It’s over two months now since I picked up my life and moved across the mountains to Eugene. I have not yet experienced Will’s spirit coming to meet me in my new spaces. I wonder if he thinks I no longer need him.
It took two months after my winter classes ended for me to pack up a container with one third of my belongings and move to an apartment in Eugene.
It was really school and what I had to make my mind do for my classes in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Writings, and Christian and Jewish Life in Greco-Roman times, that gave me the courage to finally move. I did it largely by myself and with hired help, considering that my friends are physically hampered in a variety of ways. I did have muscle help from one young church friend and my next door neighbor, both of whom helped me move a couple of crates.
Shortly before I moved in late June, friends and supporters at Trinity Episcopal Church threw a nice party for me during which everyone got regular cake and I got a personal dairy free cake. Rev. Elizabeth used “they” in her public prayer for me in my future endeavors. I felt appreciated. My friends in the Tuesday Group also had a little party for me at the senior apartments in Northwest Xing where Dawn lives.
I was missing Will a lot in August, I’m not sure why. Maybe it was studying about art in school, albeit online. Maybe it was the moving during which I was forced to think of our life together, both the good and the bad.
His friend (and my poetry colleague) Marion died a little while ago and I pictured him welcoming her across the rainbow bridge, with all their late pets surrounding them.
So I moved across the mountain into a 3 bedroom apartment in a highly ethnically diverse apartment complex. It’s really very nice. I haven’t finished unpacking OR buying replacements for the furniture and art I sold. There’s tons of light in the apartment and sadly that includes some bleed from the parking lots at night into my chosen sleeping room. I’ve been putting up art and making the place mine and perhaps that’s why I haven’t felt Will join me. Maybe he won’t. We’ll see.
I’ve started a new religious life at a somewhat high church Episcopal down the road from my apartment. After receiving two “signs from God” I later detailed in a Facebook post, I joined that congregation and its altar guild. The sign was the singing, two weeks in a row, two hymns featured on Midsomer Murders.
I am now in Vancouver BC for the week going to orientation presentations put on by my school, the Vancouver School of Theology. I’m finding these meetings quite helpful, as I’m learning more about the different areas of study available to students and more about the ethos of VST. Also more about how words can mean different things in Canada than they do in the U.S.A. (I’ve become confused a couple of times.)
There are only about 150 students at VST in total so there’s plenty of access to faculty and tech support. I’m not sure how many of those are actually attending the orientation for new students. So far the most we’ve had sitting around the tables in the meeting room has been maybe 35, counting the profs and staff also in attendance Even though I’ve already taken 4 classes, I’ve never been to a new students orientation, so this has been fun meeting more of the teachers and learning about VST and the various programs.
The pups are being cared for in Eugene. I hope they are well. They looked okay in the pictures I’ve received. I look forward to getting home with them. It’s 6 pm and I keep thinking “It’s time for Sequel’s evening walk.”
So, all this babbling to say that this is my last entry in this blog of grieving. With the help of sertraline and seminary, I’m finally free of the daily, crippling hold of ennui that was life without Will and making my way into the world as this queer thing I am. It’s funny. The queerer I feel, the nicer I am to other people.
