Sunday morning

     Sunday morning.  I suppose that for some people this would be a day of rest, not that I worked all that hard mind you.  For me it was just a day to reload one of the lottery machines at our Oakland store.  Given the store is so close to where I live anyway, it is all of a hop, skip and jump until I am there.  Getting out of the house isn't a bad thing either, the less I am sitting at home just mulling over what has taken place recently, probably the better.  Right now everything has that feel of newly frozen ice to it, the more I tread on it, the more likely it is that I will break.  There is still a large amount of justifiable anger and betrayal I feel, and it would be so easy to continue to give in to that mindset.

     Instead I am sitting in what I hope will be a calming place, the spot where Hope and I used to come all the time and just sit.  Usually those trips would not involve a lot of talking on either of our parts, but it was just being here in her presence that was a calming influence on me, now I find myself sitting in the very same spot, looking to recapture some of that lost magic, hoping that those pleasant memories can replace some of the more painful ones that are all to fresh in my mind at this point.  Ideally I would probably be best served if someone could come along and just wipe the last two years from my mind completely, but I know of no one who has that ability, so for now it is just my cross to bear.

     The first thing I noticed when I sat down here wasn't anything I had seen or heard, but rather the smell.  Not that this particular spot has a distinctive smell, but when I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, for just a moment I was transported back to my grandparent's camp, how the back yard, which was almost entirely shaded due to the number of tall trees there and the air just had a cleanness to it.  My uncle, Will, and I used to play whiffle ball in the back yard and we would always jokingly refer to that place as the Astrotreedome, as if we were taking are almost daily whiffle ball games we played on the road, instead of normal patch of grass we would use when back at home.

     Perhaps that is the start, just a simple memory of whiffle ball, that will set things off in a more positive direction.  It certainly can't hurt, and it is not just good, but good and true, and I am longing for truth these days.

     Gibran.  Another thing that just came to me as I was sitting here.  It was Hope who introduced me to "The Prophet" one day while we were sitting here.  Many of our quiet times here involved us reading, her a book of some kind, usually poetry and me, well I would be lugging along a copy of the current day's newspaper.   Occasionally we would share something we had come across in our respective readings, maybe it would be something profound, maybe something silly.  Whatever it was, it was just the experience of sharing something with her, in those moments there really was no place I would rather have been.  The experience could best be described by a line from Gibran's book, a book that Hope had shared with me, "A friend is a need answered."  Yes, she most certainly fit the bill in that regard.

     Sorry, I am smiling again.  More pleasant thoughts dancing in my head, this of our trip to the ballet to see The Nutcracker around Christmas time one year.  I remember wanting to do something special for her, so I splurged a little bit, probably more than was fiscally responsible for someone of my age and income at the time, and got us two center balcony seats to the show.  I opted for my attire a white tuxedo with teal tie and cummerbund and I thought, as the oldsters might say, that I was the cat's pajamas.  Hope had no idea I had rented a tux for the occasion, we didn't compare wardrobe notes prior to our evening, so I was going to show up at her house looking all dapper.  I get to her house, she is upstairs getting ready and I am talking to her mom while sitting in the living room and then she comes down the steps.  Honestly, I might as well have been wearing parachute pants or something, because as good as I thought I looked, she absolutely just blew me away.  I felt like a kid trying to impress his parents, there was me trying to look amazing, and then there was her and she just was amazing.  Simple as that.

     Well, as I sit here my coffee is getting cold.  I almost wish it were colder out that it is today, if for no other reason that what would make sitting here perfect would be for snowflakes to fall.  That is probably my most cherished memory of her, that no matter what we were doing or where we were, for the first snow of the year, whether it be a blizzard or just a couple of flakes that would land and melt away as quickly as they arrived, we would drop everything and meet wherever and have a hot chocolate together.  It is something that even though her and I have drifted apart (for reasons that I have blogged about years ago and have no need to rehash here) I still find myself doing every year for the first snow.  I would like to think that is something she remembers as does as well, and while I can't be certain of that, believing that she does is probably more comforting that actually knowing definitively one way or the other.

     Anyway, like it said, my coffee is getting cold and I still have to walk home.  Plus I don't want to burn off my iPad battery before I finish this.  But I needed this, maybe as much as anything right now.  Something that could remake this page my own again, without the influence of anyone or anything else.  If this keeps up, it may just feel good to be back.