must be trash day in mason, pickup trucks keep driving slowly up the street, stopping at every house that seems to have 'stuff' out on the curb.  those miscellaneous pieces, that might be trash, might still be a bit useful...

do they stop and pick them up, take the chance that maybe there might be some use left in it, or at least parts that can be used to make something they already have stashed at home, functional.

sometimes i expect them to stop, come up and ring the door bell and tell me to hop in the back of the truck.
might be a useful part or something i could be good for.
maybe if they took tony and me, they might end up with enough pieces to make a real person.
(maybe)

sitting here tonight, should  be preparing for the big debut tomorrow night, sitting in with the Ben Peterson Group.

first real live gig in years.

but instead, i'm just looking out the window, listening to Chris Smither singing 'just killing the blues'.
just pushed me over a slight bit to the blues side of things.

and for all of you trivia buffs, the reason i'm listening to Chris Smither tonight is because i heard his version of bonnie Riatt's 'love me like a man' this afternoon on the radio, had to hear it again.
he does a really good version. (guess he should, he did write it)
and for you folks who keep track, yes, chris smither is a Fur Peace guy.

i went to the Guided Imagery thing tonight at the Wellness Center.
i should do that more often, chris is really good, and it helps to be among the people jackie met as her last 'new' group of friends. (NOTE: i promise that last sentence is NOT because i know that chris (Popa, not Smither) reads this sometimes.
jackie really loved her, and what she did, and how she made her feel.

sometimes that might be why i don't want to go, not a big group, but they all loved jackie, and miss her, even though they didn't really have that much time with her.
(as i've said before, that's just the way she was)

it was good to get there tonight.
the old familiar room, i always sit in 'jackie's seat when i go now, maybe trying to pick up a little essence she might have left before, or just to sit where she sat.

i have to say, i did pretty good this evening, lots of small fleeting but highly defined images.
we were supposed to look toward our goals for the year, glad this time i wasn't asked, even i have limits!

almost didn't want to leave there.
just talking, just being sort of, kind of, a normal person...
out of the house, talking to a real live person.

now i'm home, trolling the internet, listening to some music.

wondering what life holds for me,
sometimes the sun shines brightly,
sometimes i wait for the other shoe to fall.
(the way things have been the last several years in the bodmo' house, i think it's a spider up there dropping those damn shoes.)

anyway, just felt like i needed to come out here.
throw some thoughts, and ideas up against the internet, see if they stick.

no real direction in this one.
it's more a mirror of my every day life.

not a lot of direction,
i'd describe it as a rudderless ship, but...
a. that's been done too many times.
b. it really wouldn't describe the situation, at least with a., you have a boat.

at times, i feel like i'm just out in the middle of the water, kind of floating along, holding on to a big pile of rudders that fell of other people's boats.

i'm just trying to hold them together, close enough, that i can sort of get out of the water, and get a couple minutes of feeling kind of like there is a bit of a direction to all this endless floating.

oh well,
that's all you get.
float on, people!

namaste

JUNE 19 BLOG PREFACE, DISCLAIMER, WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CONSIDER THIS.

I’ve gotten emails, comments, facebooks, secret messages sent through tony from some of you guys about this blog.

I will admit some of it is just raw emotion, it makes you laugh, it makes you cry.

For some of you, it makes you concerned about my mental state.

Let me ask, where the hell have you been for the last 59 years, it’s not like dale and crazy is a new combo!

Let me share the truth with you all.

When I’m writing it, it makes me laugh, and it makes me cry.  

It makes me sad, but it’s also is very cleansing to let this emotion out.

Painful, but cleansing.

 I really don’t reread these entries, but then they are all pretty new, and it’s not like I’m forgetting any of this. (and i'm trying not to repeat myself, but that will happen)

I mentioned earlier my concern for the whole “you’re born alone, you die alone” and how I tried to be there for Jackie.

Well, you grieve alone too, and it ain’t pretty.

I’m just kind of giving you guys a play by play.

But I’m ok. Thanks for asking!

OK, TO THE BLOG:

Happy birthday to me.

#59.

Today would have been jackie’s favorite day of the year.

Since her birthday is in late april, I think she always liked june 19^th, just because it made us the same age again.

Next year will be hard.

Who remembers the party in 1993, when we both turned 40? (show of hands)

I remember the whole thing, more or less, somewhere there is a squeaky voiced video, that tony and nick kind of shot together. Their voices cracked us up, It was almost 20 years ago.

Our plan was, since we were both turning 40, and people like to do silly things when you get ‘that old’, we booked the lakeside lodge for a date in May, halfway between april 28 and june 19.

We let everyone know really early on, so there could be no surprises.

(is that controlling your own destiny?  Probably not, more containing chaos)

Then there was 2003, the year we both turned 50.

Thanks peggy and bob, for a lifetime of great memories from that two and a half weeks in Hawaii, it wouldn’t have been the same without you guys there to share it.

I can almost remember that one, day by day, hour by hour, all the wonderful things that went on.  All the fun we had, such a wonderful trip.

(I could go on, and on about it, but then it would only mean stuff to me, and the above mentioned P&B)

Jackie left on March 24^th, you all remember that.

Her birthday would have been the 28^th of April.

There were a lot of people who made that one manageable.

That was one busy day! (it helped a lot)

• The MS walk in the morning.
• Meeting at Gate of Heaven to leave a little of her ashes with John and Dottie.
• (the magic butterfly)
• Then, the ritual of gathering and moving and doing all of her clothes, I couldn’t have done that, ever, thanks sisters!
• In the afternoon, there were drinks at BrazenHead with Theresa, Terry, Kim & Mo. A nice salute to Jackie.
• All followed, late into the evening with some live music with Lori & Pete. (my live music buddies) 

Wow, and today is a Tuesday, that’s going to be hard to pour that much stuff into a Tuesday.

maybe this will be a good night to think of the last 28 birthdays that we had together.

i can't remember a bad one, but then, jackie was there for me each time.

my 50th was a good one, by that time i was out of work, jackie was doing the every other week in denver with the Facets rollout.

she was concerned that year, she had to be in denver for two consecutive weeks, and didn't know the best way to work around my birthday.

i told her to make it the middle two weeks, and i'd have my birthday out there. it beat being unemployed sitting on my couch in Mason, OH.

i drove my jeep out there, after dropping her at CVG to fly out.

it was a long drive, thanks to tony i had more than enough live phish CD's. listened to each show, front to back.

being there on my birthday was a good thing.

i passed a homeless guy first thing out of the garage, stopped at a light, he came up, 'hey buddy i'm out of work'.

i said, i got you one better, i'm out of work, and its my 50th birthday' i gave him a ten, and told him to celebrate with me.

i hit Mt. Evans a little later, too early to hike it, but i drove to the top.

burned out old restaurant/hotel or something at the top of that 14er.

started snowing, and didn't stop until there was around four or five inches on the ground.

i thought that was a nice little birthday surprise.

(and i was glad i had my jeep with me, not only the four wheel drive for the trip down, but my own, a car i was very familiar with)

stopped at the small bar, souvenir place near the lake on the way down. (i think that's about 11k)

nice hot bowl of buffalo chilli and a cold beer.

happy birthday to me!

as for this year...

Maybe a quiet night, a drink just jackie and me.

(she’s still not much of a drinker, but she sure can soak it up now)

Ewww, if dale is talking, can bad taste be far behind?

Anyway, happy birthday to me, many happy returns.

(I did promise her!)

and thank you all, for your concern, your caring, and your love.

from the bottom of both of our hearts!

namaste

Song for our ancestors.

Is this a father’s day kind of blog?

Don’t know, I was thinking about things, that song came into my mind.

(one of my early steve miller faves)

Why, not sure, nice guitar, great fog horn.

Love the lyrics as well:

“I hear that fog horn moaning,

  It’s moaning out at sea,

 And It sure ain’t a good thing,

For either you or me.

Well I shot a man in…”

Wait, that’s not it at all, what just happened?

Actually, I did have to look up the name, just to get it right; I was thinking ‘forefathers’.

When I found it, I got a link to go to see the lyrics for the song, couldn’t resist that one.

Found out that the song was an ‘instramantle’.

I think that’s like a cloak made from a guitar, maybe.

But hey, it’s ancestor’s day tomorrow, at least on the male side.

Things I will always remember about my father.

•           Even into my 50’s, often when we’re talking, just the two of us, he calls me ‘boy’, for me, that’s a special word, no matter who uses it.
•           Once, early 60’s he gave me his only advice on work, “always live east of your job, then you’re never driving into the sun”
•           Bagpipe records
•           The conversations we’ve had in the last ten years or so, when it was just the two of us going somewhere in his car.
•           I remember back in the Maryland years, pre-62 or 63, can never quite remember.  We had to stop at ‘the base’ for something he needed. Strange atmospheric evening, the guard at the gate pointed out that the northern lights were really showing brightly. Not like sometimes that far ‘south’ where they are just a glowing on the horizon, these were large, high in the sky, shifting, moving.  The three of us just stood there, outside the car, watching them
•           When I was young, and I’d ask him a question, his stock answer would be, “we have $400 worth of encyclopedia in the other room, look it up.”  Two things about this: I used to read them just to read something, maybe that’s partly why I am like I am, the other thing… I would never remember how to spell ‘encyclopedia’ if it weren’t for that darned cricket!
•           When I was older, I could call him anytime, with any kind of question, and he always knew the answer! Prime example, I needed to know the ‘step’ where a solid becomes a gas, he instantly told me. (and no, I still don’t remember it, but I could call him today, at almost 90, and I bet he’d know.)

There were other things I was thinking about posting today, but reading back over this one, I think it stands just fine on it’s own.

Happy father’s day to us all!

ok,
so i started into this past weekend, sometime in june, 2012.

we started down the whole road that last couple days in July 2010.

seems like such a short time if you really look at it,
and what else is there to do.

there are things i wanted to do, from the beginning, (or is that from the end)
i wanted to keep my thoughts, so that i would be able to look back and remember things.

i didn't want to lose some of the things that have gotten away, but hey that's what memories are for, aren't they, to sort of almost keep the things that you can't physically put you hands on.

i kept a slightly running list, on my evernote account, maybe it's best just to cut and paste, then to edit them in my june 13th view.


*************************************************************************

How to begin.

The first morning
Waking up, realizing that she was gone.
5:30am, roaming around the house.
Ending up in her hospital bed wrapped in all of her pillows and blankets.
Slept like a baby.

The first 'wait til I tell her' moment
Tuesday after, lunch with Rebekah and Steve from MS.
They still didn't know how much money, or who was playing.
When I was leaving the parking lot, it hit me.
Since then, it does happen a lot.

Why am I so fucking calm?
I do miss her and wish she was here, I do cry when I'm talking about things, but my acceptance is scary sometimes.


Why am I such a crying baby?

"It is crucial to know when it is appropriate to withdraw our attention from things that disturb our mind. However, if the only way we know how to deal with certain objects is to avoid them, there will be a severe limit as to how far our spiritual practice can take us."
- Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"


isn't it funny, the last two entries?
'too calm', followed by 'crying like a baby'
*************************************************************************

now back to june,
i'm still astounded by how i felt the morning of march 25th, how quiet the house was, how i sort of drifted through it like i had no substance either.

it was good, that much calm is always good.
it helped me sort of start planning what i had ahead of me,
start spreadsheets, break them down, this room, that room, category A, you know...

here we are, almost three months later, some's been done, some's still waiting.
although the addition of room mates wasn't an expected thing, and kind of threw the refiguring wrench into things.
and it's not finished it's twisting's and turnings.

"the wait til i tell her".

there sure have been a lot of those, from what people have done, to what nations have done, to how a story line followed through on one of our tv shows.

it wasn't traumatic the first time, and when it hits now, it still isn't.
most times it doesn't really matter anyway,
or i guess i'll tell her the next time i see her.

ok that's as much of the catching up as i can do right now.



the real deal falls back to the whole 'what the hell do i do now' phase of things.
don't remember that in any of my self help books, or ms. kubler ross's list of levels!

there was a thought that stuck in my mind early this year, the old "you're born alone, you die alone"
don't really remember the first part, i might have been alone, might have been in the middle of the circus.

but the last part i wanted to do everything i could do to make sure it wasn't true.

i've heard, and seen, and read, that people say, (those pesky people), that hearing is one of the last things we lose at the end.
it might just be something said, to make the living feel better, but it was high on the list of things i wanted to push.

i tried very hard, especially in the final weeks, to always be close by, to sit with jackie, to keep in contact with her.
if i was near her, i wanted her to feel my touch.
to know i was there, if she was sleeping, or under the fog of the drugs, or wide awake.

i would just be as close as possible, and always in contact.

same with the hearing part, if she was sleeping poorly, fidgeting, restless, i would be as close to her as i could, and i would talk to her, constantly.
(yea, i can hear some of you saying, big surprise, the problem has always been to get you to shut your mouth)

at the suggestion of my counselor, when i told him i wouldn't be going back to work until it was all over, i told her that i was using my vacation time so we could just have a vacation for the two of us, to be together, and to remember all the fun and good times.
she did like that idea.

we would sit and talk about things, sometimes the not so fun upcoming thing, and sometimes just stuff that we did, or remembered.
i know it helped me, i like to think that it helped her as much.

earlier we had kind of come across a combination of a healing touch, coupled with a hands on meditation to draw down her pain, her fears.
she liked it, really felt that it helped calm her, ease her burden.

often i would just hold her, and quietly whisper to her.
"i love you, i'll love you forever"
it became almost a mantra, just to say it, just for her to hear it, to know that no matter how far she was, i was touching her, talking to her, not holding her back, but trying to stay with her as far down the path as i could be.


when the pain hits now, i know it is my pain, my sorrow.
i know she is beyond all of that, and is at peace.

a lot of people talk about our lost ones looking down on us, watching over us, i don't know that i can believe that.

someone filled with love, filled with compassion couldn't be in that place of eternal peace and still see the day to day life of us living.
i don't know how they could do it, and not be filled with compassion with sorrow to see their friends, and family.

that's a big reason that i follow what i do, to know that she is in a place of total peace, and compassion for all souls, all living energy.
her energy goes out to the world, the universe, washing each and all with compassion, the hurting, the happy, the loved, the complete unknown.

the old T-shirt, showing the Buddha on the front at the hot dog vendor's cart. "i'll take one with everything"

so, there you have the truth of it all.

jackie is truly our little hot dog in the sky!

namaste

If I don’t put down my thoughts, do they go away?

Maybe, who knows?

But why not, if you get tired, take a day off.

(I promise to do the same)

I find my mind racing constantly; maybe it’s one of the unknown levels of grief, or a refocusing of the energy that would otherwise funnel into grief. (I’d rather have the fun myself)

Maybe I just like to hear myself think?

For years the ideas have been bouncing around inside, it’s not like a head will explode, I think they eventually melt into other thoughts that are also bouncing around.

In the earlier days, I think I tried to control some of it, just a bit, at society’s request.

(I had a job review a week after Nick was born in 1980. My boss at the time said that he was hoping that being a parent might finally cause a maturity that he had hoped for in hiring me, but had not seen.  Guess again, asshat!)

One of the ideas that made Buddhism appealing to me was the premise that we should never lose that ‘childlike’ wonder at the things we see and experience each and every day.  (I certainly have run with that one)

(WARNING: DEEPLY PERSONAL STUFF AHEAD)

As the realization of the shortness of time came to us, Jackie and I had a lot of deep personal discussions.

Once she asked me what I was going to do when she was gone.

I told her that I intended to use our remaining time to squeeze all of the love, and Jackie-ness out of her, so that I’d have it inside always, to carry forever.

But her being the ever practical Jackie, the week before the end, we were sitting on the couch, just the two of us, and she told me she wanted me to promise her one thing.

(Since she shared my life, she was well aware of the depression that haunted me through the recent years.

Post 9/11, post Dottie, the uncertainty of the contracting years.)

She made me promise to “go on living after I’m gone”.

She knew how easy it was for me to dig myself deeper into the basement room the longer I was allowed to stay there.

Of course I promised her, who could say no to Jackie.

And of course, the practical side of her did manage to ‘warn’ her siblings to “keep an eye on him, don’t let him get too crazy”.

(OK, NOW BACK TO JUST NORMAL PERSONAL STUFF)

Jackie had a way of focusing the wild, and frantic thoughts that live in here with me.

She wasn’t restrictive, or constraining.

It was like if you had a string, (say a long guitar string), that was just vibrating rapidly, randomly, willy nilly.

(and you all remember willy nilly, the illegitimate offspring of that red haired country singer, and those dreadlocked lip sync-ers of the 80’s)

If you hold two fingers on either side of that vibrating string, one finger an inch above, one an inch below, you don’t stop the vibration, you just keep it within the normal hearing range of the average, functioning adult.

She was the rock, of the family, and all who knew her.

So often that rock could focus my thoughts with that look, and the simple “Reallly?” that she would use only when necessary.

That rock has shifted over the last several months.

At times it’s been the shallow depression, to catch and hold my tears.

It’s been rounded, and rugged, to deflect the strange, out of control feelings.

At least for now, it’s become a very smooth, very shiny, concave surface, to gather the random, wild thoughts, and concentrate them, to allow them that much more power to go farther, and be stronger.

Thanks Jackie, for always being here.

And a special shout out to the ebel family…

Thanks for the use of your wonderful sister!

I didn’t sleep much last night at all,

The head was spinning, there’s so much going on.

(remember the Disney vacation ad from several years ago, the little boy the night before the trip, "i'm too excited to sleep!")

Jackie and I had a long talk last night,

She’s very happy with the progress, and direction!

what did i uncork?

now, all the babble that has been roaming around inside my head is trying to get out, all at once.

it's like one of the pesky, bratty thoughts, yelled, "FIRE", and all the others are looking for any escape route.


books:
yea, we all got em,

some of us still buy them and read them.
although like everything else today, the 'substance' of books seems to be strictly their thoughts, not the cover and page setup of old.
(is that a bad idea, in certain ways have we distilled them down to just the essential?)

now i download my books, like i download my music.

it's easier to carry around, it doesn't hurt as much when i fall asleep and it falls onto my face.
and when i do fall asleep, i don't lose my place?

is the kindle doing to bookmarks what john Kennedy did to hats?



but still, with this year being what it has been, how could i not go for the "how to go on living when someone you love dies".

i forgot the basic premise, it's yet another self-help book.

i think the only self-help book left to write would be, "chicken soup for your chicken soup", because it's all been done and redone, and watered down so far that it all makes the red and white labeled stuff look gourmet!
(and believe me, having been born in soup-town, i'm not putting down the company that keeps on souping.)
one of my faves will always be that nice, smooth, tomato variety that goes so well with a good old grilled american cheese sandwich.

an aside: (isn't that all this is?)
once, in a bar, in toronto, when ordering a burger, i asked for american cheese. - ok sneer if you must.
the lady taking our order, kind of looked at me funny, then the lights went on.
"oh, you mean processed cheese" (long 'O' sound)
"we call that Kraft Plastic cheese"

i went for swiss.


back to the books,
i think i'm going to partner with the older, artistic bodmo' brother and come up with the ultimate self-help book.
pop-up book.
each page will contain a single platitude, (and some with the fancier duck-billed platitudes), and
as you read it, a cardboard hand will rise from the page, slapping you in the forehead with a loud 'duh' sound.

how DO you go on living when someone you love has died.

the same way you go on living:

• when someone you love is getting close to the end
• when someone you love (and you) are blissfully ignorant of just how short a time you have left together.

you put one foot in front of the other, you hope for the best, you take what you get.
you have good days, you have bad days,
you have days where you think things can't possibly get any worse, and they do.
or the days when there is no way but down, and suddenly, out of nowhere, there is such a blinding, bright, warm flash of sunshine that you can't help but say, "this is what it's all about"

you go on by remembering things that live inside you.

when you dump the laundry basket of towels on the bed and stop to think...
"what is that special folding technique that she came up with that is the only way to get all the towels in that little closet.

you go on by whatever means you have,
often, pop culture generated?

Red to Andy: "get busy living, or get busy dying"

at times like this, the old rolling stones song, "you can't always get what you want" comes to mind.
although now it always brings me to 'the big chill", especially since the other week's perfect recreation of the glenn close shower scene, after an afternoon of clearing away old hair brushes, perfume, oils, lotions, night guards, and all the other essentials that aren't any longer.

it's like when you finally realize you can't spend the entire day on the couch, and you sit up and say to yourself,
"now what are you going to do, dumb ass"
(celebrity voice supplied by Kurtwood Smith)

like every single day since you can remember.

mary, mary, how does that garden grow

wow,
been a long time since i put anything up here.


it's almost halfway into 2012, nothing has happened, you ask?


no, too much,
there was a marriage.,
then a death,
then the end of a marriage, (yes, same one as two lines above...)


billions of people in this world, yet still we somehow manage to do most of our traveling alone.


we all have out little space, and we cultivate what we want around us.  
for good of for bad.


some keep their space bare, and desolate, so as not to let any weeds grow.
if you don't know what it is, it must be a week, so you pull it, nothing grows.


most of us, have a nice little plot, a few favorite plants, and various others, some weeds, some not.
(often the weeds are the most fun, and can get you into the most trouble,
but you wouldn't live without them)


but for most of us, there is at least one of two favorites.
when it's nice and sunny, we can go out and sit under the branches, and feel warm, sheltered, loved and taken care of.


when the weather goes south, maybe it's raining hard, you get closer to the faves, their leaves and branches break the momentum of the rain.
you are both still getting wet, but together it's not as bad.


then something happens and that favorite is gone.
there is just a hole where your soul used to be.


you look down into the hole, wondering what happened, why it happened, how you can get your favorite back.


there are so many possible solutions:

• sit and look down into the hole, crying each day until the moss around you grows up over you
• climb down into the hole, swearing not to come out until your special one comes back. eventually you get buried and there isn't even a lump for people to remember you by.
• some run out really quickly, almost always too quickly, and buy a new favorite plant and put it in the open, scary looking hole in your space.  rarely it works, but still we try
• some buy all kind of really neat, and cool ornaments, bird baths, whirlygigs, fountains, place them all around the hole, make it look festive, look nice. (we all know the hole is still there)

 so many options, as usual the proper chapters are left out of the guide book, our 'helping friendly book'


 what i think is that you have to honor the hole in your garden,
acknowledge it, but don't fall in.
 (a wise woman once warned her friends and family to keep their eye on a certain husband to make sure he didn't just go into the hole and pull the dirt down on top of him)


 i think the only option is to honor the hole, not decorate it, or fill it in, it will be there forever.
 the seasons, the weather will soften the edges of the hole, make them look less like a scar in your garden, and more like just part of the plan.


 you can find other plants that could become the new important plant, but that takes time.
 and care, very special care.


 it's hard to plant something, next to a big hole...
 the tendency is for it to kind of encroach on the hole, and care must be taken to make sure that doesn't happen.


 no matter how important the new plant, it is not there to replace the one that is gone,
 it cannot replace the missing one, and shouldn't.


but it can grow and prosper, and compliment the space, eventually casting it's shade and cover  to you, and to the the vacancy next to it in the garden.


 or maybe i'm nuts?
 (or else i've dug myself into a hole that i just can't seem to write myself out of?)


 oh well,
 maybe next entry won't take so long.