Benchmark

Sunday would have been Monica's 50th birthday on the planet. A benchmark day for certain. I continue to process....found a beautiful little video she made today from the summer of 2009. Her last summer on the planet. There was a falcon on one of the trees near the bay window. It had been visiting for 3 days. Monica was taping it and commenting on the experience at the same time. So beautiful to hear her words. Then another segment where I drove her down the driveway in our new used car. She was videotaping the gardens she had planted years before, along with me spraying them with naturally smelly anti-deer stuff and commenting in a comical way, as was her nature. She really had a great sense of humor...what a great spirit she remains...

New Year

It's been a while since I've last posted. I'm more at peace since losing Monica over a year ago. So much can be said for the sense of spirit's continuation....but I'll simply say it's a place of contentment, knowledge, humor and a dynamic urge to move forward. I'm so grateful for my creative work which wants me to expand into film and tv mediums. Lots of stories to tell in these forms, which are percolating away. I'm ever grateful for my continued opportunities to create, to learn, to live, to grow and to love...

Year of Firsts

I've been stepping thru my year of firsts without Monica. My path now is to create from the depths of my heart and soul. I listen to the voices that guide and encourage me to express myself, my heart, my thoughts and feelings thru songs and stories.

I hurt everyday and everyday I am blessed to be alive. An extreme contrast. It is my work and love for Monica that keeps these threads continuing to weave forward. The further I go inward, the more my world seems to expand.

With endings come beginnings...

The end of an incredible year with amazing gains and a great loss. Sometimes it's still hard for me to believe she's gone, other times I'm so involved with creating and building projects that I lose track of everything but what is right in front of me.

Through everything, I feel Monica's positive influence in my life and this sense of knowing continues to expand as my life expands and moves forward.

It is New Year's Eve. I'm sad, but feel so blessed to have built a life with her for 13 years. Some of the best years of my life. I feel myself moving inside and this movement is beginning to translate into new creations. I have excitement about the future....something I didn't feel a couple of months back....thank God!

...Rewrites...

It's the love and support of friends that is keeping me buoyed.....I thought the grieving was getting a little easier, but every time, I pick up, move or look into something of Monica's that is around the house, I lose it. I'm finding that I don't want to touch or move certain things. I guess it's a way of keeping her here with me....I just need to let myself be with this process, wherever it goes.

I love what my friend Amy wrote: '....we can choose to live our lives, with richness and abundance and depth, with layers and rewrites....'

It feels that the richness, abundance, depth and layers of life are doing their own dance, having their own play....I'm just working on the rewrites.

I trust that I will find my way thru...

Heart ache

My heart aches so...Monica died one week ago this evening. I'm still partially in shock and numb. I looked at my wedding band and it felt strange to wear it. She's not here physically any more, though I have had some wonderful dialogues and pictures of her in my mind. I took the ring off to see how it felt. I didn't break down and cry. I put it back on to see how that felt and it felt like I was pretending she was still here. So I put it in a little pouch next to her wedding band.

This is hard...

acting

In the midst of it all, I'm drawn to acting...to the emotional movement, the detail...the overall quest of the playwright and the honor of interpreting it. ..a chance to create a life...to learn more about the human condition and the wonder of humanity... so much...

I've been given that in the form of Lary Bloom's new play...

....more on this later...