scuffed around the corner in her flowered pajamas. "Wheeeeeee," she said as I lifted the silver toggle on her coffee maker.

That enthusiastic exclamation made me think of E. E. Cummings.

Here are two of his poems  for your reading enjoyment:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

The olives from the previous evening's martini are another thing to look forward to in the morning. Wheeeeeeee.

I Might Need a Makeover

I did a volunteer shift at the Downtown Women's Center today. Instead of sorting donations like I did Tuesday (Dear person who decided to own a pair of Earth Shoes in every color and then changed your mind about Earth Shoes, thank you,) I began training to work in "Made," the coffee shop/boutique. I'm learning how to use the cash register and make espresso drinks on a coffee machine that's only slightly smaller than a Smart Car. The idea behind this training is that, eventually, I will be able to train some of the women who are currently homeless in the DWC's job training program.
And if my worst case scenario arrives, I will have a marketable skill or two.
Or maybe someday, I'll have a little coffee place of my own: Beach Beans.

At the end of my shift, I was asked to deposit a large bag of trash in the dumpster behind the center. I wrangled the monster bag out the door and through the parking lot gate, noticing that the massive pedestrian gates were already closed and locked. Hmmm. That's right, I thought, I'll bet the day center is closed today for the all-staff meeting. Then I heard a slight whirring and a clunk. The parking lot gates. Yup. There I was, not looking my sharpest with a head of hat-hair after my café shift (yes, the job requires a hat, but it's not paper and looks stylish on most people,) toting a large black trash bag. The staff person who bolted out the door asked me very politely, and almost tenderly, if she could help me, but I'm pretty sure she thought I was homeless.

Note to self: dress for success, and carry a comb and some hair product.

Photo note: The pictures above and below are from"Made" the DWC boutique and coffee café.