Constants are just that, constant. unyielding. meant to be repeated forever

Hi –

Nothing new to report around here. The Hanamus tree is up and it looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself.  I’m heading to Rab’s on Wednesday for Thanksgiving. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been a pretty big constant in my life for the last 5 or so years. It will be nice to do it again. Plus I could really use some Rab love, especially a hug.

Since I have nothing really new and overly interesting to say these days, I figured I would let someone else do it. Carly gave me this quote a while ago and I had tucked it away for safe keeping, and I stumbled upon it today.

"Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence...The more often I cried in my room...and felt just generally wretched, the more often I started to have occasional moments of utter joy, of feeling aware of each moment shining for its own momentous sake. I am no longer convinced that you're supposed to get over the death of certain people, but little by little, pale and swollen around the eyes I began to feel a sense of reception, that I was beginning to receive the fact of [the death,] the finality. I let it enter me.

I was terribly erratic: feeling so holy and serene some moments that I was sure I was going to end up dating the Dalai Lama. Then the grief and craziness would hit again, and I would be in Broken Mind, back in the howl.

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it, like a nicotine craving, I would discover that it hadn't washed me away. After a while it was like an inside shower, washing off some of the rust and calcification in my pipes. It was like giving a dry garden a good watering. Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does.

Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can't be beat... I've found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering. But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you.. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination...'There are cracks, cracks, in everything, that's how the light gets in.' "

Love you forever, miss you always.

Rachel

Quotes, quotes, quotes…to the tune of shots, shots, shots.

Hi –

Sometimes other people say things way better than I ever could hope too.

Mitch Albom once wrote, “Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.” I would pretty much give my left big toe and give up my ability to balance for one more moment. Not a conversation, not an ‘I love you’, not for the chance to tell things you already knew like - you meant and will always mean the world to me. But I want one more moment where we would crawl into your bed, and I would curl up on your side, and we would watch some TV special that you recorded because you knew I would love every minute of it. Preferably some AFI special. I would even give it up for one more game of spite and malice and I would totally let you win.

Kitkat Pecson wrote the following, “I think of you in the in-between spaces. In the pause before the next heartbeat. In the clench of my chest before I exhale. In the swell of my courage before I say hello.” So, pretty much every minute, of every day, for the last year, and then some.

So yeah, there’s that stuff happening in my head today.

Love you forever, miss you always.

Rachel

Oodles and oodles of quotes, oh my!

Hi –

All week I keep hearing the same e.e. cummings quote in my head, “Here is the deepest secret no one knows. Here is the root of the root... and the bud of the bud... and the sky of the sky of a tree called life...” It’s from the poem ‘I Carry Your Heart’ which I’ve always loved and had Skip read at your funeral. Only this one part is haunting me though.

I think its because I’m reaching the point where I’m almost ready to talk about my feelings. Maybe. I think anyway. I can feel them bubbling up. I think the biggest sign is that I’m having more bad days than good lately. More often than not I can’t shake the sadness.

I’m pretty scared though. I have a feeling once I finally open up, there will be ugly things that come out. Ugly and hurtful. So that should be a ton of fun. That’s part of the reason I haven’t written as much lately. I’m finding myself following the old adage, ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,’ so silence ensues.

Kahni gave me the following quote "Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er the fraught heart and bids it mean." She must have known.

But so did good ole Stephen King…” "The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."”

So with all that, yeah there is a lot going on in my head.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in

my heart) I am never without it (anywhere

I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

I fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”

Mercury is in retrograde

Hi –

Who knew when you striped away the music and noise of Nine Inch Nails you could get this:

“My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore.

Scraping through my head ‘till I don’t want to sleep anymore.”

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel