I overhear women
on the phone,
with their husbands,
annoyed, impatient,
breath pushed out, eyes
r o l l i n g ,
Catching mine, looking for camaraderie, sisterhood.
They won’t find sympathy in me.
What I wouldn’t give for one more phone call,
seeing that sweet, dimpled face fill my phone’s screen,
Hearing the voice of my husband my
Gary,
my bumble bee
booming and deep into my ear
One
More
Time.
What I wouldn’t give to hear you say
I love you
one
more
time.
Eight months gone, now.
I’m feeling so adrift, so unmoored, so
un anchored
f l o a t i n g
in the cold water, the frigid air.
Small things strike me sharply,
goslings (goslings! so soft and wobbly) with their mommas learning to find food.
As I am, learning to find food.
I wanted to call you, text you to tell you about the goslings, their newness on my drive
the way you used to tell me.
There is no one to call,
no one at the end of that line
As sharp as the first snow,
the first buds, then blossoms on our cherry tree,
the first everything since I last saw your face.
On April 30th, 2002, eleven days after our first date, you told me you loved me.
We lay in your narrow bed in Park Slope, talking about everything and nothing at all. You said those three words. You took my breath away, Gary. You saw tears spring to my eyes, pushed my hair away from my face, and asked me what was wrong. I told you that I loved you too, and that I had something to tell you.
I took a deep breath, and began to tell you about my illness, the illness that has haunted me since I was 13: ultradian rapid cycling bipolar disorder type 1. It is incurable, and in my case, barely treatable. I gave you a brief rundown of my history, about the same that I would do with any new psychiatrist (two of whom retired while I was mid-treatment). I told you the truth: that I had never been arrested, never been hospitalized, and never harmed anyone other than myself. I told you that I had been on medication in the past, and that at that point when we were dating, I wasn’t on anything at all. I was manic pretty much all of the time.
At this point, fully expecting you to either recoil in horror or run away screaming, you surprised me by doing neither. You held me closer. I gave you the name of a book that I wanted you to read: An Unquiet Mind by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. I told you that it had saved my life. I told you that I wanted you to read this book, do some research, decide whether or not you wanted to go any further on what would be an absolute roller coaster of a ride, and that I had no judgement if you didn’t. I gave you a brief history, of my medications, my moods. I showed you the many scars from where I had cut quite deeply into my arm. This is your out, I said. You can walk away and never look back, and I wouldn’t ever blame you. Not even a little bit. You hugged me tightly, and promised to read the book. I gave you my copy when next I saw you.
You read it. You said it wasn’t really for you, and was probably more effective for someone struggling with the illness itself as opposed to an outsider.
You wanted to stay, you didn’t want to give up.
The 15 and a half years we were together were an absolute roller coaster ride, as promised. There was a lot of good, and a lot of very, very bad. We never did give up. Not even a little bit.
One of the very last books you read was Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher. As always, you were listening to it on audio. You had it on whenever you were awake, which included a lot of times when I was getting dressed, or doing something else in the house. The morning that I discovered that you were reading it, I was trying to put on makeup in the bathroom. I was listening to the narrator describe my life. Weeping, I walked into the bedroom where you lay in bed listening. I motioned for you to pause the narration. I asked you why you were listening to it. You said, “Do you want me to stop? I thought it would help me understand you better.” I replied, “No. I want you to finish it. And then I want to listen to it after you’re done.”
Even before you had finished reading it, you looked at me with a softness in your eyes, a softness I hadn’t seen there before. You explained to me that you thought you understood now. At least a lot better than you used to. I said that I was grateful for that, and that I was trying very hard to not resent the fact that it took someone else’s story about my life to have you understand my life.
I asked a trusted friend about this phenomenon, and he explained to me that it’s common with people who are struggling with PTSD, for them to hear someone else’s story and be able to relate to it much better than if the person they’re more connected to is describing it. Curious, but true. I trust him; I trust you.
The very fact that you understood that I could be fearful of showering, or brushing my teeth, or opening the mail! or any of the small, seemingly ridiculous things that I had been unable, incapable of doing at one point or another along my way, whether or not you actually understood why but that you understood that it *was possible* and that it was real, this was mind-blowing to me. A breakthrough. More breakthroughs would come in those last six days you were on this planet. Incredible breakthroughs aided by drugs that you had such terrible reactions to. And the time and in between after you read this last book and the day you died is bittersweet.
You died, and in those last bits of time we had I know that you understood me more than you ever had done before. More than you had ever been able to before. I knew that up until then, you were incapable of understanding me, not because you were stubborn (although you were). Not because you were obstinate (although you were that, too). But only because it was truly impossible.
I am joyful because we had those last few days where we understood each other, where you understood me, where you understood exactly the hell that I had been through. Exactly the hell that you had wreaked upon me. And I know that you were sorry. We had the rest of forever to figure it out. And figure it out we did.
I love you. I love you now, And I love you forever.
Always,
glitter.
Six years ago this weekend, Gary gave me the gift of a six-hour studio workshop class at The Arm Letterpress in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to learn how to properly print letterpress. It was the formal beginning of my love affair with this art, this absolutely not-obsolete, tactile beyond measure, satisfyingly delicious art. Handling cast iron machines built a century ago and built to last well beyond the next, sorting and discovering type in metal and wood and photopolymer and even some that’s 3D-printed, adding incredible words like “kerning” and “forme” and “quoin” to my neverending/always thirsting vocabulary, watching and listening to the movements and sounds these machines make, rhythmic and steady, heavy and sweet, showing others how to do, how to make, how to be one with the type; this is one of the best, most lasting gifts my husband has ever given me. The gift of education and knowledge.
Thank you, my love, for believing in my hands, knowing the magic they possess, trusting my excitement to carry forward.
I’d wanted to write this earlier. I could not.
April 19th this year dawned exactly the same way it did sixteen years ago. Raining, humid, fairly miserable out. Sixteen years ago, however, I was nervously anticipating my first date with you, Gary. We’d met on Match, back in the early, Wild West days of online dating. Your profile was bitter and full of snark, as was mine. A few choice lines from mine were: “I am an atheist. I do not believe in god. If you do, or have any hopes of converting me, please leave me alone and don’t waste my time. I do not want children, not mine, not yours, not anyone else’s. If you want children, do not waste my time.” Ask me how many religious assholes wanting litters of children hit me up. I lost count and was ready to give up. Until I saw you.
Your profile held the line that won me over, and went something like this: “my ideal woman is a troll that lives under a bridge, and is otherwise known to authorities as Martha Stewart.” Well, you had me at Martha Stewart. Your photos were taken with an actual camera and were a bit odd but those dimples! Oh, those dimples and blue eyes, and the glittery complexity in your profile was like fresh water in the desert.
We emailed a bit (no real texting back then, not easily in 2002) and talked on the phone (haltingly, you *hated* talking on the phone) and made plans to meet at Grand Central, under the clock, by the information booth. That night, about a half hour before I was closing my shop, I said to my last customer, “Any other night and I would let you stay as long as you wanted. But tonight is my first date with this really cute guy, and I need to get ready and go.” It was thunderstorming outside, and back then I was blowdrying my hair every single day. I know, hard to imagine, but it’s true. I figured it would be the best first date I’ve ever had, or the worst. Either way I’d have a good story.
As I came up out of the tunnel and into Grand Central, I looked towards the information booth. I saw this cute guy wearing khakis and a black polo shirt. “Damn,” I said out loud, and the cute guy spoke my name, “Lysa?” We both smiled, hugely. I said rather stupidly “I thought you said you would be wearing black pants”. “Nope”, and you winked. My heart melted right there.
We walked all the way down to Union Square, to Heartland Brewery, talking the entire time. At one point I asked, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Have you ever heard of a TV show called The Prisoner, it was on for one season in the 60s…” “I have every episode on DVD”, you replied. In unison, we said, “Excellent, Smithers.” And looked at each other, grinning like idiots.
I don’t recall exactly what we had to eat, I think I had lamb sliders or something. What I do remember is looking at your photographs from 9/11 and the resulting aftermath, duly impressed by what you’d captured. We shared our 9/11 stories. Your hands were on the table, and I looked at the inside of your left wrist noticing your ankh tattoo. I remarked on it and you snatched your hand back as if burned. I said, “no worries, I have three tattoos myself.” You relaxed, visibly, looking at me somewhat differently now.
The dessert menu came, and while I was really interested in the flourless chocolate cake, my eyes lit up when I saw the Key Lime pie and decided I needed it pronto. When the server brought our pie, I took a bite, and apparently made my O face. You said, “Wow. I don’t get *that* channel.” Rather than being embarrassed, I simply smiled the satisfied smile of someone wickedly content.
After dinner, we went down to Union Square Park, sat on a bench and talked for hours, kissed under the moonlight (it had mercifully stopped raining and was warm enough to dry the benches). Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick walked by arm in arm. It was getting late, and I really couldn’t afford to miss the last train home. We walked past the Salvation Army building which has an incredibly creepy logo. You took photos and we joked about how creepy it was. You walked me back to Grand Central, put me on the train, kissed me goodbye, and said “I’ll call you tomorrow”. I rode home feeling blissful, not expecting you to call because that was part of the game wasn’t it? The three-day rule?
You called at 8 a.m. next morning. I told you how surprised I was, that you didn’t pay any attention to the three-day rule. You said “I know I’m not supposed to call right away but that’s stupid, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t not talk to you.”
We made that long-distance relationship work, we made regular commutes from Harrison to Park Slope and back. We made it work after you got laid off. We made it work after you moved out to Bay Ridge. You moved in with me, you and Harry Houdini Underfoot (f/k/a The Cat), you moved in with us. We all moved to Sleepy Hollow, we decided to buy a house, we got married, we moved to Peekskill. And here I am still in that house. In our house.
I miss you dreadfully. I think about what we might be doing if you were still alive. I think about the things we might be talking about. I think about the meals we’ve missed together, the terrible eating habits I’ve adopted, the way I’m just getting by. The babies, as always, are keeping me company, like little fanged, furry barnacles. I took Teaz’ka out for a walk today, I cleared the garden, took him for a walk around.
The Weeping Snow Fountain Cherry in front of our house is in full bloom and smells so slightly of anise. The Kanzan Sakura in the backyard is just beginning to show leaves and buds. I can’t imagine it’ll actually bloom in time for my birthday next week. It’ll be the first time ever that it’s not done so. Everything is so completely discombobulated, so completely out of whack. I’m trying so hard and failing still.
Love you more, love you always, love you still.
Bisous,
glitter.
Today is Friday the 13th of April.
In the months and years to come since the day you died there will be plenty Friday the thirteenths. You and I always reveled in the delight of knowing that our love of all things spooky and strange made people uncomfortable. Your love of me, Gary, spooky and strange girl that I am, our love of black cats Teaz’ka and Mojo and their deliciously convoluted names of Ivan Rumpelteazer and Yevgeny Mungojerrie, the joy you took in planning eight hours of spookily appropriate music for our Halloween at Hoffman House dinners, the abject intensity of the two of us left no room for anything but that intensity. It glows, still.
Others withered in our presence at times; faded into the background as we pushed and pulled and explored one meandering trail of conversation after another, finding ourselves deep in the woods of discussion, the light gone from the sky. Our light, however, remained; remains.
As I move through time and space, as I reach out to explore and experience life, this widow’s life, there are so very few who can even begin to hold a candle to the enormous presence of you, your person, your being. So very few who can begin to fathom the depths of me, of my intensity. Changes we’d made a year and a half ago, the things we decided would help heal us and did heal us? They’re helping me now, even more. Allowing me to know I’m doing the right things. Our having had grown-up conversations about difficult things has made it possible for me to keep living. The knowledge that you loved and understood me enough, even back then, to be as supportive as you were, and to then have the breakthroughs you did in your last few days on this planet, truly, finally understanding me in sum, and knowing that not only did I forgive every single trespass but embraced our future?
Priceless.
Love you more, love you always,
The Girl Who Was Never Too Intense For You
This was three years ago when Teaz’ka was at the Animal Specialty Center for his perineal urethrostomy. Here he is, our little super trooper, our little champion, marching around while his Daddy, Gary, loves on him.
Teaz’ka is doing incredibly well for a cat with many, many physical issues. Thank you a godzillion to Dr. Brian Green and staff of Sleepy Hollow Animal Hospital for all of your continued, wonderful care.
There isn’t much video of Gary, not in the fifteen years we were together, so it’s little moments like this that make me gasp and smile broadly.
Missing your sweet, sweet face, my love.
I don’t remember with whom I was discussing this the other day, but here it is. Ring Theory.
Just when I needed it. Thanks again, Chrissy and Jenny 💜💜
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html
I tried collecting my thoughts today. I couldn’t. It’s been six months. Already. Only. Feeling sharp, and edgy, and alone. So much alone.
So as usual, I turn to music. I’ve been making this playlist, “empirical”, me at and to my core.
There’s been so much to share with you, so much to show you, to tell you. And you’re fucking gone. No “messages from beyond” (because that particular brand of bullshit is frankly more than I can fucking stomach), no “signs”, no nothing.
Only the sure sense that the fifteen years we spent were not wasted. Not by a longshot.
“…there’s not enough room in this world for my pain…” — Ghost, by Indigo Girls
“…how you suffer for your sanity…” — Vincent, by James Blake
Thank you to those of you who continue to hold me close through this; all of the kindnesses, large and small, are precious to me.
The Salty Widow 