Danny's 29th!

Hi Carole,

Here's your Danny with his girl, Jessi.

And the cake cutter.

Yum.

You'd be so proud!

July 16, Danny's 29th

Today is Danny's 29 birthday. I'm trying not be be all gobby eyed. He'll be here soon for pizza and cake and I'm so happy! Little Genie and Josh and Danny's girl Jessi, too. You'd like her, lots. Dreamed of you last night, probably because of Danny's birthday ... can't remember dream but was sweet as usual. I see you more than I've posted ... continue working on "Spiced Latte" — a short with you as a spirit, prodding me on. Love you.

July 11, 2012 Forgot to post July 11, Our 22 anniversary, Curt's and mine... had Miguel for the day, we three went to see Disney movie, Brave ....had so much fun ... bought him a Mickey Mouse and he played with it in the fireplace and the was so distressed when it got full of soot -- will attempt to post pic of me cleaning it ... precious ...gotta figure out this new blogspot setup ....

Passed on Passover

Hi Carole,

Neither your kids nor mine stopped by tonight, got their own mojos. C'est la vie.

Little Genie skipped, too, is getting some — progress!

Curt diced celery and carrots for a rich chicken soup. Scrumptious. Matzoh balls another story. Way sweet being together.

Have your Seder plate, the one LIttle Genie gave you, the same I unpacked. Still has a D on the back ... Little Genie's dad's initial.

What we have left.

Missing you more than ever and ever.

♬ Dayenu ♬

Transitions ...

Adrienne Rich

March 29, 2012 // My 64 without you ...

As posted on the NYT ... March 29, 2012. Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012: A Poet of Unswerving Vision at the Forefront of Feminism. Carole, one of your favorites and also one of the most influential and widely read writers of the feminist movement, She took on sexism and racial oppression in her poems and prose. Many of her books from your collection are here, with me .. and you.

Antiquity

"Our own personal heaven," Celeste said, awakening me from from sleep. It is a daughter and grandson day, twice a month. I described the dream to her, a house with beautiful old glass, rare objects, matte blue, hand painted. Couldn't call them tchotchkes, too nice.

Carole, you and I were together in a mansion sort of house, a bit dilapidated, the front roof a porch titling downwards but not ready to collapse, inside like an unadorned mansion, high ceilings, Romanesque columns, mostly empty, huge lovely space. Underneath the tilting roof were hand carved boxes, perhaps Persian or Chinese, old, grayish: antiquity. They slid from under the roof, you and I laughed, the roof didn't tumble down.

But in this world, my current reality, my world actually did cave the day you died.

January 3, 2012. Happy Birthday Carole, for us.

Hi Carole, I bought chocolates in a fine crystal bowl to my writing class today, a tribute .... you'd have liked them along with everyone there. Craig had told me you'd joined a workshop in Key West, were jubilant, getting material ready, but never returned, died instead. Passed he said, jumped ship. I hear his voce as if yesterday, see you leaning against the door frame between my kitchen and computer room mere hours ago. Hey, I turn, but you are not there, not in sight, yet every where. Always.

Thirty-Five

I saw you last night, on a bright winter afternoon, briskly walking in a denim pants suit with a matching color denim top - not tucked in. More tailored than is worn today. You were 35, my daughter, Celeste's's age in a few day, November 18, and you were as well fashioned as she. Maybe we were on South Beach the lower end with the tchotchke store fronts, or maybe a local strip mall. The day was sparkly sunny, you lively and lovely, brown hair bouncy walking a fast clip, your broad smile across your face. I saw saw as if passing by, next to or a few feet apart on wide walkway, your profile sideways, forward stepping and it was you, into my life again, as always.

Danny and his girl Jesi went to Key West for your yahrzeit. Your son tossed a rose, as he usually does. A rose settled atop of the sea, your ocean grave, floaty, regenerating. Perhaps you touched. On the actual day, October 19, Miguel and Celeste visited. I was so very happy they came over; grateful. It was a Wednesday, midweek, a candle on my fireplace. Miguel is a bundle, 7-years-old, born after you died but am trusting you have seen him, his brown eyes the shape and color of yours.

Infinite Jest

Hi Carole,

Read an article in The New Yorker (April 2011) about David Foster Wallace, relaying how despondent he became after completing Infinite Jest, even as I continue working on our manuscript. Have changed it some, adding parallel universes to reach you. A fine report by Jonathan Franzen, had not read him previously, the mood he captured! Have a print out of Wallace’s Wiggle Room published in the same magazine. Bought his uncompleted The Pale King from Border’s closing, can you imagine that icon shutting down? Our Borders!!

Anyway, you were dressed and heavily face painted like a Jester, perhaps from the title book, and you were happy, living a run down place. I must rekey the following, grrrr, cannot type, actually Curt did it for me. I so relate to what JF wrote:

“…That he was blocked with his work when he decided to quit Nardil — was bored with his old tricks and unable to muster enough excitement about his new novel to find a way forward with it — is not inconsequential. He’d loved writing fiction, “Infinite Jest” in particular, and he’d been very explicit, in our many discussions of the purpose of novels, about his belief that fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude….”

Justly so.

Love, Hope

House cleaning

Carole, so ordinary and simple, we were together, you showing me how to change the vacuum cleaner bag, we with our chatter above the roar, or maybe silence. The bag was designed with a single wide spiral twist off, more resembling a space image from the Hubble spacecraft, the one of a spiraling universe, minus the colors, the vacuum part a dull plastic beige but similar in its swirling shape. How I miss you you.

Larger than Life

Today, Valentine's Day, we squeezed and squeezed .... somehow a wheelchair that you surely didn't need, so vibrant, hugging and hugging ... 3, am not sure what the folded wheelchair symbolized ...