Church pictures

 

FB Post and Responses

 I've been having trouble "getting anywhere" so I posted this note to the Widows FB group I follow:

 3 1/2 years in and I'm having trouble getting going again. I'm very lucky to be financially secure so I don't work. But I don't know what I care about. I used to do art and write but without my spouse there to show drafts and pictures to, I don't anymore. I'm very "other directed" and have no "others" that I care about enough to show stuff to so I don't make stuff. There's nothing productive that I want to do just for myself. All I do when I'm not traveling, is smoke weed, watch TV, and walk my dogs. I can't write except for blog posts. I can't do art anymore. I see other people to talk to for about 5 hours each week and the rest of the time I'm by myself. Having read "Let Them", I now know what it takes to have friends as an adult and I think that someday I'll have the energy to make friends again but right now it looks like too much work. I have a grief therapist who says it goes as it goes and to experience what I'm experiencing. Does anyone have any idea how to care about being productive again when there's not a financial incentive? 

 I got great responses including from women who have been grieving for longer than I and are having the same problem. The primary idea is that I need to "make myself" and "push myself" to get out of the house and I realize that that's right. It doesn't come naturally. I largely just don't want to do stuff and the only way to get stuff done is to give myself a stern talking to and get off my but and do it. I was gratified to note that a couple of women said that even when they push themselves to go out they don't feel connected and whole anymore.  Misery lovesa da company.

Tomorrow, maybe. I think Allan Sherman had a song about doing things tomorrow because "tomorrow never comes."

Coming in to The Haven is helpful. It reminds me that at times I've cared about being a writer, about creating things and maybe I will again.

I've been working, a sentence or bullet point at a time, on a memoir of our marriage. Are we still married? For time and eternity? He is in the house, or his spirit is, but Matthew's Jesus is very clear that there is no "giving in marriage" in the afterlife. Were we together in a past life and will we be together in the next? I wonder about these things.

Will I understand our life if I write about it?

Will I understand myself if I write about it? 

 

That Gosh Darn Rage

I am now going to The Haven in the afternoon, hoping that the free beer will make up for not being here in the early morning. I look at the river full of boaters and feel anger.  I drive through town and see all the new buildings and feel anger. I forget things and feel anger. My computer doesn't work right and I feel anger. 

And the inner violence since September.  That's been interesting. 

The world is a terrible beautiful place. I feel so much sadness for Texas and Gaza and Ukraine. All this horror in the world.  I'm am lucky to be safe.  Then why am I so sad and angry so much of the time?  Because I'm a crazy asshole.

I'm just as sad and angry and violent as any MAGA -- but I'm not stupid, so I guess that's the difference.  

I'm angry in part because I'm sober right now.  I really should get off weed because it's super bad for my health but really, who cares?  I just hope the heart attack that takes me out does it quickly and completely.  I hope I don't stroke out. But I've got enough $$ to pay people to take care of me since I don't have children or a young wife. I've fixed my will so that Lilli Ann will get some money and take control of the animals when I go.  It cost me $380 to change one name to another name in my will. Fuck lawyers.

Dear Will:

Do you remember when we joked about this Shakespearean sonnet? 

We're all cracked!

Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,

And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will

One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.

   Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

   Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

 You were sexy smart when we first got together. I wonder how much of my own rage you carried for me in your crankiness?

I think about you every time I'm at the dog park and a pup comes over for one of my dog's treats and I say to them, "Is yo name Miss Sequel?" I remember you quoting Louise Beavers' line from Holiday Inn ("Is yo name Miss Linda?") to the kitties when they were complaining. So I quote her and think of you.

I feel like the famous joke, 

    "Dr., after my hand surgery, will I be able to play the violin?"
     "Why, of course" 
    "That's funny, I never could before."

I wasn't mentally healthy before you died, there's no reason to assume I'm going to be mentally healthy in the future, no matter how much therapy I get.  It's just not something I ever was. As you know.

Thanks for playing with the light again. Thanks for continuing to care about me.

You know, as I work on my memoir, I'm reminded that it might have saved both of us from a lot of pain if you'd ever told me that I was attractive to you or that you were in love with me.

But, that's blood under the bridge.

Miss you terribly,

Kake 

 

 

And Yet Another Forgotten Poem

 Your Mouth A Cave

 

 

I fell and fell and fell

for one year, black

the bouldered walls 

the circle of stone

in that one episode

you know the one

where the British detective

is always too late to prevent

the second murder, the body

in the well.

                        The first

murder is without metaphor.

 

But I was falling down that

well, that cave, it’s stony

circle glittering with stars

green cities drowning in

the half-green moon below.

 

I kept it’s image on my phone.

 

In midst of two thousand

shots of friends and flowers

and dogs, our dogs, and San

Francisco, New York, Seattle,

 

there in the middle of things,

in medias res, is your

 

dead face, mouth agape.

 

For one year I kept

that image with me near

that other one of our dead dog

remembering that curly hair

against my face

after the death chemical

coursed through her.

 

Birdy about to receive the needle.

Another Forgotten Poem

Miró's Femme et Oiseau dans la Nuit, 1947,

In España

 

 

Our first time in Europe

Miro was everywhere in Madrid.

 

Oh Ghost, do you remember?

The gallery, the museum, the

 

posters on the busses, how the

wild squiggles and balls commanded

 

walls around the city. How

we found the little restaurant

 

Rick Steves recommended,

before he was Ricksteves.com,

 

there beside the railroad bridge

that bore a Miro-like graffito.

 

How the tiny fried fish were

so delicious, bones and all.

 

And now you’re in the earth,

bones and all, but not this

 

presence. This unpredictable

presence. How like you it is.

 

How like this strange and beautiful

symbology of black, white, blue,

and red, the spiders and sperm,

the bodiless hands, and sweet

notes the memory of you

arising like a Miro unrolling

on an early, pre-intel laptop screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

kakehuck (c) 2023 

 

 

Back at The Haven

 After letting a couple thousand dollars of unused time slip away from me I am finally back at the Haven, looking out the window at the boarders on the river.  It would be fun to be out there if I had someone to go with.  Someday.  

I've decided to start coming in at 3 pm for a beer and some time at the computer.  Mid-afternoon and early evening is a lousy time to be at home or with the dogs anyway. So Sequel and Winston are inside.   I don't know where Miss Poppy is but she'll show up when I go back home.

Dear Will:

I thought of you last week when I spent $7 on a handful of apricots. I remembered the fourth Salt Lake residence, the polygamous house, with the giant ancient apricot tree in the neighbors' yard.  I remembered getting up on the roof and bagging pounds and pounds of cots. You made jam that we froze and ate the rest of the year.

Missing you,

Love, Kake

As I review the writing I'm going to be putting together at The Haven this month, I ran into this poem, written since Will died but I don't know when.

WILL AND HIS GRACE

(c) kake huck 2023

You were happy
when that poem about 
us fucking on the side
of an almost empty highway
in the middle of Nevada
made it into an anthology

but not so joyful
when I performed
my money-making,
award winning
poem about the woman
artist I delighted in
New Mexico ...
it displayed my naked
pirate heart.

Nevertheless, when
I asked how you managed
living with those poems
with those confessions,
(by which I meant, of course,
with me)

you said, with your gangly,
earthy, angelic grace, "It's
just a life in the arts, I guess."

And put your arm around
my shoulders.