The big question for me is "where am I going?" It's away from my life with Bob, and I don't want to go. But Jeff put it so well. "Don't be the Widow Durham," he said. "Be Ann."
Not quite sure how to do that.
So what I can say is What Am I Doing?
Because obviously I have to be doing more than just sitting and grieving. No, it's not that obvious. I cry. A lot. Every damned day. Sometimes for a reason--something has hit me - and sometimes I just drip maybe walking across the yard. I cried when I made a salad and used the wooden salad claws that we got from the raptor rescue center in Sitka, Alaska. We were there for a friend's wedding, which was small and beautiful and held on a boat with the smell of spruce and the best salmon I have ever eaten or will eat in my life (gravlax!). The next day we went to the raptor center and they took an eagle out to play. They put him on a long leash and let him go into the shallow stream and we sat on the rocks and watched him play and snap at gnats and splash in the water. And in the gift shop we bought the salad tongs.
And it hit me that I've lost 48 years of shared memories. I can't say "remember when" and he'll say "yes" and then maybe add something I've forgotten and then more of it comes flooding back. That will never happen again.
So things like salad tongs make me cry. I'm getting used to it.
I went back to work at the museum after a couple of weeks. It gets me out of the house, doing something I enjoy with people I like. Like everything else, It's Not The Same. The volunteers clean the pens and cages, but we no longer convene afterwards in the kitchen to prepare the diets, which was the fun part, where we chopped and chatted. But the staff have to be separate from the volunteers, and we stay outside.
I take care of the cats, and clean up after them. Ditto the chickens. Feed everyone. Feed myself.
I've gotten a little strange about the latter. I've always been food oriented. I like cooking. I like eating. We liked eating. Now? Difficult. Especially that I do fix every meal myself (I've had one sandwich from a food truck, and had lunch at Rob and Jeff's (more about that later) and that's it. Mostly I have breakfast, and then somewhere around 2 or 3 I realize that the hollow hurting feeling that I have inside All. The. Time. might actually be hunger, and I eat something.
My obsession is my Misfits boxes. Misfits takes organic produce that isn't pretty enough for stores and boxes it up and sends it out. I used to look at their ads while we were in the hospital, and I was living on cafeteria food and microwave soups. I gazed at pictures of fresh vegetables the way some people look at porn, imagining some candlelight and Barry White. "I have broccolini, ladies."
So I signed up, and every other week I get way too much food for one person who isn't eating much, and I love it and arrange it and take pictures of it.
And a couple of times a week I roast a bunch up, and when the hunger hits I make some eggs or pasta or polenta or toast and heat up something. I don't know that I really enjoy it, but it tastes good.
What else? The last 2-3 weeks, too much paperwork, email exchanges, and phone calls to take care of legal matters that could have been done in a fraction of the time if I could have gone and met with people. And meeting with people, I might have been able to keep my act together a bit more. As it was, I would fill out forms until it hurt just too badly, then stop for awhile. But that's mostly done (mostly, because now I'm waiting on people to send stuff back to me.)
Walking: One habit of mine for years now has been taking a daily walk around the property (3 loops around = 1 mile) while spinning on a handspindle. In the last couple of years Bob joined me (when it wasn't too hot and buggy). It became a morning ritual: take care of critters, have breakfast, take walk. It was a time to chat, admire the daily changes (what's blooming, say hi to turtles, admire birds) and plan the day.
But a week or so before he died, he looked at me oddly one day, and said "I can see you." I was confused. Of course. I'm right in front of you. "No," he said. "I can see you walking. Walking and spinning at home. I can see you at the museum. I can see you at a party at Rob and Jeff's. But I can't see me. I'm not in the picture."
So now doing it is just so hard. I need to walk (my back and I are sometimes not on speaking terms). I need to get out and move. I love the handspinning. But can't quite do it on the path yet, or maybe one lap.
Gardening: The garden is a wreck. We couldn't really keep it up last year because we were trying to dig the rest of the yard out from the hurricane. And then the weather got hot, and he got diagnosed . . .
And it all looks like this. And the garden had become Bob's thing, mostly putting in a ridiculous number of pepper plants. There are about 16 raised beds out there, that I laboriously terraced when we first moved out here. At first I wasn't going to do anything, but I thought I might be sad later if I didn't. I compromised on cleaning up two beds, one for tomatoes and one for peppers. Then one day I looked at another bed, and realized that in among the weeds, the jalapeños from last year had survived, so I cleaned them up. And now the plants are loaded with peppers. He *loved* to make stuffed jalapeños for dinner (normally such a thing would be an appetizer). We would get a big stack of tortillas and beer to cut the fire and work through a whole cookie sheet of them, whooping a bit.
Eating Outside/ Watching TV : More of one, less of the other. Bob and I ate most of our meals in the den. At breakfast, he would turn on the TV and watch the news and then whatever was on. I would check my email and facebook. To be honest, TV was a contention between us our entire lives together. He liked to have it on, whether he was watching it or not. I found it annoying. After we got the firestick, he could spend what I thought was an inordinate amount of time just clicking around to see what was available. Now I rarely have it on during the day, and I take my meals on the back deck, with the squirrels (I put out sunflower seeds), watching the wren raise her chicks, and listening to the high pitched squeaks of the hummingbird, and the surprisingly low hum of his wings. At least I did--May and biting fly season came and has driven me indoors..
Other viewing. Bob and I always watched Jeopardy together (and he always was better at it). I thought watching it alone would be a wrench, but not as bad as I thought. Sometimes I watch it, sometimes I don't. What surprises me is other things. We always watched any videos that Adam Savage put out, and also Punished Props (cosplay with Bill and Britt Doran). I've watched just a but of Adam and none so far of Punished Props. Odd, because that one is largely about foamsmithing which is more my thing than his. I think it's because when they first came on the screen, for some reason he would call out "Biiiiill! Briiiitt!" as though he were greeting old friends. It will be hard to see them without hearing that.
Hummingbirds. That's another thing. Bob fed the hummingbirds. A month or so ago I saw one and had to go find the feeder and now remind myself to keep fresh sugar water in it.
Ripping a Tree From Limb to Limb: After 7 weeks of isolation, Rob and Jeff thought I should come over for a socially distanced lunch (the social distancing was eventually violated. At one point we were talking about Bob and I broke down and looked so pathetic that they hugged me. That felt so good. Bereavement in isolation is miserable--this is a time in a person's life when they *need* hugs and I've had none). I was so looking forward to this. It's been nice to be back at work at the museum, but it's not the same as just sitting around and chatting. And I hadn't had anyone to chat with for those 7 weeks.
So when I headed out and saw a tree down in the driveway, I was royally pissed. And stuck. Upset. Then angry. The tree wasn't big. But I'm not comfortable with the big chainsaw (heck, we had a rule that Bob couldn't use it if I wasn't at home). But I did have my big lopping shears, and I was able to find the limb saw in the barn. I changed into work clothes and started tearing that thing apart (I didn't think to take a before picture--in this one I had been removing limbs for about 20 minutes).
In about 45 minutes I had it down to the bare trunk which I was able to grab and drag out of the way. And had a lovely social (if not properly distanced) outing.
Sewing: Did an odd bit of sewing. While I was gone, the museum lost their old female goat and got a new baby one. At least they thought she was a baby; she's very small. But two weeks later there was an even smaller goat with her. He's adorable, but within two months there was a problem. He's a randy little guy, and he started tupping his mother. Bigger problem: a male goat shouldn't be neutered untile he's 6 months old or it can cause problems with the urinary tract. But they can be viable at 3 months. Really don't need yet another baby goat. And keeping him separated all the time was a problem because goats are herd animals. So they asked me to make him an anti-mating apron. Yep. It is a thing. You can buy them, but they're expensive and In These Days shipping takes longer. So I looked at pictures, and I had some heavy vinyl, and I made one. What's really funny is that I read that they're weighted so that when he stands on his hind legs the apron falls down to cover what is necessary to be covered, and what I had handy was a handful of marbles. The thing is totally silly, but it works.
The other sewing, is, of course for anyone who sews, masks. It's really a good idea to wear a mask when you go out in public (like a grocery story) these days. So I've made a few dozen--for friends at the museum with extras to pass out, for Rob and Jeff, for Amanda and her fellow students (who just found out they can go back to class next week but need to be masked). I have limited fabric, meaning I have tons of fabric but not of the right kind. So my masks have been mostly of the Vincent Van Gogh paints the Tardis, and Day of the Dead.
In general, it's just easy sewing (if a bit fussy). But sometimes I have to press down the feeling of horror that I am making masks to try to keep my friends just a tiny bit safer. And sometimes I come home from the grocery store and grab the disinfecting wipes to wipe down my purchases, strip off my clothes and toss them into the washer, drop my mask into a sink of soapy water, and take a shower. And wonder how in the hell did this ever become normal? And because brains are pattern making organs, mine wants to put this story in with losing him. If he hadn't died, maybe the world wouldn't have stopped. (I also wonder how he would have felt about All Of This).
So yes. Keeping Busy. Like eating, it's in an oddly detached sort of way, just going through the motions. Something I feel I should be doing. There's a lot on the docket for today and tomorrow, and it's important, which is why I felt the need to spew this out and get it out of the way.
I really wish I had A Project. Sometimes I do something obsessively, like the recent cape or my clay watcher statue. Something I can throw myself into. But I can't come up with anything. I am spinning some, and I started winding the warp for some more dishtowels (but haven't finished). But I want something big and weird.
Something Ann.
