Yeats

Dear Will —

You loved Yeats the most when I first met you. Shall I be inspired? You showed pictures of Maud Gunn as your ideal of womanhood.  I could never match up. 

IN KINSALE

Roses blown in pink and red

Remind me that you’re dead, you’re dead.

"He Wasn't Perfect"

 Dear Will:

Methodist Church photo, late 90s

You were a fucking pain in the tookas.

I'm tired of missing you.  At least I'm tired of missing Well Will. I truly believe that God meant for us to be together and put us together but not for the comfort of either of us. I will be writing about all this, fucking finally, as I put together another chapter of my memoir.

I always hated tax season, once I started working, because it usually involved yelling at me for not getting everything perfectly together.

You yelled at the servants. You were mean to wait staff and clerks.

You had little or no self-awareness but refused to say that. Instead you early on made me feel bad for talking about things like my feelings and concerns and asking about yours. Even after we started doing our once a week check in in the mid-90s, you couldn't stay present in our relationship. You had to talk about things in the news.

You didn't tell me I was beautiful or even attractive because it would not have been true to your experience. I was too fat and had too large breasts.

You didn't learn to perform the physical behaviors I needed for complete satisfaction. Not that I didn't enjoy our sex, but that was because I made sure that I performed the behaviors I needed as well as those you needed.m

You didn't share about any previous relationships.

You exploded at people who referenced our age difference.

You were "timid" or, as other folks might put it, cowardly. Once in San Francisco we were in the Mission at night leaving a movie theatre and I told you to walk bravely, like I did, like you carried a weapon and were sure of yourself. There were thugs on the street but it was brightly lit and I knew that together walking bravely we'd be fine but you fucking skittered and I had to trot to keep up with you and I knew we looked like the tourists we were.

You were explosive. There were many times I "walked on egg shells" because of your anger. Though after you moved to Bend you weren't mean to me because I forbade it, I think you displaced your problems with me onto various politicians who you then obsessed about.

Did we have to have a European relationship? I wish you had been able to talk about relationships. I didn't want to "cheat". I wanted an open, negotiated relationship. You wanted me but only in a way that was comfortable to you...at least until my breakdown, and then you were good and took care of me, though you still wouldn't pay for a psychiatrist. (Just like my parents.)

You assumed early on that a troubled 19 year old girl who would seduce a man the second time she met him was the same as a self-controlled 35 year old woman in terms of functionality.

I now believe that many of our issues occurred because you were not capable of going inside yourself because you were high-functioning autistic or had some kind of neurodivergence. Turns our that I too am neurodivergent in a minor way (I'm a highly sensitive person - like 60 million other Americans).

I have, of course, forgiven everything that hurt me. If I hadn't, I may not have cared for you in the horrible  years of your dementia. I refuse to say I was happy to do it. It was awful. The repeated stories. The fights over what was actually happening. The anger. The shit. The pee.

Underneath all your wackiness was a little boy who never matured, who always wanted to be first in class, who had to defend himself in his family and at school (you never told me this but I'm projecting typicality onto your Nebraska farm upbringing). You were a tall skinny kid who loved to read, did theatre, and had certain pansy behaviors. Throughout your adult life, until she died, you always went home to your Mom in the summers.  (Well, when you were teaching, tiny Minatare might have been more pleasant than Pocatello. Of course, you didn't talk about any of that much.) And then you met me a year after your Mom died and didn't warn me. If you'd been born into my generation rather than 1930, I believe you would have been a happy gay man.

On the plus side, in spite of your always available crankiness, you were never physically violent. You were rarely purposefully mean. Late in life, when I asked you once why you yelled at a clerk when she wasn't responsible for the pricing, you looked shamefaced and said you didn't know. I think that much of your brain was not in your control.  

You were loving and caring. You gave great hugs.

And when I looked into your eyes, even on the day before the day before you died, when you looked at me with those eyes and told me you loved me, there was a strong rope of soul connection between us. You were still there. I was still there. That connection of 50 years was still there.

Even when when we separated because I wanted to spend time with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, I could not leave you. I could not break the bond and you decided (well, I never really knew how your brain worked so maybe it wasn't a decision) not to divorce your wicked spouse. I thank God for that for so many reasons.

Our life together was challenging, boring, and beautiful.

God put two pains in the ass together for both of their benefit, so neither would be lonely.  (Genesis 2:18)

Hawaiian Shirt Moments

So yesterday I lost half a day because I went to Macy's.

I was shopping for the perfect shoulder bag to wear with my giant Rick Steves backpack. But I had to walk through menswear first. And I saw this year's Hawaiian shirts and my brain went, "Will would like one of those shirts ...  we could get it for him ... if he weren't DEAD!.  Forever! And he's not coming back."

And the rest of the day I had crying spells -- in my car, in the house, in front of the TV which was playing old episodes of NCIS and Midsomer Murders. My younger sister named this experience the "Hawaiian Shirt Moment" when I finally called her shortly before I went to bed. It was good to hear her voice.  She is a widow and has also experienced these moments, as have all grief stricken people, I think. That moment when you're OK, when you're not planning to think about the lost Other, but then, whammo, something reminds you.

My therapist says that grief is the relationship I have with Will now. My friend Stacey, when I texted her yesterday, told me to "pivot". But if I pivot from Grief, it feels like pivoting away from love, the only person who has ever seemed to love me for mySelf, even though he disapproved of parts of that Self. He was a difficult man and I am an emotion driven (Enneagram Type 4) lunatic but we fit each other. There will be nobody else for me.  Everyone else I've ever met or loved has wanted me to "fit" their ideas of what I should be. And fuck that. I'm not working to "fit" another person ever again.

And, yes, there's also my lack of attractiveness. I'm old and fat and out of shape so there's also no point in me looking for anyone just to be disappointed and then grieve more. Also, I have way too much ink on my skin for most people of my generation.

I'm not special in my experience. This is how so many lonely old Norté American's live. We are not a family oriented people. What family I have wasn't at Will's funeral and don't call or connect with me unless I contact them first. This is not strange because as children we girls were all forced into family relationships in ways that weren't fun so it's natural to reject that. Also, as boomers, we were taught that our own lives were the most important. We were called the "Me Generation" and at least one researcher has found that we are generally more narcissistic than millennials. I have experienced a kind of negative narcissism ("yes, everything that goes wrong is my fault and I'm a bad person") since childhood and am self-absorbed. When I'm in mental pain I generally beat myself up for being so stupid as to be experiencing mental pain.

My self-absorption led to a misunderstanding of how friendship works in America among white folks.  There were a number of people who I thought of as friends who didn't contact me when I was in the deep depths of widowhood and needed connection. At this point hearing from them in any way is less fun then talking with a complete stranger at a supermarket because, in a very un-Christian way, I carry rage and resentment.

But people were there. People are there. If I'd called, if I call, I wouldn't, I won't be alone. I know that. I may be an asshole but I'm not an idiot. There are people who think they like me and people want to be good and good people respond to cries for help so if I asked for help it would be given. But if I called as often as I need help they would get angry at me.  

And this did happen. Shortly after Will died, a close friend got angry with me for asking for more help than he could give me. He got angry. He pointed fingers. He said I lacked perspective.  Well, if that's how somebody I loved and had lunch with once a month for years was going to treat me, why should I reach out to anyone else? I learned my lesson -- reach out, get punched.

So I just don't know how to do friendship. My crazy brain has wanted the people who I thought of as friends to be present without my asking. I wanted people who I'd spent so much time with to know that I was broken and in pain without me having to ask. That a person from a family with a suicide, a person who has been treated for  depression for 30 years, might need some comforting after her partner of 50 years has died. But that's not how friendship relationships work.

Yet my brain has had trouble dealing with that knowledge. When I think about what an asshole I am and how people don't like assholes and how I'm going to need to live the rest of my life alone, I get sad. Even with the ketamine therapy, with the psilocybin therapy, my brain still goes to the old neural cow-paths of imagining people finally missing me and saying, "If only I'd known."

I wanted people to see that I wasn't just waving.

And I feel shame and embarrassment about my need. About the way my brain works. About my pain. About my refusal to beg people to care about me.

I didn't have that kind of caring relationship with anybody but Will. And he's gone. When I told Stacey about my loneliness and expectations Stacey very intelligently told me that I seemed to want a partner, not a friend. She was right. And the only partner for me is Will. So it sounds like I'm choosing my own suffering. And why should ANYONE but a therapist talk with a person who is choosing their own suffering. Fortunately, I have enough money to pay to have someone care about me. And that is a blessing. I'm lucky to have access to therapy.

And I also have the presence in the house.

Last night, the presence touched the bed near my head and I reached my hand out into air, hoping the presence would physically touch ME so I could "be sure."  Of course nothing touched my hand reaching out in the dark.

 "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

Maybe I just need more dogs.

 

Decisions

 Cindy's writing class prompt was about making a decision.   

by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

 

 

 WHAT IS A DECISION?

 

 

Scene 1: A Therapist’s Office.

 

Camera begins in closeup on a computer screen with the image of an online headline, “Giants Win World Series Again.” Camera slowly pulls out to reveal the therapist, a handsome Italian-Native American man of late middle age sitting on an expensive office chair. He wears a Pendleton wool sweater with Pacific-Northwest tribal markings. His hair is poofed into an elaborate comb-over. He is facing the camera.

 

Therapist 1:  What you don’t realize, Kake, is that staying with him is a decision.

 

EDIT: Wipe screen to

 

Scene 2: A Therapist’s Office

 

Camera opens on wide shot of colorful office. A tall, long-haired GenX woman stands at the door. She is dressed in a long flowing shirt, leggings, and a facemask. She welcomes a short, similarly face-masked woman into her room. As I enter, we both take off our masks. Through the scene, the camera remains in long shot, behind my head, looking at my therapist as we both sit down.

 

Me (sniffling): So we finally got Hospice going.

 

Therapist 2: I hope you know how brave you are.

 

Me: Huh?

 

Therapist 2: Every day the past five years you could have made a different decision.

 

Me: You mean I could have institutionalized him?

 

The therapist nods her head.

 

Me: I didn’t know that was a decision.

 

********      

 

I have never made an important decision using logic.  I have always followed my heart. And when it came time to care for my spouse, my heart led so strongly that it took being told a few times that I was actually making a decision.  A decision which never felt like a decision.

It’s not that I never thought I wouldn't choose to “place” him.  I actually called a few memory care establishments early on. We had the money. I started this research after Therapist 1 first saw the “thousand yard stare” in a photograph and asked if Will had dementia.  I said, “I don’t know.” I had thought what I was seeing was just normal aging forgetfulness. We already had most of our household bills, at one time his task, on automatic withdrawal. And he sometimes repeated stories. But at that time he could still find his way downtown and back on foot without getting lost.

Will before his final (26th) 65 birthday

 

Nevertheless, once warned, I did everything a spouse becoming a carer is supposed to do. I retired early at 60. I tried to get him to a neurologist. (That never, ever happened.) I learned as much as I could about dementia and spent time at Alz.org. Fortunately, the State of Oregon offers free family training through OregonCare Partners and I was able to attend two workshops by Teepa Snow, a nationally known expert. I also hired a local company called Bend Senior CareManagement to make sure Will could age in place in our home should I die while he was still alive. And when I logged into Facebook dementia carer group sites, and read about my future, I actually thought that at some time, if I had to start scraping human shit off the carpet, I would have him placed.

 

And that placement never happened, even though the shit did. And I still didn't feel like I made a decision.

 

Picking a tax accountant was a decision. Making sure my spouse wasn’t bothered by taxes anymore wasn’t. Hiring a concierge doctor to get a diagnosis was a decision. Not telling him he had dementia wasn’t. Putting the hospice hospital bed in the front room was a decision. Sleeping on the floor beside it wasn’t.

 

Making a decision requires seeing a choice and when I looked into his old familiar eyes my only choice was love our way.

 

He slipped into his death coma on Christmas Day, 2021. Just before, he was cursing me for trying to clean the shit off him. But he had told me he loved me the day before so I carry both memories, as well as that of placing my hand on his cold, un-made-up face in his reed coffin just before it was lowered into earth.To be sure he was dead. To tell him good-bye.

 

And that wasn’t a decision either.

Aaaaaaand.....We're Back!

 Well, I was wrong.

Photo by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash

I made a mistake in thinking that I could end this blog.  Turns out that I didn't stop crying and missing him. I was in pretty good shape through February when I went on a wonderful trip with my sister to New Orleans.  Then in March it all hit me again. Memories of caregiving. Memories of his death. And good memories of how travel used to be for us. Memories of how he supported me even when I was foolish and in trouble with The Authorities. Memories of his hugs.

It was a fucking Lenty Lent.  Easter didn't bring a whole lot of relief.

I have a writing assignment from Cindy, a memoir teacher at Sarah Lawrence, to write about friendship.  My first draft began, "my best friend is dead."  I scrapped that one and I'm going to write something funnier about how I don't know the rules of friendship and/or about how I don't know the hidden rules about doing friendship.  Maybe something about the "Telephone Song" from Bye Bye Birdy and how I've always hated talking on the phone so in my youth I had few girlfriends.

AND the Presence touched down on the bed again last night. I'd thought it was gone.

The presence.  Last summer when I was living downstairs, the Presence walked around upstairs so I heard footsteps.  Now the Presence sometimes presses down the mattress at the foot of the bed.  

"Now the only thing that gives me hope
is my love of a certain dope
Rose tints my world
keeps me safe from my trouble and pain."

Yes, I pray.  Yes, I believe that "with God, all things are possible." (Though I also believe that the Creator doesn't fuck around with physics).

As my grief therapist said a few months ago, "You've never been a widow before.  There's no right way."  So here I am, a year and four months in and still bursting into tears in public.

So I move on, giving myself treats and challenges. This morning I bought unknown seats at three new operas being performed in San Francisco. They were reduced price because it's a "do it yourself" subscription.  So I know I'm going down to the City at least three times during the next school year. Basically, the offer was a 26% discount if one buys a series and chooses the area in which one is to sit.  Will always put us in "the gods."  So I'm spending the money he wouldn't by sitting in the Grand Tier Premium somewhere (I'll know by summer).

I spend a lot of time by myself by choice.  I am blessed with good friends who will be there if I ask but there is no one to whom I'm especially important.  Big whoop.  I know.  Boo hoo.  But this has been my condition for years. And at least I am child free so that having children who ignore me isn't on my heart. 

I "just" need to get used to this existential aloneness the depth and length of which I'm just beginning to realize are immeasurable.

Fin - Epiphany

End title of Truffaut's Jules et Jim

I woke up this morning with a strong image from last night's dream.  I haven't remembered my dreams for years, due to my heavy marijuana use.  I've now been sober for a month and my dreams are returning. 

The image was of a tall man thin man in a black suit and bowler hat walking away from me.  His arms hang down at his side with his hands slightly behind his back.  He is waving his hands, bent at the wrists, back and forth behind his butt. Something tells me the image is of Bill Nighy.

Our dreams make use of the detritus of the day to tell us something important. This image, built on the recent trailers for Living, the new Bill Nighy film, is telling me that the Will living in my unconscious is saying, "Goodbye." 

 

 

 

 

Good-bye, sweetheart.

 

More Pictures in No Particular Order

On our porch, Pocatello, '70s. I disposed of this coat after he died.

Reading in the book corner, Bend, late 90s.

The deck in Bend, a visit from my step mom and dad, early 90s

He is wearing a shirt from Mildred's (Pierce - super queer reference) Restaurant in San Francisco. The chair he purchased with the Pocatello house in 1973.

 

Visiting Pocatello, late 90s, early 00s.

Being goofy trying to stick his finger in the nose of a famous person on a subway wall.

In Florence, 2001, age 71