February 5, 2025

My eyes feel as though they have been crying for 2 days.  I have not shed a tear, but my heart believes I should.

There are several stories I wish to begin, I wish to tell and like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle I hope they fit together and make a big picture. The stories are simple ones, they’re not large sagas, they are illustrations of a large full life, but in their own right, they are not huge.  When I begin to tell any one of them I realize I have to tell one before,  but tonight I am going to try not to do that.  I am going to try to only tell the single story. 

I tripped over the welcome mat and hit my nose on the brick floor beneath the front door.  It broke the bridge of my nose. I do remember the surge of pain and the scream and my father picking me up in his arms wearing a pink Oxford shirt, my blood streaming down his front.  It was a beautiful summer’s evening, the sun was still up.  He put me in the car and drove me to the Doctor’s house, those were the days when you could drive to the doctor’s house.  I have clear memories, like stills, arriving at the house and having Dr. Lehman look at my nose, stop the bleeding, comfort my father.  

I’ve loved men in pink shirts ever since.  I feel comforted by them.  Jay wore a pink shirt to Jason and Becky’s wedding to comfort me.   

I remember the first time that my therapist used the term "Victim of Loss"   It sounded so literary or something, it was something that happened to fictional characters, not to real people confronting the everydayness of those losses . I am a victim of loss.  In 1972 I had 3 tragic losses in a row that impaired my ability to process grief for many years and also made me extremely focused on understanding it as a part of the fabric of life.  I would never be released from it, but neither would I be released from the huge amount of joy and beauty I experienced.  They are all one.  But every time a new loss happens, I have to take care of myself.  I know that now after years of falling apart and being paralyzed by a new grief.  Now I stop and acknowledge it.  Today I stop and acknowledge the abundance of grief in the world at this moment.  And it will demand that I tell those simple stories.  Feel free to add your simple stories to mine.  Together we create the whole, the whole includes it all and step by step we can embrace it all.

The light at the rookery and in the hills was quite interesting tonight.   

I saw no big birds up there.  I did, however, have one soar above me on my way to the pool this morning.  The eagle that lives right by the fair grounds was in flight looking over the Mill River.  I was late, so I thought, so I didn't stop to watch.   

There were many prints in the snow, though.  There's this whole world we don't see often enough, but it's markings are there.