Love Letters to My Life #41: A new possibility opens up buried grief

Sunday morning on Garden Street

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day: the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my joy-filled life.)    

Change comes in many forms from the slow creeping rise of oceans to the sharp cataclysmic fractures of the earth or fire-spewing volcanic eruptions. Aging is a slow form change, advancing cell by cell, obscured by the blur of life until time and the river sweeps everything away in one last heartbeat moment, leaving a barren but fallow griefscape for those left behind.

I am in Santa Barbara. It’s not where Richard died; it’s where we lived. Its streets trace our former life like lines criss-crossing the palms of my hands. I’m left wondering how I will make new paths in this deeply furrowed soil as I plan the return to our place, the place we claimed when love was new, where memories of shared sights and sounds, loves and losses, roll in and out like morning fog. 

This Thanksgiving season of his death is especially poignant as I walk through the inescapable past; every step a paper cut memory: the what-ifs and if-onlys, the words still unspoken, the remembered hopes and dreams of yesterday, the finality of change that has no tomorrow. 

With this possibility of returning with new skills and dreams as well as deeper wisdom, softened and strengthened by grief, I tug at the door so firmly closed years ago. The beauty of this place floods in mingling with the pain, the tears, the joy and heartbreak. Years of solitude and carefully controlled sorrow shatter into a what-now confusion as this place I adore invites my return, alone, without the love and the man who brought me here so many years ago. 

 All the things I know, all the wisdom I’ve gathered, cluster like monarchs on a somber day: colorless things waiting for warming sunshine before spreading their bright wings and continuing on their way. I know that sunny day will come to me also; I just have to walk forward into this gift of life, this one more chance to live in the only place my heart calls home.

Richard and baby Ava (now 20)

What I didn’t know this time last year

"Change Begins" Joyce Wycoff

Today doesn’t seem that different from yesterday and I don’t remember last week being all that different either. 

 

It makes me wonder how change squeezes it’s way through the door. Today is the last day of October, which, duh, makes tomorrow the first day of November. That’s significant because last year I did NaNoWriMo … the National Novel Writing Month. Remembering that made think about what’s different about now that I never would have guessed on this day last year. 

So here’s a partial list of things I didn’t know at this time last year:

- I didn’t know that I would finish NaNoWriMo with a 55,000-word rough draft of a novel and then do nothing with it.

- I would have sworn the election would have turned out differently.

- I definitely didn’t know I was moving to Mexico and that I would choose Ajijic as my home.

- I didn’t know my creative path would turn away from novel writing and back to digital art.

- I’m glad I didn’t know that I would lose Missy, my charming companion of ten years.

- I didn’t know that so many new friends would come my way in this small Mexican village.

- I didn’t know I would get a chance to volunteer with the premier Mexican Folk Art fair which happens in 2 weeks.

Obviously, change happens in drips as well as floods and it makes me wonder what I'll look back on this time next year and think, "Wow! I didn't expect that!"

What’s present in your life today that a year ago you had no idea would be here?

Jugar con Fuego

They say travel changes you. 

Isn't that sort of like playing with fire? It can warm your bones, singe your skin, or consume your very marrow. Once you cross into that strange land, you never know who will return. And, there's no thermostat. You can't say, "Oh, I just want a little change, so I'll take a short trip." It doesn't work that way. A year-long, round the world journey might not make an iota's difference in your life, while an overnight trip to Hoboken could throw you into an alternate universe.

I guess one way you could attempt to control the change that might come your way is to take home with you. In today's world, you can carry your favorite pillow to the far ends of the world and find your favorite fast food just around the corner in places that hardly have corners. You can travel with your posse, stay wired to family and co-workers, and never miss an episode of Orange Is The New Black.

Some places, however, make it darn hard to carry that home bubble with you. San Miguel de Allende seems to be that kind of place and I'm beginning to wonder about the changes that will come my way over the next several weeks. I like my life and I'm not looking for transformation. Insights, enlightenment, deepening, clarity, and greater compassion would be great, however I can already feel new tendrils creeping into my cells and I know that I can't control what forms they take.

Today is a fiesta day in San Miguel … one of many … and I happen to be staying a few blocks from the center of the festivities. So, lured by the music and the promise of dancing and food, I followed the musical breadcrumbs to the heart of the celebration … the birthday party for the Virgin. Fiestas are loud … bands, carnival ride music, vendors … and colorful … costumes, flags, banners, cotton candy, balloons.

At one point, a bunch of men carrying large, colorful, hexagon "flowers" began to leave the area so I chased after them for about a block. One young guy spotted me trying to take pictures so he began to perform for me while I snapped the camera. He laughed. I laughed. Then I showed him the images and we laughed again. It struck me as I left that, if I had the power to direct the change that may appear, it would be related to this experience. I would like to feel free to have fun with total strangers. I would like to have that young boy's complete confidence and comfort in inviting a stranger into play. 

Life Turns

In an eye blink … 
     On a dime … 
           In a heartbeat … 

Life turns a corner and you're in a new land and the moment before is gone.  Only the new present remains calling for awareness, engagement, respect.

Sometimes we recognize those turns the moment we make them … other times they slip in under our gaze, unnoticed and unseen until later when we wonder what happened and trace the new reality back to a word said at the right (or wrong) time, a decision to walk a new direction, or a choice as simple as wearing a bright color.  Sometimes they add up like grains of sand on a pile until one grain lands and everything shifts and reforms itself.

It's a process that continually fascinates me as I watch life shift … sometimes dramatically after a period of seemingly little change.  It makes me realize that everything is in constant flux even when it seems the same.  And, every moment deserves appreciation and notice … for in the next instance it could be ... will be ... gone.

About this image  Life Turns

This image came as I contemplated the ever-shifting, ever-changing nature of life. Starting with a road that wound through an aspen forest near Maroon Bells in Colorado which then called in an experimental image of lights on a ship cruising to Mexico.  These images seem to recognize their own connections that i can't see consciously but when I let them play, they seem to find their own way.