It’s too late for me to find another GIRL. There’s not enough time to find and hold another one dear.
I don’t want to have to rely on my memory to stay bright and long; I want to document the things, the people, the stuff, the days, the time, the energy and the memories of my beloved. Natalie Merchant sings about My Beloved Wife on one of her cds and I remember vividly the night that Di and I went to see her in concert so many years ago. I didn’t have a date; as usual during that time in my life when I was shunning all male-kind for being jerks and Di was there to pick me up, dust me off and make me enjoy the little things that life had to offer like sitting at the pottery wheel and singing, sitting in the car and chatting for what seemed like forever then or just hanging out drinking a cup of joe.
The concert hall was fabulous and on the grand piano, there was a bunch of six calla lilies, all white and bursting with life. The music started and we were in the front row, center aisle. I had won the tickets from a radio call-in. I had never won anything from a radio show before and Di was the first person I thought of taking when I heard I had won. Music was in Di’s soul; it had always been there, I think. When she got nervous, I could hear her humming. Sometimes during an exam that we took (we always took classes together no matter if I needed the class or not), I think that I could hear her sweet voice humming far above the octaves of the silence in the room. And then she would crack her knuckles; that big busty beautiful ring of hers would move and shimmer. As she bent her index finger on her right hand, she would wrap her left hand around the other in a cuddling motion and you would hear a little crack; nothing boisterous, just a calm breath that her muscles took every once in awhile. She was a lefty. God I miss that. I miss knowing that those hands of hers will not be there to dial the phone to call me, to give me a hug, to point her finger at me in both approving and disapproving ways. I just plain miss it.
Our history began “many moons ago” as Di would say.
It was uncomplicated in the purest sense.
We were both taking an Abnormal Psychology class and attending a much unorganized study group.
I looked at her, she looked at me.
She came and sat next to me.
She had a bright yellow shirt on, beautiful red hair and a huge purse.
I can’t say I wasn’t scared, but I was a little unsure of this very approachable being.
She smiled so big and when she sat next to me, and I felt a sense of calmness and I think at that point somewhere deep in my soul, I knew that this friendship would last.
We chatted and giggled about the ‘leader’ of the study group and both of us grumbled about this darn class that brought us together. The teacher had no sense of anything other than him and wanted to spend the entire class lecture talking about his experiences and then always ended the class with telling us to read the text even though we never once opened a page of the text in the class. All tests would be from the book. Oh great.
We were both worried that we would fail the class for sure if something did not get moving with this study group and Di told me that I could come to her house and we could study together.
I took her up on that and showed up on her doorstep a few evenings later.
That changed my life forever.
We realized connections that evening because a good friend of mine had just lost her brother and I told Di that I needed to leave early to go to the wake and as we chatted I realized that my good friend had been neighbors with Di and her family. Such a small world.
With Di, I was forced to look in different directions in my life that I had not peeked into for many years.
There was a real family here with real kids and real dinner and a wonderful amazing dog named Airplane with ears that as Emily described would easily take him into flight. Spike and Spur were also the resident cats in their household. It was a true home with love and loudness and laughter.
Em was young, Ben was younger and Chloe was just a little one. Now they are all practically grown up and full functioning and stable minded young adults all with their own sense of passion and kindness.
I was always so proud to talk about Di and Jerome and the way that they had over the years raised their kids. There is such an influence of every genre of music and the arts and the occasional comic relief with a bit of theology thrown in for good measure. God is the center of things and had always been in the their household.
At the old house (before the Blvd house), I remember the laundry shoot that Di absolutely hated, the basement where Jerome and his boys jammed and where we smoked an endless amount of cigarettes and spent hours talking and laughing. The tiny kitchen where for the first time that Di cut my hair, she made me sit on that little stool and she pulled out all of her tools and just went to work right in the middle of the tiny kitchen. We gabbed about the little things in life while she cut my hair like she was snipping the herbs that she was growing in her kitchen window that she added to fabulous recipes, Ellen and the coming out show when she told America she was a lesbian to the marble that was broken in the long buffet that lined the east wall in the dining room that was always an agnst. And the house and the place where I introduced them to my soul mate. Those are memories that can never be forgotten and memories that leave me a little teary eyed because I can't go back to that time ever again.
Time is a direction and a place and an attitude that forces us to make changes and find replacements while we revel in the background.
Peace and Love and Kindness,
Cath
