when I say that I'm okay, they look at me kinda strange

10 years ago, almost to the day, I took off from Columbus, Ohio, to a few hours in Chicago, and then off to Amsterdam. I spent six months away (ooooh isn't Uncle John's Band just coming on my Paul Simon Pandora? and aren't I just swooning?) . . . whoa oh what I want to know is are you kind? . . .

see? I can't hardly get into an expository writing or telling a story without getting grabbed into the synchrnoicity of being alive right now.

it's the same story the crow told me, it's the only one he knows
like the morning sun you come, and like the wind you go

{{{{{{{{{{ string of hearts }}}}}}}}}

this is the song that pulled me in to the Dead. A time of much transformation and a big invitation:

come on along or go alone 

life sometimes does feel lonely. doesn't it.

yesterday I threw away my photo albums and my journals from when i took that trip, including India. and some other tidbits. it's funny. i held on to a few things, but, until i opened up those boxes yesterday i didn't even know that i had that stuff. if i hadn't opened the box, i could have thrown it all away and not missed it. of course acoustic John Lennon comes on now: Watchin the Wheels. well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me . . .

but anyway, i put most of it in the garbage, and some photos of my family in frames. didn't even take them out of the frames. then i forgot that i did that, and when i went to bed last night, i saw the big gap on my shelf. i moved some statues there. they looked awkward, but anyway.

shedding stories? or just shedding stuff i won't have room to carry around.

before i threw out the travel journals, i grabbed a few of the decorations off of them: an Annie Lebovitz photo of Joni Mitchell, an ancient Indian quote beginning "There is no happiness for him who does not travel," and the little painting on the right in the above picture: when one door is closed, another door is opened (painted in Chiang Mai, Thailand).

I don't enjoy the trite, and I cannot bear lip service, but when the time is right, sometimes I can hear, or should I say, recognize.

Amidst the detritus of nostalgia, I found an envelope, sealed and unopened, addressed to an old love of mine, with the words Paths that cross will cross again (attributed to Patti Smith).

My more current lover is out the door now as well, or the door has closed as much as it's gonna, and I can settle back into the opening of the ever unfolding road of life, piling out from within me for me to step on. He told me to take care of myself until our paths cross again. Fucking kiss of death, if you ask me, having been around the block more than a few times. (Ha! I didn't even notice Simon and Garfunkle singing "Bye Bye Love"! See, the explosive synchronicities are on it.)

So anyway . . . rambling girl, you are already at a ramble! . . . I found this letter yesterday, and at bed time, along with a copy of Writing Down the Bones, I took it to bed with me to open, like a treasure chest, and read.

Five beautifully handwritten pages of open and relaxed honesty. Sometimes it takes years before something like this can come out. I was stunned and moved by the generosity and poignancy of that moment, and how it came back to greet me, now 5 years later. I wrote it to Hugh. And, when I went to see the (Grateful) Dead that one spring ('94?), and exactly as I'd daydreamed, in exactly the spot I'd imagined, I ran into Hugh at the show. We spent the show together and I knew then that the Dead had been with me before Hugh. One before the man. And, as I read the letter last night, I was present to 2006 being one before Mike, one before this more recent, really not current anymore, man. Refreshing.

The letter begins,

Dear Hugh,

There were a few after you but only one of them fucked me up pretty crazy.

I go on to speak of loneliness and the unresolved state of our relationship, the physical magnetism that will bring two people back for years, until one day

one of 'em just doesn't come back.

I speak of gratitude for Kristi and Roger, my landlords (I'd lived here 3 months at the writing of this letter; now it's been 5 1/2 years and this could well be my last month as a tenant). It was sweet to see that, and the synchronicity of this timing also moved me. The hello and farewell in the same letter.

I write of being like a rolling stone (no moss) and the same-time longing for intimacy, like my Queen, Joni (Mitchell). And sometimes I do feel lonely, I write. And sometimes I do.

Life of a single 30 something woman.

And some years later, here, meandering and rambling, we find the life of a single 40 something woman, accepting that her man is gone, sometimes with a stillness that questions nothing for no questions even arise, and sometimes with the watery watery blue waves of relief grief.

I threw away my photo albums and travel journals and that book I wrote in high school whose chapters my friends used to pass around, dreaming I was wealthy and had minimal parental supervision and phones in the house with multiple lines and intercoms like my schoolmates.

But this unopened letter spoke to me and asked to be taken to bed to be read. Paths that cross will cross again?