good morning.
it is a beautiful day
the sun is out, shining on my bared skin
raptors circle overhead
in the clear blue sky
and we are all thinking about death.
softness, poignant and melancholy in my ears.
rediscovered from a time of such darkness a hopelessness, back then.
i cried every day eleven years ago, every day.
always on my way to work.
often in the bathroom.
usually from relief in the parking lot.
“…lose yourself in lines dissecting…”
good morning.
it is a beautiful day.
today began like every other one in our new place.
get up, take care of Mojo
(we’ve got a new/old meds/food routine!
took a minute but it’s so close to same.)
take care of momma
(coffee and cannabis)
it’s fucking frigid out there this morning on the porch
twenty-eight fucking degrees (fahrenheit. celsius is what
MINUS TWO POINT TWO TWO WHAAAT)
come back inside to plan the rest of my day.
:switch showerhead
:okay then, text building manager about getting that done. and the hello tushy thing.
:shower
:get Rosie inspected before work
feeling buoyant and happy, I ask Mojo if it’s dance party time.
of COURSE it is, momma
what playlist… ooh The Delish.
THAT one.
because he is coming over later.
Mojo in my arms, sunlight streaming in the windows, music on the Sonos.
“I’ll Be There” by Jess Glynne
“When all the tears are rolling down your face
And it feels like yours was the only heart to break
When you come back home and all the lights are out, ooh
And you're getting used to no one else being around
Oh, oh, I'll be there
When you need a little love, I got a little love to share
Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come through
You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you
I'll be there, I'll be there for you…
Oh, I swear, I got enough love for two, ooh, ooh, ooh
You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you…”
(I put this song on his playlist because this is 100% the essence of our relationship.
It isn’t an all-the-time holding hands and going places thing.
rather it is the inherent understanding that when we need each other, we are there.
in a somewhat unconventional way but valid just the same.)
what this is REALLY about, howmever, is the 10.628 pounds of fur and fangs and fierceness currently (and usually) the occupant of my left arm.
whether it is hormones (it definitely is) or bipolar (haylo!) or grief (can i get a trifecta? sure you can!)
music and cannabis and the FUCKING STRESS OF THE ELEPHANTS UPSTAIRS
are all coalescing to reduce me to tears
thinking how i can’t think about suicide because of Mojo.
reading all this and knowing just how fucking hard today is going to be at work and
knowing *that* is going to make it the tiniest bit easier.
having these reminders
these unbidden intrusions of
HEY
LOOK
LISTEN
don’t go anywhere yet
you got stuff to do here, still
i mean it.
just hang on.
please.
there are so many good things.
so many new good things.
so many.
so many that i want to see what happens next.
it is late (again)
i am up (again)
thinking, overthinking.
wishing; missing.
grateful yet empty.
It’s so hard to be without you (yes it is)
Lying in the bed, you are so much to be without (dear gods more than any one, still)
Rattles in my head that empty drum filled with doubt (not so much doubt, anymore. No.)
Everything you lose, the wisdom will find its way out (this. this. this.)
Every night is lonesome and is longer than before (Not every night. And no.)
Nothing really matters anymore (There are things that really, really do.)
It’s so hard to be without you
Used to feel so angry and now only I feel humble (yes but the timing. not angry anymore. free.)
Stinging from the storm inside my ribs where it thunders (and inside my skull)
Nothing left to say or really even wonder (so much left to say! so much left to wonder, to discover.)
We are like a book and every page is so torn (some can be mended. Some discarded. Some set ablaze.)
Nothing really matters anymore (not in that desperate, urgent way. no.)
It’s so hard not to call you (I listen to your voicemails to me. Mine to you. You saved them.)
Thunder’s in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you (the wind’s been blowing like mad)
When everything was new and colorful, it’s gotten darker (richer, bolder, deeper)
Every day’s a lesson, things were brighter before (every day’s a lesson, things are clearer now)
Nothing really matters anymore (the things that do are still here)
It’s so hard to be without you (it will never be easy)
Everyday I find another little thread of silver (all the better to color purple)
Waiting for me when I wake some place on the pillow
And then I see the empty space beside me and remember
I feel empty, I feel tired, I feel worn (I feel good. I feel alive. I feel ready.)
Nothing really matters anymore (Everything matters.)
Two years, four months.
It hasn’t gotten any less than this. Has not eased up.
no.
Has intensified,
solidified.
And that, I believe, is a good thing. Yes.
I’m fairly astonished that I had this much clarity only four months out.
In fact,
I am damn sure that this was my brain in ultra survival mode.
It is exactly the entirety of my body
my psyche
my soul.
It is exactly what I have been settling into for the past
eight hundred fifty-two days
no longer so foreign so
alien.
I am learning how to meet people where they are
and also to recognize that no matter how much love I have for someone
how much hope
sometimes it just isn’t enough to be sustainable.
not without harm.
I don’t want to be in pain over love anymore.
I can’t.
I won’t.
It doesn’t feel like it’s 35° out.
As I sit in my backyard, dressed in my dead husband’s jammy bottoms, flip-flops, a Sleepy Hollow Old Dutch Church Fest hoodie (the real Sleepy Hollow, not that bullshit place on TV), a fuzzy green jacket with ears, last night’s makeup on my face, my “t r a n s c e n d e n t” Spotify playlist filling the crisp air, a cup of coffee, and an as-yet unlit little bowl full of weedy goodness, I feel ready. Ready to go.
Ready for this next chapter in what has become This Widow’s Life. “You Are The Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne is on; I’ve hit shuffle as I always do. I was about to skip through it when I realized, I am the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I am. Me, in my infinite iterations.
Next up is “Dreams” as covered by LÉON. I’ve lit the bowl by now, the beauty of the music wending its way through my brain. “…when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know…” I am enjoying being swept away by the lyrics and emotion and don’t even bother to argue with it as I usually do, “thunder only happens when it’s raining” because THUNDERSNOW.
Tedeschi Trucks now, with “Keep On Growing”.
This is my soundtrack. This is my direction.
Forward, ever forward.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
So I never liked my last name growing up.
Schwartz
One syllable, one vowel, lots of consonants.
My sister and I were the only ones with it in grade school.
Come middle school and a whole bunch of new kids.
Lots of Schwartzes, none of us related.
I never liked introducing myself, either.
Didn’t like the sound of my own name in my own mouth.
The sound of it on the lips of others
still odd to me, strange.
Always feeling accusatory at first, second
…
I’d changed it to take my first husband’s name, Block.
Which wasn’t even his, really.
Block.
ugh.
Got rid of him and his fool name.
Back to Schwartz by default.
The second one, Aubert.
OH-bear.
(don’t marry a rebound, people. It doesn’t end well.)
“Best thing in my life right now,” I told him on the phone as I was leaving the DMV,
“is getting my own name back on my license.”
Accurate, but certainly not kind.
Unnecessary to say. I’m sorry now that I did then.
The third one, though, the third one stayed up.
Hoffman.
What if I hyphenated it?
Schwartz-Hoffman jfc no thank you that’s a mouthful.
We discussed combining our surnames,
this wonderfully wonky man of mine.
Schwartzman. Or…
Hoffartz.
I mean.
Truly.
In the end I decided that I wanted to be Mrs. Hoffman.
And since I decided (upon resolving my second mistake)
that my signature would be a mononym forevermore
signing it like
Cher or
Madonna
somehow it got easier to say my own name.
Lysa.
Like lovely.
Lysa with a Y.
(watch the furrowed brow as they try to put that together
where? where does the Y go?)
On facebook I dropped my middle name in favor
of putting my maiden name there
(maiden name! ooo how archaic!)
yet it annoys me beyond reason when people use that entire name.
Lysa Schwartz Hoffman
because that is not who I am.
I am
Lysa Hoffman.
When I berate myself it’s usually to say
“c’mon Schwartz, hustle up”
liking that name now, perhaps only as an afterthought,
but feeling comfortable in it.
so today, feeling a measure of all the things you’re supposed to feel at thanksgiving
and more content and pleased with my comfort in my evolution
I changed my name again, relegating (Schwartz)
and elevating myself to who I decided to be when I married Gary.
I finally got there, here.
Train’s not staying, though,
she’s moving forward.
taking my name with me into the night.
Because what other comfort is there
than knowing my true name?
i feel everything
all of the time.
everything. Everything.
EVERYTHING.
Some days, minutes
some times the sound is turned down? From here, to here
(10 to a five)
so I can get through the day with a modicum of effort,
none enough to stop me much less slow me down.
other days? others try to kill me
slowly, quickly, whatever it doesn’t matter
but I’m learning
l e a r n i n g
what works, what my diagnosis is currently what i need
what I need to make me sane
sane enough to breathe.
i keep saying don’t i?
i keep saying i am able to steer this ship now,
i am able to keep her off the reefs and out of the deeps.
sometimes the trip to safe harbor takes longer than budgeted for
i am learning
to let go, to give up and let the medicine do its work
that i am the medicine
the sum of my experiences is what will save me
i am the hero of my own story.
The Salty Widow 