The Ocean, Sunrise, Sunset and Doing the Hell out of Everything in Between

 I left Florida for Oregon on January 20^th 2015, or 4,156 days ago.  While I miss with all my heart the friends and chosen family I left behind, being so close to the ocean is a very close second.  My connection to the ocean began when I served in the Navy.  The immense power, the immense isolation, the immense size, are all deeply felt in my bones, something that was awakened in those early days as a Sailor.  Living close to the beach in Jacksonville was a blessing as I could go there pretty much any time I wanted, although I must admit most of my trips were bright and early.

My #1 Zen spot is sitting in a cheap plastic Adirondack chair with my feet in the sand, or ocean, and watching the sun come up.  #2 was the Ponder Porch looking down at Cedar Creek, or Smith River I liked to call it.  At the beach, it was actually that hour and a half before the actual time of sunrise.  That is when the show happens, the sunrise itself is somewhat anticlimactic.  I could not even begin to count the number of times I watched the sun come up on the beach.  It was pretty dang cool watching a sunrise from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic as well.

Sunrise for me is not about the moment the sun breaks the horizon.  It is about the long quiet negotiation between blackness and the daylight that happens before most are paying attention.   The sky trying on colors before it fully commits to what it will wear for the day.  It is felt before it is seen.  The air changes, the sounds of the pelicans and sandpipers start to grow.  It is the part of the day that does not ask anything of you.  No expectations, no scorecard, just possibilities in that short window of time.

Sunrise is not about a fresh start every day as much as it is permission from the universe to try again to be a better version of yourself.  Not a single win is ever guaranteed in a day.  But for me, watching the majesty of a sunrise is the win, my eyeballs popped open and I got to experience another one.  The sunrise is also a constant for me, a steady reminder that time keeps moving on, the earth continues to rotate through the days.  Regardless of whether we are ready for them or not and that in and of itself is a cherished gift.  No sunrise promises a good day, it only promises a chance to make one. 

Sunsets are much different for me, I love them as well.  Sunsets are more about an accountability check.  That moment where the day gets to ask me, what did ya do with me?  What difference did make with me?   Sunsets are where the noise dies down, and whatever is left is the truth of our day, and our lives.  Where our life’s intentions meet reality, a score card of sorts that hopefully leaves us with a smile that comes from meeting that day and doing the hell out of it.  Sometimes the scorecard leaves us uncomfortable, even a little dissatisfied with our day and a reminder to do better tomorrow.  And to make sure we are giving ourselves grace on those days we fall short.     

Sunsets are more a harsh critic, they do not care what I meant to do today.  They only see what I actually did today.  Sunsets are also a reminder that every amazing thing has an ending, they are predictable and just part of how the universe drives all of this.  One day at a time they say in lots of ways, I guess that is a silent reminder to let go in small increments, micro dosing our way along.  We don’t get to give permission for the day to end, it just does, every day just ends.  We can’t hold on to it, we only get to live inside each day while it’s here.  That is a reminder that every moment we have is truly a gift.

Watching a sunrise or sunset in the presence of the ocean just adds a massive layer to the experience, at least it does for me.  The ocean cares not about our plans, same as the sun cares little about our pace.  But together, they help give me a frame to measure myself against, and that is pure magic.  Sunrise reminds me I get a shot, sunset reminds me of how I did with that shot.  And the ocean, it just sits there reminding me how small I am and how small my problems are, and how damn fortunate I am to simply be playing the game.

I mentioned it had been 4,156 days since I left Florida.  That number sounds big, but most of those days, most all days really, blur together if I am honest.  What sticks are the ones where I actually showed up for them and made a difference.  And try to make sure I have more of those days than not.  That does not mean I was absent of sunrises.  I watched a great many of them over Mt. Hood, and various places around Oregon.  And I got to watch a great many sunsets over the pacific, but the lesson was never about where I was standing.  It was about whether I was paying attention to how the day began and how I finished it.   

I say all of that because I am excited to be heading to Florida next week for a 2 week break from all the things.  I am so looking forward to some beach sunrises and St. John’s River sunsets.  Some time to reflect on life, on where I am, on where I am going and what my next steps are.   And to sit with the ocean again, while it gives me that same reminder, the days are mine to live, they are not mine to keep, and that being part of the rhythm of the universe is a blessing and as good as it gets.

I am fortunate to be able to travel to Florida to sit with my old friend the Atlantic, sharing space with each other and listening for what might come next for me, whether I am ready for those answers or not.  And, of course I will get to hug the necks of friends I have missed for far too long. 

I Love Ya Damn it

Bride and I had lots of little things we did on purpose.  I have been thinking about some of those.  They say that a couple should never go to bed mad, I cannot recall any times we did, but I am sure there was a time or two.  One thing we did do, every time we parted ways, even for a quick run to the store, was to kiss each other and say “I love ya.”   It was just what ya did before ya walked out the door.  We said it again first thing in the morning, and again when we went to bed, I always kissed her in the morning and said Mornin Beautiful.

I always thought it funny when she’d ask, do you just say that now or do you mean it.  Funny because I knew no other way to be but in love with her.  It never felt like words we had to remember to say.  It was said with the simply act of making her coffee in the morning, putting way more cream in there than should ever be in there because I knew that is how she liked it.

I remember she entered a contest once that a Jacksonville TV station was doing leading up to Valentines day.  I wish I could find that note she submitted to demonstrate how much she loved me.  That was the contest, the morning news hosts would pick the best story of love from all the submissions.   The basic story was about making sure I had the best of anything, the example she used was coffee cups.  If we had two coffee cups and one had a chip in it, she would give me the unchipped cup and then she would take the cup with the chip in it.   Well, she won the contest which included a hotel on the beach for a weekend and a shit load of Peterbrooke chocolate goodies.  After that, I bought a new set of coffee cups.

Phone calls always ended the same way, I love ya or I love ya damn it.  Sometimes quick, sometimes dragged out a little bit just to be annoying.  When I spoke to her at 1:10pm on the day I lost her, she told me she was feeling puny and was going to lay down and take a nap.  Taking a nap when retired was nothing out of the ordinary.  The last words she heard me say were, I love ya damn it.  And she gave them right back to me, the last words I will ever hear her say were, I love ya damn it.

It was never about saying it for us.  It was all the small things done without even thinking about it.  It showed up in all the little nearly meaningless things we did to make each other smile, or make each other happy.  Like me randomly doing laundry.  Seems like that should be a split duty thing, but back in our first house we had to go outside through the carport to a very scary little room with our washer and dryer in it.

She made the mistake of telling me that if I could figure out a way to give her an indoor laundry room, I would never have to do laundry again.  Never was her word, not mine and I laughed, pulled out the saw, and chopped a hole from our dining room into what became an amazing laundry room.  We joked about that over the years, but she kept up her end of the deal, and was always very appreciative when I did do it. 

I sure do miss her.  I would trade every clean load of laundry just to hear one more I love ya damn it. 

Chapters with Missing Pages – Keeper of The Stories

Last night I was watching the sun go down on the back porch, just sitting with it all.  I had nothing else to do, nowhere to be, and just sat watching the sun go down.  In the stillness of that moment, I was reminded of my belief that life feels more like a train ride than anything else.  We get on, we start moving, and we really don’t know where the hell we are going or when we are getting off. 

We like to think we are in control of our lives, or even have a tiny ability to control the ride, but at the end of the day, we don’t.  I think that is the biggest missed opportunity in our lives, to get stuck thinking we do have some form or sort of control and operating under a false pretense the whole time. 

The universe spins on with a cosmic time clock, and it cares little about our brief time here as individuals.  Of course, the universe is using a cosmic clock that takes 13.8 billion years to spin around.  I find that perspective helpful, that we don’t matter in the grand scheme of things in relation to cosmic time.  I think that is a good thing for all of us to remember and ponder on every once in a while.

On our journey, I like to think of it as a train ride, we have people who join us on our ride, sharing a bit of the journey.  Some folks are only on for one stop, others a few stops, a precious few stay for years, and then there are those cherished few who ride along with us for decades.  Again, in the cosmic scheme of things, the odds are that number of cherished riders are always pretty small, I like to call them the one handers, because mostly you can count them on one hand.   The ones who when they call and need you, you go, period, and be with them. Like many did for me.

I also think each of us on our rides is playing out our own story, the story of our lives.  Or at least we are trying to play it out, the universe always has a say whether we like it or not.  So, at the end of the journey we have a book, full of chapters and hopefully full of adventures with all those who were on the train with us, regardless of how long. 

Our books hold our memories of those who rode with us, we are the keepers of all those memories.  We are also the keepers of our shared memories, as they are of ours.  When we lose someone, especially one of those one handers, you become the sole keeper of those shared experiences.  The first time that happened for me was when Alison Bodey died, I had known her since I was 4.  The next one was when Lyndon Boyer passed, I met him when I was 5 or 6. 

There are memories that I have that no one else has.  No one else knows them.  No one else knows the stories or the shared experiences.  I consider that a sacred honor to carry those, to reflect every once in while on those shared experiences.  To tell those stories to others can help me carry the weight of that responsibility.  Each of those for me, and there are others, was hard to pick up, they were heavy, and it is my honor to do that for them.

With Bride gone now, I feel an even larger responsibility to keep those memories alive.  I will start writing more about her on here, to be memorialized hopefully as long as the internet exists.  I feel like we had just gotten into our Midwest adventure chapter, it was just getting interesting, it hooked us.  And then all of the sudden, it stopped.  Not paused.  Not slowed. Stopped. 

A harsh reminder that I am not in control of any of this, no matter how much I think I am.  The rest of the pages in the chapter were ripped out, never to be read, experienced or shared with her.  Pages we didn’t even know we were going to love yet.  Actually, it feels like the rest of the pages in the book were ripped out, end of story.

But I know, the ride still goes on, the universe is not quite done with me yet, at least as long as my eyeballs keep popping open each day.  The universe has another chapter for me, even though I did not even get to finish the one I was in.    A chapter without my honey.  A chapter with no direction, no terrain maps, no weather reports, just the unknown.    I want those missing pages back damn it!

In many ways it is terrifying.  In many ways it is exciting.  In many ways I don’t want to take that first step or read that first page of this chapter.  In many ways, I cannot wait to take that step, to dive into the next chapter.  I don’t really know how to do either though, yet.  In the meantime, I wake up every day, write my three things down.  I keep taking steps, although not many feel like there is any forward momentum, yet.

Right now I am mad at the universe.  Mad that it does not care.  But maybe that is the deal, the cost of getting on the ride in the first place.  It was never going to care.  The clock keeps spinning, and I am still here, staring at a chapter I didn’t choose, wondering what the hell will come next.

The Oddest Things Happen When Our Person Dies

The oddest things happen when our person dies.  The aching pain remains the next day, the day after that and again the day after that, at least through the last 6 weeks, which is where I am at right now.  There have been 42 sunrises and sunsets.  There have been buses taking kids to school on 29 of those days, and I have paid some number of bills over that time.  The universe continues on, the earth continues to rotate, and life, for many, goes on.

One of my three things I am still writing down each morning now includes “say it out loud, she is gone and you are going to be OK.”   Some days I believe myself, and others it is harder to say out loud.  Those hard days, my stomach convulses and I almost feel like I am going to throw up.  Like most things, saying it out loud sounds different than just reading the words, a Brother from another Mother reminded me of that a couple of months ago. 

There is a tension in that sentence, she is gone, and you are going to be OK.  I don’t know how those two things are supposed to live in the same place.  One feels absolute, and the other feels nearly impossible.  And somehow, I am expected to carry both.  In some ways, I want to be OK now, and in others I want time to stop.  

It seems so odd to think about my person, my Beautiful Bride.  It always seemed like wife was sort of a role, versus a presence.  Beautiful Bride for me was always more than just wife, that is such a limiting word, at least in my opinion.  Sure, it encompassed that, but she was also my partner in crime, the one who would still do whiskey shots with me until we were properly polluted. 

She was my closest confidant, my wisest counsel, my best friend, and the one who knew more about me than anyone else ever could or will.  And I knew those things about her, she called me Gorgeous Groom, at least when she wasn’t calling me Smit.  For those who have found the love of their lives, you can probably understand why wife or husband does not fully encompass what your person means to you.  I wish and hope everyone can know what that feels like because it is the most amazing thing ever.  

And every morning, I remind myself, out loud, that she is gone.  I fucking hate that that is on my to do list every day.  The physicists say time does not work the way we think it does.  The past, present, and the future aren’t as separate as they might feel.  Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not.  But because part of me is still back there, with my person and part of me is here, paying bills and watching the school buses go by, I am not sure which is the truest. 

The Missing Future Tense

Over a month into this new part of my journey, one of the things I have been stumbling over now is what tense to use, what words are right in different situations.  For almost 4 decades, it was always “we.”  Not a choice, just the way things were.   We’ll check on those dates, we’ll get back to you, we appreciated it.  It was not something I ever had to think about, it just came out that way, it was automatic.  It was simply a part of we and us.  Now I am singular, me, myself, and I.

Now I find myself pausing, editing in real time, mid sentence, and as you can tell, I suck as an editor.   What I am noticing is the pause that wasn’t there before.  The sentence used to just came out.  Now, there is a moment where I have to decide who I am in it.  I have also found myself being deliberate in saying we, because that still feels more honest to me, even though I know it’s not.  I think it is simply muscle memory, a reflex built from years of repetition.

Being a Trekkie, who is currently rewatching Star Trek Discovery, I have been framing these thoughts about tense through the lens of time travel.  You know, she is, she was, we are, and so on.  Tenses in language have rules, past, present and future, clean lines around all of it.  Language expects things to stay in their own damn lanes.  Turns out, grief is more like a drunken sailor, weaving all over the place while shooting a bird at the established rules around tense. 

Some days she is, in the habits, in the voice in my head and the way I reach for something that is all her.  Some days she was.  And any thoughts or sentences with she was just land harder and hurt more.  Right now, I live between the lines, in one moment she is, in another, she was.  The one that is missing, is the future tense, she will, or she might.  That is the one I notice is gone.  I fucking want my future tense back!!

For example, when talking to the folks at our credit union when I removed her from our accounts, when we wrapped up I said, we really appreciate your help.  I did not correct myself because by the time I realized it, the conversation had already moved on.  From outside, nothing changed.  From the inside, I felt it.  In the grocery store, going down the aisle where the cherry mashes are thinking she’ll want a couple of those.  Or this morning sitting out on the porch admiring the growth in the bed we ended up planting full of wildflowers thinking she is gonna love this.  

In this moment, it feels like I am using language to navigate around the edges, where words break down and don’t fully describe things.  Every choice, made in real time, in the moment, the I, the we, the is, the was does not seem like just grammar anymore.  It feels more like selecting which version of reality I am standing in at that moment.

She was the grammar queen.  And if I am being honest, she’d probably be correcting my tense right now.  I think she’d insist that “we” is the right word.  And I’d let her correct all day long, just to hear her voice one more time.  She would also understand why I am living between the rules right now. 

Tough Couple of Days

It’s been a tough few days, and it started when I called her phone so I could listen to her voice message just to hear her vice again.  When I did, it sort of put me in a spiral, sorta feels like an out of control carousel that I have not been able to figure out how hop the fuck off.  I never liked carousels, and even less the last few days.  The loneliness has been a bit louder, and I am not a fan. 

Not hearing her voice, not being able to kiss her, not being able to touch her, not be able to hold hands, not be able see that little smile she would give me when I kissed her on the cheek and said “Mornin Beautiful”.  I don’t get to thumb rastle, I don’t get to touch each other’s fingers when we were looking at the TV, not being able to pinch her butt when she was cooking or doing something serious. I miss staring into her eyes and telling her I loved her and spooning when we went to bed.       

The loss of touch, of intimacy, not necessarily the sex part but the closeness part, has been the hardest part so far and the last few days have been particularly difficult.   I think because it is finally sinking in, maybe I am coming to the realization that my life is something very different now. 

Our life together was comfy, cozy, and deeply known to each of us.   It was hard to tell where one of us started and the other one ended.  We were one with the force.  It was not the kind of comfy that was missing any sort of adventure or excitement.  It was more like the comfiness of just knowing how she would show up and just be her in almost any situation, and her knowing the exact same thing about me. 

That intimate understanding of my favorite human, that comes with 38 years of knowing each other.   We knew all of it about the other one, the good, the bad, the ugly and the simply amazing.  And she had the amazing part dialed in, it was not something she had to do, it was simply who she was.      

Maybe this is the part where my new reality really starts to sink in.  Maybe this isn’t just a moment I’m trying to get through, maybe this is the life I am going to have to learn how to live.  I don’t just miss her, I miss us, and it fucking sucks!  

Dogbert and His Routine

Larry O, star of the show, sure has been missing his Momma.  Or, as I called him, Handsome Petey Kabuki McPants McGillicuddy.   We had many names for him but those were our favorites.  Bride and I never agreed on that, so I called him all sorts of names, just with the right tones.  Dumbass was my favorite, with the Red Foreman tone from that 70’s show.  He never really listened or paid attention to any of them anyway.  Now, at 15, he is getting hard of hearing, so I will holler anything to get his attention, he still ignores me. 

He was Momma’s boy for sure.  Bride always called him Daddy’s boy but being his Daddy, I can tell ya with certainty that he was a Momma’s boy.  He would follow her around, sit with her, cuddle with her and nap with her.  He also slept on her side of the bed.

He has been more clingy than before, follows me around more, sits with me more, leans in closer than he used to, and takes his naps with me.  I still make him sleep on the other side of the bed at the foot, I don’t like him pushing on me in the night.

I saw all these behaviors before, when Bride would go to Texas or anywhere else.  The most interesting thing I noticed is how he handles eating and drinking.  He would slow it down.  Stretch it out across the day, not anything dramatic, just… different.  It was like he was adjusting for me being gone during the day.  And then she’d get home, and voila, right back to normal.  I always laughed about it, and she never believe me, not even a little bit. 

It was the same after she passed.  He regulated his water and food again.  It was not quite as extreme this time.  I was home for a couple of weeks, and even now I am back to work, I am only like 8 minutes away.  I still come home for lunch, something I did before so we could sit together and talk about the nothings of the day.  I miss those moments more than I expected.    

I have been watching him lately, and am starting to see him shift again.  He is returning to routine.  Not exactly the same as before, but something steady.  Something that looks like it could be a new normal for him.  And that makes me happy, and it crushes me at the same time.   

I wish I could know what was going on in his head.  Does he know she’s not coming back?  Is he still waiting for her?  Does he miss her in the same way I do, or in some simpler, quieter way?   Bride was his world since he was 8 weeks and I know he loved her. 

And like life, I see him moving on with it.  Is he moving forward, without asking permission and without overthinking it.  In some ways I am profoundly saddened by that.  In other ways I am encouraged. 

He loved his Momma every bit as much as I did, I know that.  If he can, in his little doggy brain, start to move forward, into his new Dogbert reality…  then maybe I can too.

And that hurts!  He figures out his new normal without thinking about it.  I just wake up and feel the weight of mine, and it feels more acute today.

I took this the night before she passed.