Photo-Heavy, Heart-Heavy

Nightmares plague me in my sleep, one after the other, and despite the walks, the vitamins, the distraction of work, the talks with Mike, the donations made, the healthy meals, the frosting-covered treats, the focus on kindness and beauty, the books read, the magazines curled up with, and the visit home to family, the days continue to be hard too.  In many dreams since the 27th, I am being chased and am running for my life.  In one, I was hiding with Stuffed in a closet from a violent man who had just cut someone's hand off in front of me before I had escaped, and Stuffed and I were waiting it out until I thought he had given up on hunting us and we could climb out a window and run farther from him.  In another, I handed a small gift-box to a friend at work, and it was only when she hesitated to take it from me that I realized that she was Jewish and was afraid I was tricking her by handing her a box that contained a bomb.  Then the dream changed and I knew there was, indeed, a bomb inside and that we were in danger.  In one dream I didn't remember more of upon waking, Mike had told me that we would be okay but would need to stick together and be careful.  In one last night, I was standing on the boardwalk in my beloved Ocean City when I suddenly knew that the stranger beside me had it in for me and I needed to leave, and to leave quickly. . . .Knowing there are so many out there who have lived actual nightmares and mourned real losses of friends and family these past two weeks only makes me sadder.  

The day I caught the bus home to visit my parents and brothers, I walked out of the apartment only to find a news crew filming an interview a few steps from my front door:  One of the victims' funerals was being held across the street that afternoon.  (I had known that but hadn't expected to see news cameras in my front yard.)  The first time I visited the synagogue to leave my flowers, a newswoman who said she was from Denmark asked me how I was doing and a few other questions, and I awkwardly made my way for home soon after, uncomfortable talking at all, let alone while her partner filmed.  Maybe in awhile, when the news is paying less attention to this little part of the world--and being realistic, that will be when the next big gun violence story "steals" the spotlight--that will help some, I don't know.  A peace rally to honor the victims will be held this Friday, and I plan to attend, and maybe that will help some too, and again, I don't know.  It sounds like something that might feel like a step forward.  I have a growing list of letters to write--the mayor is on that list--and gestures of gratitude and recognition to pass along--the local police and the nearest funeral home are two on that list--and maybe getting those things done will help some, as well.  I want to give, give, give but feel fairly depleted these days.  

This is my favorite season, but the juxtaposition of the memorials and police tape with the stunning foliage and (all the flowers and) fall light has made the past two weeks even more jarring.   Relatedly, it has been mentioned over and over again that the site of the shooting was also quite literally the real "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," since Fred Rogers lived just three blocks away.  On the afternoon of September 11th, 2011, a fellow teacher and I were driving home together since our classes had been dismissed early, and while we listened to the news on the car radio and talked some along the way, all I remember of the commute home was how brilliantly blue the sky was.   And now when I remember the shooting and these weeks that followed it, I will remember how the morning I took my roses to the synagogue was the prettiest morning I'd seen yet that fall and how striking the fall colors were that year.  This is just life, of course.  And it goes on, as the saying goes. 

♥

And End of October

Six hours after beginning to write this, I remain stymied by it.  Mike's mom called Saturday morning to ask if we were okay.  Mike was still in bed when she called so had no idea what she meant.  Had we both been up and ready to go out to breakfast an hour sooner, we would have been on the street of the synagogue shooting while it was happening.  This is our Saturday routine.  The synagogue's street is one I regularly do my long walks on so has been pictured in many of my "out on my walks" posts here over the years.  It is where I take almost all of my fall leaves photos.  It intersects with my beloved cobblestone hill, aka The City Street We'd Love to Live on Someday.  Our Dunkin' Donuts is two blocks away from the synagogue.  The theater where we just watched A Star Is Born is also nearby.  (A surreal sight is the movie theater, drugstore, public library, and ice cream place in the background of news coverage of a neighborhood vigil.)  The yard of the little stone ranch house across from it is planted every summer by what seems like a million dollars' worth of rainbow-hued flowers.  (Another surreal sight has been that of a CNN anchor reporting in front of it.)  The survivors of the shooting were taken to the same hospital where Mike's dad died a few years ago.  Some of the victims' funerals were held across the street from our apartment.  Coworkers and neighbors have more direct connections to the synagogue and are suffering more significant losses than these this week, of course.  For us all, this hits home.  I took my little gingham ribbon-wrapped bouquet of orange roses to the synagogue this morning, to honor this neighborhood, its first responders, the lives changed in it, and the lives lost in it. 

One coworker took her kindergartner twins shopping Saturday afternoon and was asked by one if someone would shoot at them while they were out.  Another coworker reported that her own synagogue was protected by officers in two strategically-parked police cars Saturday. . . .How many other cities have been through all this before, of course--the sidewalk memorials, the news coverage, the outrage, the questioning, the seeing-one's-own-town-in-and-on-the-news, the traffic detours, the funeral-after-funeral-after-funeral, the "victims identified" horror, the "victims' stories" sadness, the President's visit, the calls for donations, the announcements of blood drives, the defiant t-shirt slogans and signs, the city-wide vow to come back from it even better. . . .We are far from the first to go through this.  I lived in Baltimore, an hour from D.C., during the September 11th attacks and had lived in New York City the September before, and the heaviness felt here this week brings back the memories of that time.  It is our turn here now.  I don't understand hatred.  And I see this week that I don't understand it any better now than I did seventeen autumns ago. 

Meanwhile, it was a perfect fall morning here, with all the sunshine making the trees glow.  

The leaves are beginning to change color, and the sidewalks are every day taking on more of that scattered-jewels look I love. 

My sweet cobblestone hill is coming into its fall glory-- 

--even though police tape and memorial stars now line one end of it. 

This beauty and these signs of solidarity have to be my focus this week, though.  Forget the police tape, Val.  All the kindnesses will carry us.  A Boston hospital had a huge pastry order delivered to a local hospital this weekend with a note that read "We stand with you. . .Stay strong."  A neighborhood collection was taken up to have a bunch of pizzas delivered to the local police and fire stations located three blocks from the synagogue.  Local museums and attractions have offered free admission for families this past week.  "Need a friend or a shoulder?" our breakfast spot's sidewalk placard read by Saturday afternoon, I later learned.  "Coffee is on us today."  May I collect goodness and do my own part to spread it, all my days. 

God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this.
Let me straighten after pain, as a tree straightens after the rain,
Shining and lovely again. . .

God, make me brave, life brings such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight; help me to see aright
That out of doubt comes light.

-Author unknown, from Prayers for Healing, edited by Maggie Oman

♥

Mid-October

'A weekend admiring Lake Erie, some beautiful walks in my favorite season, watching The Blair Witch Project and A Star Is Born at local theaters, pumpkin cupcakes and a pumpkin-cream cheese roll, a visit with Mike's mom, multiple Monarch butterfly sightings, Stuffed curled up beside the radiator, World Series playoffs, catching up on "This Is Us" and "Better Call Saul," more work on my 1980s memoir, a camel-color cardigan with cream cuffs, "Mud Mask" color nail polish, a coworker who just earned a well-deserved new position, a rainbow, reading Lost Moon:  The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, and discovering that pink pumpkins exist. 

♥

September Sunset

Tonight

Cat-Fur Heart, Anyone? :)

'To be taken as a sign, methinks.  ♥ 

Could We Start Again, Please

Sweet Stuffed is asleep beside me while I type, for starters.  The vet visited Friday afternoon to treat an overgrown dewclaw, trim the rest of Stuffed's nails, and to shave some of the matted fur that I've been too afraid to handle on my own.  He expertly and most efficiently did all these things but also said that Stuffed, at 19, is experiencing "Old Cat-ness" now and that we should just love him and do our best to take good care of him, especially since Stuffed can no longer take care of himself as well as he used to.  It is harder for him to bend and stretch while cleaning himself, for example, so we need to be the ones to wash his paws and paw-pads.  At this age, he went on, a cat's skin is so thin, it can tear just by scraping up against something, and its bones are so frail, people can literally break a cat by not handling it gently enough.  It is good that Stuffed wears a jingle-bell on his collar, he added, so there's less chance anyone will accidentally turn too fast and step on him.  Stuffed is down to five pounds now too, he said, and when a cat's skin has become as thin and fragile as Stuffed's now is, he explained, it's typically in the next six months that "real problems" begin.  

With "six months" seemingly echoing after the vet left, I spent the rest of Friday afternoon and evening bursting into crying jags, wishing I could go back to the beginning with Stuffed and do it all again.  That Stuffed avoided me the first three hours after the vet-visit was understandable but didn't help.  When he finally re-approached me, slowly walking toward me in bed only to curl up at my side unexpectedly, I started crying yet again.  ('Sweet Stuffed, ♥ no way for him to win with me Friday.)  I knew this was all coming someday, of course, but someday was narrowed down so suddenly.  As Mike pointed out Friday night, yes, Stuffed's old, but he could live five more years; The vet can't predict the future.  I am already suffering some of the loss, though, and am still choking up multiple times a day when I think of all this.  I have heard "six months" before about loved ones and have clearly survived, but there is something about this innocent little soul and the idea that he doesn't know what I know. . . .I already feel gutted by it.  I have already prayed to Sommer and asked her to take care of him after he passes.  I believe in such things, and she was a lifelong cat-lover and cat-rescuer, and if it's possible, I know she will do this for me.  Appear to him even before he passes, please. . . .I want him to be used to you already. . . .Don't let him be scared or lonely for even one second, Sommer, please, I mean this.  The thought that Stuffed could go from the warmth of my arms to hers is the only one really bringing me any peace these past few days.  ♥  I am having a hard time here. 

Ohhhhhh, my heart.  I get so very tired of this loss business, for all of us.