I didn’t get a parakeet, fyi.

Remember back in the first post of this new phase of blogging, when I said I wasn’t going to turn it into a widow’s blog? I am a widow- someone tell me how I thought that shit was gonna work? Did I think I was going to just blithely start sharing recipes to feed four instead of five and move on with my days? “Back to our regularly scheduled programing?” Pfft. Like seriously, my own delusion sometimes, you know?

I write about what I need to, or want to, write about. So there is gonna be a lot of widowing coming up, no avoiding it. And here I never even did the winnowing of the wheat I grew. Make sure you’re enunciating carefully when setting a plan for your future, is all I have to say.

So.

Wind Chimes.

I have two wind chimes at my house. One a gift from my great aunt and uncle for our wedding- and a gift I’ve loved and emulated quite a few times over the decades since.

Said wind chime. Gorgeous deep sound. I have it hanging in the back on the peach tree Lucas and I planted.

And the other wind chime was a gift from one of my really good customers as a sympathy gift. My brother hung it way up high in the red oak in the front yard, over the walkway. The sail (thing at the bottom that catches the breeze) has Lucas’s name and death date on it- so I’m going to have to change that out, but the wind chime itself has a beautiful sound, though it’s a higher tone than the one in the back.

In the garden, the Heritage rose is blooming, and has gotten so large it now needs that trellis my husband was going to build me. I’ll have to work it out myself now. Maybe I’ll get a tall pillar to train it up, obelisk style. That may be nice. It’s the rose we bought to commemorate our marriage- as the flowers were the same color as the ones in my bouquet, back in the day. I’ll come up with something.

And my plumeria cuttings, finally rooted in enough to move out of their 6′ pot, have absolutely exploded with growth.

Sure it’s listing and will need to be reset in the pot- but that day is not this day.

In the front yard I have the spot picked out for the little library I bought, and the concrete purchased to set the post… and rain in the forecast so it needs to be set in the ground by Friday so I don’t end up with a solid bag of concrete. I’m waffling if I set it right at the curb, or set it back in the yard and set some stepping stones in front of it. Not sure how code works on these things either, honestly. I’ll decide and maybe try to do some digging today, we’ll see. And I am planning on painting it and my front door orange because why the hell not. I’m in a very much “indulge the whim” headspace about such things right now. I also got a stamp that says “Always free, never for sale” to stamp on the edges of the pages and in the front covers- because there is someone in a reselling subReddit I read that takes books from little libraries to sell online. I call them an asshole whenever they say that, and they argue it’s right there in the name FREE. I argue it’s right there in the name LIBRARY and therefore that makes it stealing… but I’ll just go ahead and be real preventative about the whole thing now that I have my own.

As for the parakeets… let me tell you about the parakeets.

I’ve had a couple of down days. Bound to happen, what with the Jeremy Bearmiy, non-linear nature of grief and time. Up days will come again. As will down days, so really- just fuck this whooooole thing, but whatever, not up to me, so I’ll just hang on through. It’s not being strong, mind you. It just is the only option. Anyway.

So it’s been a bad few days and I’m struggling to see my husband’s face when I close my eyes, I haven’t been waking up at 4:37am, and I haven’t been dreaming of him. Very alone feeling lately, I did the visualization thing again last night. Stilled the mind, called up his image in my head (hard to do, but I got there… at least a bit.) And I asked him if he was gone somewhere else, if he was mad at me, or if it was me and my headspace not allowing him to go through. I reached out my hand (both physically and in my minds eye) and waited for an answer. It was a green parakeet. I opened my eyes, kinda shook my head, and did it again. More green parakeets. Huh.

So I sat up, put my hands in my lap, and thought about what green parakeets could mean. And the word that came was “Chatter.” Makes sense. I’ve been mentally chattering: buying things, scrolling on Instagram, filling every second with reading or shows or my phone… my mind has not been still. And all of that has not been conducive to peace- audibly or mentally. And so now- I can look at my phone before I grab it to doom scroll- and see it for the green parakeet it is. And sometimes I still am going to choose the chatter, but it isn’t going to be constant like it has been this week. I’ve been getting in my own way, and his, on that front. And so I’m going to start meditating again. And I’m going to get back out on the bike. And I’ll search for peace as a still mind is needed to get some messages, but also… just for peace of mind’s sake.

Someone said in my grief share class the other day that the world was Hell. And I remember having a deeply negative reaction to that. The world is fucking BEAUTIFUL and filled with joy and love and amazing things and amazing people. This is the same world that had Lucas in it, after all. AND yes bad exists, but good outnumbers it. And certainly, I am in Hell right now…. but even in the midst of that, I felt the urge to argue. To argue about how great the world is, even when I’m not personally feeling it right now. Huh. I realize that’s a kind of hope, for me. There is hope for me and this half life yet.

Just maybe there is.