I found this picture on my laptop this morning. I must have downloaded it to share as part of the slide deck that was shown during his memorial service. This fishing trip must have been ten years ago. I know I have pictures of an older Steve with shovel in hand working in the garden, planting his basil and staking tomatoes. I have pictures of him in his woodworking shop making our dining table. There are pictures of him in the kitchen with his walker coaching whomever in how to do things like cooking salmon, making pesto or aioli. And I have pictures of him in his wheelchair as sous chef slicing vegetables and seasoning meat. And I have pictures of him in the bed resting or sometimes patiently waiting for someone to help us (he was fully a partner) to transfer safely from bed to chair and back again. Those pictures, those images, capture a long leg of a long journey that I am honored to have traveled for awhile at his side. It has been just over three months since he shuttled off the mortal coil, so to speak. Today is his birthday and of all the pictures I can access this is the one that surfaced out of the blue. And it the one that has become my favorite (of the moment anyway) because it captures the heart of him.
It is a beautiful autumn day. The sun shines bright. The leaves in shades of red, orange and yellow make that wonderful rustling noise as the wind blows. Hot in the sun and cool in the shade. Layering time in terms of clothes. Establishments near my work are all hawking pumpkin this and that. I love the brown-orange of the various drinks but I find them too sweet these days. This morning I looked in a new cookbook, by Jose Andres, and picked a dish I might try to cook tonight, garlic chicken … even though the fridge has much food inside some of which should be prepared soon. I’ve been tossing stuff into the freezer but it is a little packed now. I’ll be all set when winter comes and get socked in by snow. No need to go to the store that’s for sure. No, shopping is more a creative endeavor that I’ve described before. The book is very good, Spain My Way. Makes me want to travel there one day. With a proper guide of course. I’ve made some things. I like the tapas approach to meals right now. I’ve tried a few dishes and they’ve turned out alright. This is Gambas Al Ajillo (garlic shrimp).
… if I had posted it would have been such a moody piece. The weather was so dark and gray and wet and cold. You get the picture. But today, this early morning, the sun is already cutting through the fog and leaves are being filled with light. I need to race into work but because there are some cold, cold nights coming up I’ve taken time to pick the last of the basil for a coworker. Plenty of green still growing on the porch though. I have already moved some things inside to overwinter. I just watered them. I have no idea why I’m protecting this chocolate mint but it sure does smell good when I brush against it. Okay, I’m running late. Have a good day, people. Onward!
In Virginia I grew up eating yellow onions. I remember them as small and in a mesh bag. The ones I buy up here seem gigantic in comparison. My dad also grew them. My mom used them a lot in cooking, in soups and stews, roasts, fried potatoes, etc. And I think on occasion we had white onions, perhaps Spanish onions. My dad loved raw onions on top of his greens. He used to tease my mom by taking a big bite of onion and then trying to kiss her. I wasn’t too keen on raw onions but loved the aroma that filled the air as they cooked. As I grew up and made my way out into the world I was introduced to the great variety of onions and tastes and textures. But again mostly cooked.
Early in our relationship Steve didn’t so much woo me by taking me out to eat. He was more inclined to prepare a meal however humble. A favorite was simply toasted bread, rubbed with garlic, a protein of some sort, maybe his homemade mayonnaise and then toppings. I was used to tomatoes but one day, after a visit to the farmer’s market, he returned with some red onions. As he sliced them, they were beautiful but when he offered me a slice I politely declined.
“Try this,” he encouraged. He made one of his little open-faced sandwiches and placed the red onion slice on top. “Please.”
With a sigh, I did so, and then said, genuinely, “That tastes good!”
He looked at me and said with a weird sincerity. “I love you.”
Steve and I bonded over food and I think that’s why it is so hard to eat without him. I certainly do eat but I find that sometimes, especially when I am home alone, it helps to lean into the creativity and it is in that creation that an appetite forms. So it is to slice an onion and slow roast it so that the aroma fills the air as I prepare another part of the meal. It is to purchase those vegetables that Steve wasn’t so inclined towards, like cabbage versus his much-beloved brussel sprouts, sauteing spinach (he preferred fresh if he must) with garlic and red pepper flakes. Lots of pepper, black and jalapeno, in meals these days where appropriate. I need flavor. I still have a porch full of fresh herbs and they too provide inspiration that leads to creativity.
I did develop an appetite for mushrooms from him. And though in a previous post I called him stubborn for trying to continue thinly slicing his shitake mushrooms instead of a more rustic chop given his physical challenges, I do find myself in a quiet peaceful place when I now thinly slice the mushrooms and, yes, on occasion, I do smile.
My mother used to say I could get lost in a paper bag. I truly have no sense of direction. Compasses are beautiful objects but I can’t use one. If I pay attention I figure out other ways to navigate. But searching for lunch today I didn’t pay attention and so I did become lost and saw some wonderful sights.
I made it back of course, my colleagues, none the wiser. It is not something to be planned but I do look forward to a future lost lunchbreak.
… I so wanted to be by the water. There are so many options, near and far, but I couldn’t pull myself together mentally/logistically to make it happen. And so, after some necessary home tasks, I walked my neighborhood and walked and walked and walked and actually stumbled upon an Octoberfest event with streets closed off and locals just having a good time. I couldn’t make myself stop though it was good to pass through the joy being expressed by young and old.
Then today came. I woke up late, after having trouble sleeping last night. Just managed to pull myself together and make it to work and actually be present physically and mentally. When I left work I was struck by that thing that strikes me quite often since Steve’s passing. I don’t have a reason to rush home … and as for what I experience during the day … I don’t have him to bear witness to my exploits. But also as I left work today I felt lighter than yesterday. I don’t know why. In any case, I decided to be as aimless in my afternoon wandering as I once was known for years ago. I randomly picked a direction and began walking and looking about me.
I let curiosity guide me. I walked into art galleries I’ve never entered before. In one I looked about me and said softly, “You’d like this exhibit.” It involved chess pieces. 🙂 And then I stopped in a deli, ordered a sandwich and thought, why not eat this on the Charles River Esplanade. By the water.
Once there, as I walked, this is what I recorded: “A woman on a park bench reading a book. A man helping his daughter down from a tree and probably desperately hoping she doesn’t scrape a knee else he’ll have some explaining to do to mom. The homeless man draped in a plaid blanket studying a green leaf. Couples sitting side by side on benches some talking to each other and some both looking into their phones. Droplets on my skin from the fountain when the wind blows. Empty benches that I should sit upon and eat my sandwich because I haven’t eaten all day but it feels okay and relaxing to just keep walking for a bit. “
Eventually I did stop because, drumroll, I stumbled upon another Octoberfest-y thing. Unlike yesterday when I just walked through and onward, this time I stopped, ordered some wine, sat at a picnic table and perused the book I purchased in one of the art galleries. It was not a bad day.
A rainy morning and so it has been the past few days. Luckily, at least where I am, it is a gentle rain. Steady. The plants on the porch are happy with the exception of the lemon verbena. With the rain has come a briskness. While I’ve since learned that swiss chard and sorrel are cold hardy even into the winter months, verbena needs the warmth and so soon I suspect I will strip the leaves and dry them for tea.
It is too wet to sit outside. There are pools of water in the chairs. I should have tilted them. So I sit at the threshhold looking out, protected. It is where Steve used to sit in his chair. Sometimes from this vantage he would play a recorder. When he played, especially if he was on the porch and not just at the threshhold, I warned him to be careful of the young children across the street. Surely he did not want to become the Pied Piper and attract a gaggle of little people who would come knocking at our door. Although, but of course, a Steve of a different age/time would have loved just that and would have had me feed them. Or, if I wasn’t home, he would have surely taught them how to raid the refrigerator, use a knife, slice potatoes and cheese, whatever … and then school them in how to sit and have a meal together.
I sit here with my coffee and it is the falling rain providing music in the background. Later I’ll find the classical music station. We live on a quiet street without much traffic which makes it a mecca for children on Halloween. I have candy but I don’t know yet if I have the energy to sit outside that evening and be genuinely present to handout sweets. Steve enjoyed the ritual and sat out there a few times these past years doling out candy and costume compliments.
I don’t know yet …
As people start to talk about holiday travel and such … well, I don’t know yet what I want to do and I think that’s okay. Let others plan as they must and should but for now I am comfortable just being.
This past weekend was an intensely people-filled two days almost literally from dawn to dusk. Not in any bad way just full. So I don’t mind, perhaps I even relish, the “quiet” of the rain and the pearl gray sky. A good day to write (and I’ve plenty to do for work), and to read (also for work but also pleasure). And after that I will focus on the other necessities. It is amazing the paperwork once someone passes, and the need to develop new methods of tracking things that need to get done, now with one brain instead of two.
And after all that, might I dare go for a walk in the rain as I used to do so many years ago? Originally by myself but sometimes I would invite/coerce Steve to go along, even in rain or snow. Well, if so, at the first unseen puddle that fills my shoes with water freezing my feet, I’m sure I’ll look upward, as I used to do with Steve, as he warmed my hands under his shirt to keep me from getting frostbite, I’m sure I’ll look up and mutter innocently, “Please tell me again. Who’s idea was this?”
… what a beautiful path. And that path was so soft and spongy with the fallen evergreen needles from above. The pond was busy today because it was such a lovely day before school resumes. So many children being taught how to fish. It made me smile because Steve had tried to share the pleasure of fishing with me here once, and later, as he was recovering after his stroke, one of his caregivers asked if it would be okay to take Steve fishing. They did indeed make the trek to this particular pond while I was at work and the caregiver sent me pictures. They didn’t catch anything. It was probably one of the last times Steve went fishing. As I walked along the paths adjacent to the water I thought about mobility and access which my journey with Steve these past years has made hyper-aware in my mind as I parade about in the world.
It has been a long time since I have wandered through a wooded area, suburban or wild, without thought to time. It was a pleasurable few hours of just wandering about, following the light and shadows. I actually engaged in conversation with a professional photographer after she asked was I seeing anything good as I leaned over a footbridge. As we chatted, she said, “You’re only a professional if you make money.” I don’t know about that.
I missed, as my Uber took the turn to take me home, that I could not tell Steve about my adventures, about the fall of light and shadows, the photographer chatting with me that same as when we together years before at another venue and a bird watcher wanted to tell us about 300 warblers. There was a welling of emotion and … with the tears there is always laughter or at least a smile. And for that I am grateful and heartened. We’ll see what future weekends hold for journeys with the camera into nature. It was a good day for all sorts of reasons.
The morning began with coffee on the porch and then a bit of sprucing out there. The tomato and pepper plants are done so I pulled them and then some deadheading of the marigolds and picking dead blossoms from the petunias so that they will continue to bloom. I need to figure out what a late summer/autumn porch will look like. Then back inside I went.
With a Mary Berry cooking series playing in the background I’ve been moving around the house continuing the clean up. I used Steve’s pocket knife to break down some boxes for recycling. We had amassed a huge number of pillows. I threw them on the bed planning to sort them and decide which ones to keep, etc. And in doing so I found a stack of lambs wool used to cushion Steve’s increasingly sensitive skin. Holding the wool made me a bit teary. Everything I touch evokes a memory. And what I hear. Mary Berry is in Marrakesh at the moment I think cooking flat bread. It could be hard to capture Steve’s attention but he really enjoyed watching the cooking shows. I think in part because he just loved to learn. An earlier Steve would have taken that flat bread recipe and added his own special twist.
The lambswool could not prevent him from eventually getting bed sores one of which became deep and then infected. Between bouts with cancer and strokes over the years it became increasingly difficult for him to fight infections of any sort. I think when people would look at his paperwork they’d be surprised by how much of a fighter he truly was until the very end. When I sit on the porch in the mornings next to an empty chair, I do miss him … and I am increasingly glad he is no longer suffering. I am thankful that he chose to stay with me for as long as he could and that he was home.
On the porch there is a dipladenia plant growing like mad. In the before times I would have asked Steve to make a trellis and tie it up so that the plant would grow upwards instead of outwards. He liked purposeful activities like that. But now is now and I’m going to make the trellis. I have some branches I collected that I need to trim using Steve’s saw and some twine and … I’ve got bandages galore in case something slips. But before I do any of that I am going to take a moment to purposefully and mindfully make myself a simple breakfast and then make my way to a favorite gardening store before it gets too hot and keep Steve in my heart and thoughts so that I don’t go crazy with the credit card. 🙂
Remember that smile I said I missed? I am gearing up with stories and few hidden handkerchiefs. Steve’s memorial service, a celebration of a unique life will be Saturday August 1st at 10am at Trinity Church Boston. You can read an obit here: https://www.currentobituary.com/member/obit/301653
