Spring

by | Mar 21, 2011 | 1 comment

I wonder if I’ll ever understand that I am never going to see you again.

I wonder how far away this will seem in 35 years when I’ve lived my current lifespan again- without you.   It is ridiculous to consider.  And impossible.

Joan Didion quite aptly calls it a year of magical thinking.

Still, when the bus drops people off in front of our apartment, I sometimes go to the window.

I look for someone that I can pretend is you for one moment in the distance and dimming light.  I squint my eyes.  I know it’s not you- the walk gives it away.  I’d have known your walk from miles away.  But I just want to feel in my old world for one moment.  The disorientation and unfamiliarity of this one gets so tiresome.

And sometimes too, I still look up from my work on the computer at our bedroom door, thinking I might see the handle slowly turn, and your face follow with the look that said, “I hope I didn’t just wake Audrey up coming in the front door!”  And then you’d often sigh because you were tired.  And then I would stop what I’m doing, get up, go to you, and give you a hug.

A friend of yours stops by for lunch today and I make duk mandoo guk.  I realize as I’m making the broth earlier and boiling the tiny fish- that I am so excited to cook for someone and that I miss doing that so much.  I start to cry while rinsing dishes because I will never get to cook for you again.

Today is the first day of spring.  It is also Audrey’s 2-1/2 year birthday.  We lit a candle on a brownie bite and she actually blew it out for once.

“You’re missing it all,” I say out loud tonight sitting on our bed after she’s asleep and I’m trying to get my freelance work done but distracted as usual.

I think of a very short poem I wrote about four years ago when spring was burgeoning and I’d walk through Madison Square Park every morning on my way to work.  It’s entitled, “Announcement”

Announcement


We have come back


from the dead


singing.

JAC

March 21, 2011

1 Comment

  1. Hands Free Mama

    Jo, you so beautifully remind me that the simplest routines of life hold the most meaning. And to grasp them, grasp them tightly, while I still can.

    May Spring hold promise that your heart once knew.

    xoxo

    Rachel

    Reply

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