Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.
…
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.
~John O’Donohue, On The Death Of The Beloved
Grief is a strange beast. Some moments I’m okay and others I’m far from it, and I can never predict which it’s going to be. This morning, I was watching old videos of Obi and Dexter together, thinking how weird it is that they are now both gone. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine a life without them in it, and yet here I am, living just that.
I catch myself, online and elsewhere, trying to be cheerful, to hold back my grief so that I don’t bum anybody out, but I can’t really help it — this is where I am right now. I’m sad and I’m angry, confused, so tender but also okay. I am trying to stay present, to be gentle with myself. As much as it sometimes hurts to be human, I am keeping my heart open, to both the wounding and the wonder.
1. Sam. I’m not sure what I’d do without him right now, THE dog, (well, I know what I’d do — probably rescue two more dogs immediately). I had Little D on top of Dexter’s crate, along with his ashes, collar, and a clay paw print. Sam noticed it there and asked to have it. At first I said no, just like I did when Dexter was still here, “no, that’s Dexter’s toy.” It only took a few minutes of that sweet face, the way he’d look at me, look at the toy, look back at me, sitting so polite and patient, before I gave in and let him have it. We played for a few minutes and then he got in his crate with it, which is when I took this picture. Sam is his own kind of sad about losing his brother.
2. The promise of our garden harvest. Most of our strawberries didn’t survive the heat, some of the flowers I transplanted are a bit droopy and wilted, and most of our lettuce was eaten by bugs, but there are baby cucumber and zucchini squash, tomatoes and peppers, and Eric has been using our basil when he makes pizza.
3. Tribe, smart, creative, loving friends, both online and in the flesh, all real, who are working on the same things I am, doing the same practice, setting the same intentions, giving me support and offering inspiration, making me smile.
5. New Girl, Season One, now available on Netflix streaming. I had missed the first part of the season, started watching late on Hulu.com, but now that it’s on Netflix I can catch up, (I clearly had missed WAY more than I realized). I love that show. The comedy happens in the context of people caring about each other, living together, and in the mess of that relationship, utterly beautiful and awkward and full of grace and completely complicated, the comedy naturally arises rather than resorting to stereotypes and meanness like so much other comedy seems to do. It’s smart funny, heart funny, real funny.
Bonus Joy: Yoga and weight training. I hadn’t been for a few weeks because first I was sick, then Dexter. It was good to get back to it.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 