Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Marti I’m damned sorry about your sister we walked all that way in the dark with other pilgrims signs pictures as if the dead could hear us as if they would come back or they’d be waiting at the finish line to wave at us not these pathetic candles as we sat before ghosts and wept I don’t mean to be maudlin on Orcas Island the weather is big today and it is 2009 and we will have a prince in the whited house at least we hope so he will get us out of the mess so there will be fewer suicides by rope poison jumping bullets carbon monoxide our savior will prevent all future hopelessness to occur we know this is not possible we are aware by our own familiar routines forever altered swerving we swerved to avoid the same accident as you and I look at our daughters our lovers our closets and kitchens and carpets and dust we know anyone is capable of such a thing such a terrible thing a knife in the belly pills in the hand we held hands to remind us we owe others our lives our industry love we have spent crave to feel what life is with the suffering we know is ahead we survived we lived in the past suicides were buried in unhallowed ground as if you or I believe this but there it is the ultimate erasure that unmoors us unmoors everyone today on Orcas I think about Geoffrey I think about you and your sister how they made us take a journey we did not want to take I look at the foaming water and I know I could not walk into her depths and drown they were consumed they had a plan they could not help themselves can we forgive them? can we forgive ourselves? in fierce love Beth
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My dear Beth,
It has been too long since we last spoke. Thank you for letting me know this is here for me to read and thank you for thinking of me, of Tammy and really "getting it". After coming back from the "anniversary party" as it were, I have felt as though I couldn't proccess any more. I read your words knowing they meant something but I coudn't process them. I know there was meaning in there, but I couldn't absorb anything, i was dry earth unable to drink up the water I desperately needed. I was zapped, dusty, and floppy. Last night I lay in bed recounting moment by moment what began at 7:30 am Sunday January 6, 2008 when my cell phone went off deep in the bowls of my purse to wake me up, literally to an unbelievable journey (that we both know isn't over by a long stretch). Last night I recounted everything, every moment, every situation. I wept in the dark but this time tears stream down my face in an orderly line, not a torrent waterfall unending and painful. I thought of how I have wanted to respond to you earlier, but also I knew that it was okay, really okay not to. Thank you for that. Thank you.
I feel calmer, more centered but hating why this is in someways. I read about death and dying a lot and sometimes it terrifies me but mostly it doesn't. My own death doesn't worry me so much as thinking about other family and friends death - duh...but even that I'm working on preparing for when it happens because there was no preparation for Tammy's death. I want to live and die fully.
I cherish your love letter thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me so full of raw emotions and humor. After you are not talking for a month or some god awfully long time, let's talk.
love you,
Marti
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