And So I Persist ...

I do not like Mondays, but not for the reasons which most people share.  For me, a Monday is the loneliest day, the one day when no one is around, when I have no responsibilities at work or with the community.  In my days of loving and needing solitude, which seem so long ago now, I would crave Mondays, but that was someone else, not me.  As emotional and exhausting as yesterday was, you'd think I would actually welcome this quiet time, but no ... I don't.

Yesterday was my first full day back to work since everything changed, exactly one month before.  I knew going in that I would see her, and in fact we interacted four separate times.  We said hello, and I wished her a happy birthday (another Fire, like me) but the most intense bits were when we didn't say anything.  A look, especially for people who knew each other as well as we did, can speak much louder than words.  Three times this happened, and each time, it was difficult to hold, and even more difficult to look away.

We had about fifty students spread among the four classes, which meant lots of surprised friends and acquaintances, who were seeing me for the first time in four weeks.  Some people I told the Cliff Notes version of recent events, some just hugged me and said they were happy I was back, and I spent the day feeling very loved, but also very drained.  By the time the last class rolled around, complete with a major problem in MindBody, I was in serious need of distraction.

Lunch at Eagle Rock didn't help.  Reading Anathem didn't help.  Even one of my treasured Barnes & Noble evenings didn't help.  I wandered around with a basket full of books, read bits of Gibson & Stephenson & Wendell Berry & Seamus Heaney and couldn't bring myself to care enough about any of them to bring one home.  That's how you know it's bad : when a bibliophile comes home from a gigantic bookstore empty handed.

There is a coda to all of this, a silver lining, if you will.  After a bit of a false start, the PBT had it's regular New Moon Reiki Share this evening.  I had just written to N & P in the afternoon, directing them here to this blog, and was of course very happy with their supportive, loving responses.  Even with their own busy lives, fraught with challenges and difficulties, they love me enough to encourage me and wish the best for me.  What else can one ask for in a chosen family?

After the Share itself, during which I tried a few new magick tricks, N headed to bed (after a big day of woo woo) and the remaining four of us stayed up chatting until after 1am.  (Eastern, that is.  For The Dear Boy it was only 10ish!)  We all connected so deeply, more than at any time since he left.  You could almost taste the chocolate cake, and if I closed my eyes, I could almost see him down at the kitchen table, sitting to my right, smiling.

Such a gift, times like that.  It also makes me miss him all the more, which then leads to missing her, and missing the life we were building, the salons, the drumming, the grilled cheese sandwiches, the hours of talking and connecting.  Am I fool for holding these spaces, for dreaming of better days to come?  What else can I do?  It's not like I can just let it all go.  I can't unsee what I've seen.  And so I persist, a day at a time, an hour at a time, a breath at a time, until the wheel turns my way again.