This is the time that I wish I smoked. I'm sitting here after a decent cry - and still crying, as a matter of fact. And I am worn out, yet still have more tears to come. I am spent. What I would like to do is climb the hill behind my apartment house and sit in the trees - the small patch of woods that lines the Old Croton Aquaduct Trail - and smoke a cigarette.
I can imagine how it feels....lying up there in the dark of the trees...drawing off the cigarette...
the burning of the smoke through my breath passages and then the slow blowing out after a momentary "holding it in." There is something lonely in that picture - yet also stoic...relaxing...centering. Right now, when I take a deep breath in and let it out - slowly exhaling - I just cry more. There is nothing, cool, calm, centered or stoic about it.
And I just ran out of fucking kleenexes. Thank the Gods and Goddesses that I bought toilet paper this evening. Otherwise I would really be screwed.
I thought I would go into the city for a show and a contra
dance tomorrow evening - however, there is no dancing. No dancing until next September. Too hot, I guess.
I want to get up tomorrow and ride my bike in the marsh. I want to walk downtown and have a beer and a sandwich at the Bodega. I want to pack the car and camp at Rock Island and sing in the boathouse. I want to sleep on Keith's sailboat named Grace and I want to go sailing. I want to paddle in North Ontario with my Wise and Wild Women.
I WANT
Because, as Andy Rooney says:
Familiar things bring comfort to us all.
This funny space...the only way through it is through it...it is beyond my understanding how surrendering to the chaos (and, well, I was going to say pain but it really doesn't hurt physically) of grief is one of the most grounding things one can do - at least that I can do.
The only way to get home, really....
