Here is Daryl, in our living room, the day before Spring. The daffodils next to him took about a half an hour to acquire. We had lunch at my favorite spot in Trinidad, "The Beachcomber". Every time we go there I remember how much I want to move to that small town. The citizens are foggies (mostly retired), and always seem very benevolent and eccentric. Especially at, "The Beachcomber". We go there about once a month to eat toasted focaccia bread with avacado and (when I'm not feeling guilty about dairy) cheddar cheese with some kind of stimulate (a mocca yesterday) so I can have a clear mind for chess. Yesterday he won.
Side note: He has such a good spirit about competition: even when he loses (he's only won a few games so far because he's just now learning to play) he never gets angry. Instead he asks what he could have done better, and tries again. He has a better heart in that respect then me.
Then we drove home to scavenge for those daffodils that are next to him in the picture. We drove to a cow pasture, I jumped a stream, landed in mud and jumped a fence barefoot into jaggar bushes. I picked about twenty, ran like a mad woman just in case someone said, "what the heck?" and jumped the fence again in victory.
Life goes on. I'm trying to fill the house with as many flowers as possible. I had to insist that we take this picture (I'm being honest) because I want to record the good parts of my life. I've known for quite some time that I love people but have no social intelligence what so ever. Always saying the wrong thing, always nervous, so I want to record the positive things in my life in the hopes that someone can relate. My hope is that someone will catch something I'm saying and write their own story to celebrate life. We are all in it together. Or if I'm doing something wrong correct me. I want to connect better with others but I'm always putting my foot in my mouth.
Two days ago I got off a plane, took a GreyHound from the plane, and all in all it was a 24 hour trip. I was coming home from my worst fear. I was wrecked. But there were signs that helped me. An 18 year old girl sat next to me on the bus. She was a pianist and for four hours she just studied music for a big rehearsal she had the next day. She showed me a pamphlet of a competition she was in regarding music. At 18 she was the oldest contestant. The pamphlet had stories about all the contestants: some eleven years old, some two years older, but all with these amazing paragraphs on their accomplishments. People in motion.
On the way to Nebraska I did not know Katlor was that sick. But on the bus I sat next to an older woman who spoke for an hour about losing her husband to Parkinson's disease. She said for an entire year she watched her husband of 30 years slowly decline from a strong, vibrate man and deteriorate right in front of her. She said her body was wrecked from having to pick him up, bath him. All the while I felt terrible for her but I could not really understand what it was like to go through that. She gave me a kiss good-bye. We also survived the beep popper who rapped the entire way to San Raphel who was sitting behind us, "Oh I can make it ran...all aboard the bus...guns, yeah fool I told you..." That's how her and I got to talking in the first place- to drown out Mr. Undiscovered Vanilla Ice.
Katlor spent just a few month in pain. Then I was reminded of the woman who said she spent a year watching her husband die. These people we love are gone, they are somewhere else now. But we are here and we need to get into motion. I don't have a terminal disease (except that I will die one day). I am so blessed with the few amazing souls I hope to know for the rest of my life. I wish them peace and positive movement, and to have love and be in love for the duration of their existence. Life is so flimsy.
I put all my love into Katlor because she deserved it first off, and also she was my little love generator. I spent 22 and a half years thanking whatever force controls who lives and dies, and all the random actions in between. I had a love generator for that long. And it hurts, and I want her back, I want my brother back, but it's selfish because they are no longer in pain. I just want to see them again. But we are here still, so I am going to try to be thankful every day that I still have my two beautiful brothers, my sister, the coolest best friend God could create (I am blessed).
My purpose is to find as much good as I can and to share it, and celebrate together. My disposition sinks to gossip, pettiness, sometimes aggression. Correct me when I need it.
When I got home some thought came into my head that the human spirit is alway there, and we want light. We are in it together. Life is so hard and so mean sometimes, and I always ask why these things happen. But we are the living, so that is what I'm trying to do, day by day.
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