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Life Resumes

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Well, through some quirk or miracle, all the snow has bypassed us. So, even though I love snow, I guess that’s a good thing today. I have to head back home as soon as the sun comes up. I have 7 cats who have been on their own for a couple of days now. (They have plenty of food and water, I’m just worried about the litter boxes…)

It did get really cold here, though. My dad being just shy of 90,  turned the heat way up. Luckily my bedroom is in the sunroom — walls of windows. So it’s a lot colder in here than in the rest of the apartment, which feels almost unbearably hot to me! Anyway. It is cold outside today and very windy.

So now we officially embark on a new era. My dad as a widower. And a widower who will have way too much time on his hands, so he’s already worrying about that. I am, too.  I asked him if he wanted to come live with me, but he declined. Not just because of the 7 cats, but mostly because he can’t imagine living in the middle of nowhere.

Here, he lives in an Independent Living complex — which means that as soon as anything goes wrong with him physically, the nursing home guarantees him a room. This whole area where he lives is just a massive compound dedicated to old age and dying. (It’s also really nice and really expensive.) But I guess it’s best for him to just stay put here, even though he’s by himself now. Obviously, though, I’m going to have to make a lot more trips back here from now on.

Which is good, because I only have to go to NYC, Toronto, and LA a lot this year… Anyway.

My first husband,  being Chinese, alerted me yesterday in an email that the Chinese New Year is almost upon us and it is once more time for it to be the Year of the Rat!!! Which is my year!! He is currently trying to locate my forecast for the year.  He said that, in general, though, it’s going to be a good year for all the signs.

I can already feel that this is a transformative year for me — work, money, emotional well-being. Those things are already changing in a pronounced way and it’s only mid-January. I guess maybe I need to figure out what to do about my “love” situation. I don’t know.  The man I love couldn’t be more married and unavailable if he tried. I think priests who are married to God are technically more available than he is, so my love is absolutely just thrown into my work. I try to at least put my love into the world, in that way, because that’s sort of the only real place it can go.

Sometimes it makes me feel indescribably insane, though, so maybe this will be the year that I deal with that, too. I honestly don’t know. But everything else in my life is truly transforming. And for now I’m okay with love being an intensely private thing that only goes out into the world. It certainly helps my writing. So we will see.

Okay. Well.

Its been an intense trip. A lot of old painful family issues hovered close to the surface for me this whole time, but I was able to not be held prisoner by them, and to let the past be what it was and just move on. The one glaring constant reminder of old history was that my older brother isn’t here. And even though I haven’t seen him in many years, not a soul even asked about him or mentioned him.

Maybe I will go into more detail about all that some other time, I don’t know.  I did find it disconcerting that everyone kept thanking me for coming to the funeral to support my dad or to support them in the loss of their mother. No one seemed to notice at all that she had been my stepmom for over 30 years. Stepmothers are big deals, you know?  Think of it — Cinderella  had quite a monumental stepmother; so did Snow White!! My stepmother happened to be incredibly kind and loving to me— and considerate and compassionate. For some reason, that doesn’t seem to have made an impression on anyone else.

Anyway, I think that metaphysical pondering is best left for another blog post. I need to get moving here. Have a good Sunday, wherever you are in the world! Nick Cave resumes his Conversations in Europe tomorrow, so that will give me something wonderful to ponder again for a couple weeks! Meanwhile, thanks for visiting!! I love you guys. See ya.

 

Truly Beautiful

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My stepmom’s funeral was truly beautiful.

She was Italian, intensely Catholic — did the rosary ever day. The church was breathtaking, really. Modern. Spacious. Filled with natural light, even though it poured rain outside the entire time.

The priest did a really moving ceremony— he knew my stepmom really well and so was able to really give of himself in a personal way. And he was extremely considerate of my dad’s being Jewish among all those Christians.

At the last moment, I took the priest’s blessing rather than take the Holy Eucharist. I don’t believe in transubstantiation. I was going to just consider it “Communion”  but then changed my mind right when the priest was handing me the blessed wafer — I knew he considered it Christ’s body and I didn’t. I didn’t want to be disrespectful. But being around all the icons of Christ today and knowing His presence was there for my stepmom made me feel just really, really blessed and at peace.

A long, long day though. My dad is exhausted. He assumed I was staying another night and leaving in the morning, so I guess that’s what I’m doing!

It’s been an extremely intense time for me, for reasons I don’t want to blog about, but I wouldn’t have missed the funeral for anything. She was a wonderful woman and always really good to me.

Here’s the Lord’s Prayer Mass card for her and one of the stone angels from the corner of my stepmom’s casket. There was an Angel on each corner of the casket. Each of the (adult) children got one.

Life Continues to Astound and Amaze

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Yesterday was an intense day. That spiritual midway point, where my stepmom has already died but the funeral hasn’t happened yet.  That process of closure hasn’t begun yet, and the huge change brought on by her sudden absence from the world is still raw.

But my dad is doing very well, all things considered. All of the families arrived yesterday — from California and Alabama, and of course me, too.  So that kind of commotion is very healing, I think. The only real rough patch for him was that we had to go out to the cemetery and choose the headstone.

It was a very curious sort of feeling for me, personally, because now I’ve seen where my dad is going to be buried. And now I know what the headstone looks like that will have his name on the other half of it.

And I was also thinking, wow — could you have found a more remote cemetery? How on Earth will I ever find this place ever again?

Its a really pretty place, though. Old. Very arts deco.

The dinner last night was magical. There was that sort of happy, blessed feeling. There were 14 of us. Ranging in ages from 4 to 90.  All of my stepmom’s children were there and her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. And her husband and her stepdaughter. It was the only time, ever, that all of us were in the same room together, having dinner at the same table. I know for sure that the spirit of my stepmom was there with us,, feeling her own joy. The sense of bliss that was at that table last night was pronounced.

Today will be more difficult, since it’s the actual funeral.  But the main part that will be overwhelming for my dad is that 2 special buses of people are coming— the nursing home where she lived for the last 11 years had to rent a bus to accommodate the amount of staff and patients who want to attend my stepmom’s funeral. She was so loved there by everybody. And all her friends from high school (!!) also rented a special bus. And my stepmom would have been 80 in a couple weeks, and it still requires a bus to accommodate all her friends from her girlhood who want to come to her funeral to tell her goodbye.

She was just so loved. She really was just the most caring, happy, loving woman.

I don’t know yet if I’ll head home later today or wait until tomorrow morning. Still playing it all by ear.  Waiting to see if my dad will just want to be alone tonight or not want to be alone, you know?

Oh, and loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I’m not a big television watcher and so the TV set that I have in my family room is a 20-year old digital set, not a flat screen TV.  I’d been thinking lately that I need to get a modern TV but the very last thing I want to spend money on is a television… Yesterday, my dad gave me my stepmom’s flat screen TV. It’s a really large one. It takes up the whole trunk of my car!

Okay, I’m gonna scoot. I hear my dad puttering in the kitchen.  Have a good Saturday, gang. Thanks for visiting.

Mini Update

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Naturally I’ve already had to make a rest stop, since I managed to drink 3 cups of coffee before I left. But here in the public toilet stall in the middle of nowhere, I of course checked my email!!

An excerpt from my novel Blessed By Light has gone “live” at that new literary zine out of Wales— The Finest Example.com! It’s a slightly different version of Chapter 18, titled “The Guitar Hero Goes Home.” I see that it already has some “likes” and a nice comment! As soon as I’m not in a public toilet stall, I will post the link to it!!

And I see that Nick Cave has also posted a Red Hand Files thing!! It seems to be about music and Kanye…

Into the Newness of Life

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I woke up this morning and everything felt just a little bit better. I had a lot of complex dreams during the night, although I don’t remember any of them. But I just felt on firmer footing, emotionally, when I woke up.

It’s still dark out here, but I’m getting ready to go.  Remembered to pack my high heels and stockings at the last minute,  I won’t have to wear Skechers to the funeral, with my pearls and my black dress…

I leave you with the song that was in my head when I awoke at 4:30. I got the feeling the man was visiting me in spirit again. It wasn’t as pronounced as I felt it the other day, but I felt him and he made me smile. So I played this song at the breakfast table, and watched the cats eat happily, and I  thought about life.

Thanks for visiting. I love you guys.

This Day Is Almost Sucking

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Grief really sucks, you know? Doesn’t it?

And for me, there’s also a lot of anger in it — in grief.  I hate having to “work shit out”. In my brain, I mean. In my heart. I’d rather just, you know, go along my merry way.

I don’t like to be angry. And I also don’t like to feel crippled by grief. I’m guessing I’m the only person on Earth who feels this way…

Well, very early this morning, even though it is nearly freezing outside, a bird was singing outside my window. I knew it was connected to my stepmom. I just knew it. She was a very intensely spiritual person while she was alive and I’m guessing she hasn’t changed since yesterday, when she died.

I don’t know if she was telling me she was all right, or telling me to get my ass out of bed and stop crying. Maybe a little of both? But I know it was connected to her — that little merrily singing bird in the dead of winter, in the maple tree right outside my window. So I am going to try to make the best out of this day somehow. Then first thing tomorrow, I’m leaving to go be with my dad. Then the funeral is Saturday.

And I will make every effort not to shoot myself, because it would be so intensely inappropriate.

Meanwhile.

Here are a couple things that might be of interest to you.

If you are an American artist of any kind — writer, visual, etc. Please join the Copyright Alliance. It is free to join. Copyrights are once again coming under attack in the USA and you need to stay informed about what is at stake for the copyrights of your work in the age of the Internet. Join here. It takes 2 minutes.

On Instagram this morning, Stefanos Rokos announced that his art exhibition in Antwerp has been extended by popular demand. It will run again from January 22 -February 9th. These are the incredible paintings inspired by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ No More Shall We Part album. If you live in Belgium or will be traveling there, the details of the gallery and the exhibit are here.

Which reminds me, that it is now almost two weeks since there was a Red Hand Files thingy from Nick Cave!! (Perhaps the bird outside my window today was telling me to find a reason to go on living anyway. I guess we’ll see.)

All right. I need to go. I’m not sure my writing will yield anything productive today. I’m not sure if I’m going to even try. Yesterday was all about sitting at the kitchen table and staring; calling my dad every few hours to make sure he wasn’t falling to pieces — although he was.

I have no clue what today will be about.  I’m so angry and I’m just so fucking sad.  I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with life, you know. But I’m guessing that will change. Everything always does.

Have a good day, wherever you are. I love you guys.