Debussy's Claire de Lune.  Perfection.  A longing, a paen to love, an awareness of spirit, a prayer.  Gratitude.  One interpretation by guitar with French classical guitarist Roxane ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_RnlOWmZD4 ) I return to again and again.  It is as delicate and as powerful as the orchestral version.  Her interpretation is divine - or divinely inspired. 

Found the music for it, printed it out.  I play the first bar passably well - and then fall apart.  Still, it's the dessert I devour after practice, just to hear those chords. 

Debussy has been my favourite composer since .... a child?  When I first heard  Le Apres-Midi d'un Faun, the opening of eerily beautiful notes, I fell deeply and forever in love.  And Sirenes?  Those last yearning bars of infinite sadness and regret.  I cry.

Raining, falling darts of grey, no wind.  Changed the sheets on the bed, listening to the susurration of the rain in a well of silence.  How often do we, do I, listen to silence?  Yes, I got rid of the telly but the radio is always on, tuned to classical music, yet it's still a buffer, a wall between me and ... reality?  The aloneness (not loneliness) of exisitence?  A wall between me and myself?  Another distraction I give myself permission for as it's 'classical'? 

Big window behind the monitor;  a painting of green and grey, a thousand thousand cuts of rain.  Two inches and counting.  Giant worms will push through the mud seeking air.  When I pick them up to try and find a safe place for them, they go limp.  No slime like a regular earthworm, they are muscle but muscle defeated by gravity without the support of the earth.  Their muscle is in their mouths, devouring their way through  clay, in slow burrowings the diameter of a 20 cent piece.  When I walk this afternoon  a thousand bleached earthworms will litter the streets, washed down the gutters, too small to find refuge, they drown.  Rescued some yesterday, going pale, barely alive but most were beyond help.  Probably the ones I rescued are dead now.  The birds, save for the whew whew wHEW of a currawong   ( https://wildambience.com/wildlife-sounds/pied-currawong/ ) are silent.  Even my birds sit motionless on their perches.  Enduring or meditating?

The US is a foreign country.  I read what's happening there and it's as if I'm reading about some two bit tin pot wannabe .  America democracy is in danger.  An example, a flawed example certainly, but an example to the world of what freedom can look like. 

My sister lives on a dirt road across from a river.  She and her husband have witnessed trucks, confederate flags flying, raciing up the road.  They have a small cache of arms to protect themselves and their cats.  They have their food delivered.  They go out rarely.  Both in their 60s. 

How did this happen?  Why did DT get past the 'pussy grabbing' video.  How was he taken seriously after he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it?  Why didn't the country wake up when he refused to turn over his tax returns.  Where were the women protesting when their sisters said they'd been sexually harrassed?  Why didn't they believe Stormy Daniels when she said she'd had an affair.  Why isn't the Silent Majority vocal about the commutation of Roger Stone's sentence?  Etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc??

Why do they not rise up against a traitor who fawns over foreign dictators and treats our allies like so much dog mess under his shoe?

Interesting to go to the Wikipedia page listing DT's pardons and commutation of sentences.  Lots of buddies or buddies of buddies there. 

If it is true a country gets the government is deserves than the USA has a lot of bad karma.

Can only pray it is a temporary bout of insanity - in which the price is paid in human lives because DT isn't interested in the virus - and Biden is elected in November and Trump leaves without a shot being fired.

I've always been an optimist.

At the end of the afternoon walk with Mikaela we crest the last hill of the driveway and the house comes into view framed by trees.  And my heart swells.

Whether the day has been good, bad or indifferent, coming home always lifts my spirits.  There are the aviaries with the birds either observing the last of the light or already ensconed on their night perches.  There is Matisse, sitting on the deck, safe behind cat netting, waiting impatiently for me to come and make his dinner.  There are the silhouettes, as I walk across the concrete to the shed, of the gums and banaglow palms against the blacker silhouettes of the Two Sisters, Mount Uki and, partially obscured by a rank of gums, Mt. Nullum.  There is the evening star, a bright puncture in the dim dusk.

Later, sitting in the rocker on deck with a glass of red, I watch the mircobats hunt moths.  If it's very quiet, and it usually is, I can hear their wings as they flutter past, those strange flesh wings stretched across goassamer bones.  Other stars emerge, even as the last purple limns the mountains.  There is a late car coming home, a cone of light sliding past distant trees.  A cow lows on the hillside across the valley.  A dog barks.  A night bird warbles.  Frogs and crickets brrrr and click. 

I stop rocking and just be until the cold - or the first mosquito - forces me inside. 

Still, from crest of hill to rocker, however the day has gone, I am made whole again. 

And I am so so grateful.

The power of music.  Was tired and teary yesterday.  Apathetic too but some part of me said, stuff that, DO something.  So I rearranged furniture to make room for a worktable and my easel (brought up from the studio/shed).  Always listen to classical but knew something more upbeat was needed so put on a compilation of The Police and Sting.  I can't listen closely to music without being affected.  Of course, often it's just a background to the day but if I listen, really listen, it can make me soar, weep, dance or freeze in a sort of rapture.

Yesterday I danced.  And last night I worked on a drawing.  The same one started before the lockdown.  Felt good to work on it (with music!) but felt better that I have actually succeeded in making a workable space.  Workable and attractive. 

Have changed the living room quite a bit, brought plants in, moved plants around outside.  Rearranged pictures.  More and more me and less 'us'.  That's the brutal fact of it.  I live alone.

Sold the Yeti yesterday.  A message late morning from Chris.  Met he and his wife at Petbarn at Tweed.  He and his wife Bek, easy going couple, he a sort of Bryan Brown type, her a dark haired warm eyed attractive woman with a bad case of psoriasis on her forehead - how I wanted to tell her of the success of diet in controlling it but not my place).  In contrast to Steve, who dithered and hemmed and hawed and finally said no, they decided after one short test drive and a quick look inside and out.  They had the cheque within the hour and picked it up from here late afternoon.

Sorry to see Gus go.  Most luxurious car I've ever owned and such a pleasure to drive but at least I had the privilege to have him.  I hope they treat him well. 

So now it's just me and Kitty (Caddy).  Kitty is an alley cat kind of car; tough and workmanlike with no airs and graces - but dependable. 

Lay awake unable to sleep.  Mind buffeted by every passing thought, swept into every dead end, shoved down listless paths of repetition, distracted by blown flotsam.  It was then I realized I had no center.

Had recently read a book, not a very good book, Tuvalu and the only reason the main character was memorable was because he had no center.  He bounced from one scenario to another showing little more than a passing interest in his own life.  It was a somewhat grim and unsatisfying book as he had learned nothing by the end but would continue to meander through the days with about as much sinew as cooked spaghetti.

Which is exactly how I felt.  Didn't sell the Yeti yesterday although I was certain, for the second time, it was sold.  No, he said, the 4 wheel drive doesn't work.  Took it out on flat grass and the wheels didn't turn where they were supposed to.  Not sure how that's supposed to work but took his word for it.  He doesn't want the car?  He doesn't want the car.

But can I let it go?  Took Mikaela to Dallis Park so she could have a run and I could have a walk.  Had met this man twice, took the car to a mechanic for a pre purchase check (2 and a half hours),  sent him a photo  of the recent service, checked the oil for him, talked on the phone, texted back and forth and then yesterday he wanted to show his partner.  Sold I thought.  Not sold I found.  Another squirrel on the treadmill to replace the ones named Cam and Anthony. 

Drifting.  I do my chores, try and practice guitar, do yoga  and then it's time to feed horses and go see Richard.  Home after visit to walk dog then arvo chores and dinner.  But am not painting or writing.  Living on the surface.  No ooomph.  No spirit.  No spiritual. 

Empty and sad.

Maybe cut myself some slack?  Still mourning?  Each time I leave Heritage I am relieved to escape.  Richard wants to come home, says he's coming home, asks to come home.  And I change the subject, encourage him to look at picture books (coffee table type books with photos) with me, ask him to eat a piece of fruit.  I make busy tidying up his room.  Then I sit and hold his hand or rub his back and try to pretend this pretty room with its tv and the occasional glimpse of bush turkeys scurrying past is not a prison.

Had a flying dream - not the usual one of my youth soaring and sliding with the grace and speed of Superman.  This one started in a light plane.  Flying over crystal clear lakes south of Junction View, which doesn't have lakes, crystal clear or otherwise.   Then the plane disappeared and I just flew.  The flying was less exciting than the water, as clear as air, green, blue and gold seaweed undulating in a lazy current.  How I wanted to swim!

And then I was at a resort.  Taken four years to build I was told, cabins half hidden by trees.  I had a little black dog, like a motorized ugh boot.  It wasn't my dog and when I put it down to do its business it promptly disappeared.  Oh, it'll be checking out the 'long drops' the owner said, so we started searching.  Instead of outhouse pits the long drops were sandy and clean.   A monitor lizard was in one, a set of car keys in another. 

Water seems to be a theme (still haven't been to the beach!).  Two nights ago I dreamed of more than a dozen waterspouts on a stormy sea. 

Friday a friend will visit Richard and I won't.  It's cold but if it's not windy I'm going to the sea. 

He was agitated when I arrived yesterday.  One of the carers was with him in the room, both standing.  Richard is adjusting but he isn't adjusting.  He wants to make 'application' to come home and see the animals.  I feel the biggest kind of shit as I change the subject for of course he can't come home.  It would be cruel to bring him here only to take him back at the end of the day...if he got in the car and it wouldn't be stretching it to guess he'd refuse.

He has these moments of clarity and insight scattered amongst the rambling.  He said, you're life's pretty good now, isn't it?   I thrive while he suffers. ( Although it isn't quite so clear cut, she writes, tears threatening to spill over again).

Then I remind myself it took two people to get him up, changed and clean on Tuesday.  He'd wet himself and the bed and had tried to call the nurse using the bed adjuster.  One carer was large and burly.  I had to sit outside but I heard them say the same things I would say, "Put your hand here, no, not there, Richard, here.  That's it.  Now lift that foot, just move it a bit, yes, that's it.  Hang on to me.  Now the other foot.  Can you stand up?  Try and get your feet underneath you.  You won't balance otherwise.  No, back a bit further, yes, now the other foot.  Maybe you want to spread them a little, help you balance.  Now up, hang on to me.  Look up, yes, straighten up, I've got you.  No?  Okay give it a minute, we'll try again.....and on it goes.

Took two of them 30 minutes.  And I sat in a chair in the hall and admired the freshly painted nails of one of the residents.  She proudly displayed them to me (and if I hurry they'll do mine too!) as she trundled past in her walker talking nonstop.

Today's card:  Receive your guidance.

From the book (paraphrased):  Meeting negativity with negativity makes more negativity.  Meet negativity with, if not love, at least kind thoughts.

I've such a long long loooonnng way to go.  Why do I find being merely kind to those whom I perceive to oppose me so difficult?

After all, what others think is none of my business.  What I think is.

In a strange way I think I've been set free.  When I wrote the email to the boys, I was as clear and as honest as I was capable of being.  Granted, it is only my opinion and I may be wrong.  Still the answer I reeived from Anthony kind of lets me off the hook.  If communication is so fraught and misunderstood then what's the point? 

His reply was:  These exchanges don't feel or sound positive to me. Quite the opposite. I will say that some of the things you mention I agree with and some I disagree with completely. We are just trying to discuss and have input into how we see Dad and how to to help him.     .

As I get down to visit Dad I'll continue to do the very best I can. Further discussion re the below is pointless - and I shall certainly keep my views and experiences reference grief and trauma to myself....

Probably I am overly sensitive.  Nevertheless if I am scolded for my 'views and experiences referenc*ing* grief and trauma' and I am less than positive, well so be it. 

Strictly business then.  I'll do as I've always done - when they weren't included, weren't interested in being included, and look after Richard. 

Maybe I just wanted someone in the family to share the burden with.  My friends have been and are invaluable but they aren't family.  But I was wrong.  They are. 

Maybe it was the moon, that ruler of tides and water.  I didn't know I had it in me to cry for an hour and 20 minutes.  But I did.  I do.  I sat beside Richard, slumped on the side of the bed, put my arm around him and said, I know you're sad.  I'm not the most empathetic person.  I'm the person who misses the subtle signs, who doesn't shade her eyes against the sun to see the shadow.  But in those four words, I took on, at least for that hour, Richard's grief. 

When I got home, head pounding, contacts like sandpaper on my eyes, I thought, well, this is another of those times; all consuming emotional upheaval, grief like it will never end.  Pain pain pain. 

But it does end.  Nothing stays the same, extreme joy or extreme sadness.  It is the nature of the beast for time to shove you past 'that' moment, either while you try to cling to it, or try and hurry yourself away. 

Maybe one of life's most important lessons is plain endurance.  When the all consuming consumes, one has to hang a fingernnail on the remaining bit of unchanging self, that kernel of inviolate being at the center.  Like the deep waters unaffected by the sturm und drang on the surface, it's what we cling to rather than drown.

The boys, the men, are having difficulty.  After 4 months they have finally visited him.  They didn't like what they saw.  No one likes to see someone they love in pain.  They are brimming with ideas to help Richard join in activites, perhaps see a therapist, get involved in life again.  'Move forward' is the recurring phrase.  To me it seems they miss the point.    In answer I wrote:

As for Richard's sadness.  Perhaps it is time to step back and get a bit of perspective.  We have known 'this' was coming for years now while Richard has been safely cocooned in the slow but inexorable decrease of his cognitive and physical abilities.  This decline has taken place in a familiar environment with me as a constant support and companion.  Speaking for myself, I have been grieving for years as I witness and participate in this long goodbye.  From your Dad's perspective he has suddenly been moved to a strange environment. He's lost his home, his bed, his cat and me.  In other words, he is grieving.  If you've ever grieved for someone, you know it can't be hurried, papered over, postponed or avoided.  It has to be got through.  If and when you ever grieved over the loss of someone you loved, did you want to be involved in activities?   Talked out of it, jollied along, distracted? Perhaps you did but it only put off the sadness.    Sadness isn't a dirty word.  It is part of our emotional makeup and is the rightful, the only emotion, in some circumstances.

It has only been 3 weeks since he moved to Heritage, 5 weeks since he first went to hospital.  What, then, is the acceptable or correct time to move forward?

 I love him and my heart breaks seeing him sad like this.   But this is another phase of our lives together.   We've been a team through everything else.  We are a team through this.  Family love and visits are, in my opinion,  the best therapy.

He needs to know and see he is loved.

For years I've been  grieving for the husband I was losing.   The sadness and sense of loss became much more acute this past year, eventually reaching a kind of crisis of grief.  Which I'm still not through but there are entire days, even strings of days, when I don't cry.

In other words, I have had ample time to get used to the idea I was losing my husband.

Richard only found he was losing his wife a month ago.  His grief has only just begun.

When I visited him on Saturday - I didn't have an appointment, only stopped in with some fruit and asked, on the off chance they'd let me in, if I could see him - Richard was sad.  "When will we be together again," he asked.  So I cried.  My usual answer for the unanswerable.  And explained again why I can't look after him.  When he sees me cry, he pats my arm and says don't worry,, it's okay.  But he hurts and I can't help him.  And then the guilt comes again, should he come home?  Could I keep him safe?  But I can't and the end result would only be the same - a room in a facility.

So I go back today and take the Indian blanket we bought 30 years ago on our honeymoon, a repaired but beautiful delft bowl for his fruit, and me, to hold his hand, wrap an arm around his shoulders and kiss his head while trying to remain upbeat. 

And try not to want to escape too much from his need and sadness and the claustrophobic space that is the beautifully appointed open fire dining room professional kitchen spacious bedrooms with sliding glass doors onto personal patios Heritage Lodge.

Reminded again and again what little control I have over myself.  A perceived or real slight and I grab it and run to the nearest dark corner chewing and growling.  Got another email from Cam, still banging on about Richard coming home.  Followed by a 'ditto' email from Anthony who hasn't even been to see him yet!  Nothing I said has made one bit of difference.  So I interpret his letter not as a grieving son trying to avoid reality but as an impugning of my judgement, motives and character. 

Paranoia.

So lay in my uneasy bed with my undisciplined mind plowing the same furrow half the night.  Useless, even worse, it's a malignancy that grows undeterred because I do not have the mental strength or rigour to root it out.

Failed previous attempts at meditation but am going to have to do something to rein in this unruly creature. 

Logically I KNOW I am bigger than this easily bruised ego.  Logically I know I am capable of seeing the beauty in all, even myself.  Logically I can find compassion and empathy.  But when I am mired in this burgeoning ego, I am incapable. 

So I keep getting this lesson (the boys emails).  It's an opportunity to truly do something, to rise above, to be better.  Wouldn't it feel better to love than to resent?  How hard is it?

Pretty hard for me it seems.

Hard but not impossible.  If I can't love at the moment, maybe I can just learn acceptance without judgement.