Memories of the fall

It's hard to believe, but in four more days, I'll have been at my so-called "new" job for two months. Anna's been in school now for six weeks. My thirty-fourth birthday was over a week ago, and it's already mid-October. Time is flying by.

Mercifully, things are generally uneventful for us. We've been staying busy--or at least we're rarely home on the weekends, it seems, our weekend social calendar rather full--and each week zooms by.

On a positive note, Anna still really enjoys school and first grade--no laments at all about how she hates waking up early (although she definitely iterates that she's still sleepy before school)--and I believe she'll still exclaim that she "loves school!" when asked. She must really like her teacher (as do I), because she gives Mrs. H a hug every day when I pick her up, and she's also taken to playing school at home--during which Anna is Mrs. H. I'm thrilled. Anna seems to be doing perfectly well at school, reading more and more fluently and easily with each week (double yea!) and quickly grasping the math concepts. Best of all, we're holding up well under the early-morning and early-bedtime schedule--unlike last year--with few difficulties. Thank. God. All-day school and the six-hour reprieve from it are like manna from heaven, and I'm enjoying being able to pick her up each day (and getting to briefly see her teacher in passing and ask any questions if needed). Such a change from the mania and downward spiral (for me) of kindergarten.

If I ever actually got some real time off from parenting to relax--say, during those daily six-hour breaks for school--it would be heavenly…but nope. Those hours are spent working. Mercifully, the job is still going fine, and working from home isn't too awful so far (aren't I just the glowing optimist??). While the actual articles and documents I read are often totally snooze-inducing (literally!), I'm reminded that I really like the act of editing, of taking a god-awful or almost-there piece of writing and making it better. I like the order of it, the rules, the requirements--and I'm good at it. I still have questions, of course, but they're far fewer than they were in the first month, and the transition and learning curve have seemed pretty easy. The people I work with seem nice--from what little you can tell over instant messaging, email, and the rare phone call. And aside from my difficulties in figuring out when to consistently get in the shower and get dressed (which is often right before 2pm when I have to go pick up Anna from school…sigh) and from the lack of social stimulation--and not leaving my house--working from home hasn't been as awful as I feared. I've been doing a decent enough job the rest of the time of running errands after school or making social plans (those busy weekends, remember?) to keep the at-home bit less overwhelming and isolating. But really, it's the paycheck that clinches it. Getting paid to do something--and getting paid twice a month, in an amount that, while definitely not large, is sufficient to not have to juggle which bills get paid on time and which can stand to be a couple days late (as I had to do for much of the last 8 or 9 months) and pay for some extras (vet checkup for the cat, new tennis shoes for Anna, a new bra for me when the old one was months past being shot), is an unimaginable treat compared to the last year…or the last six five years. Turns out I really like getting a paycheck. Somehow I'd forgotten. ;o) If the job were actually at an office, where I had a place to wear nice clothes, be social, and get the hell out of my house every weekday, and had a higher income that could equal what I'm still getting from Social Security, it'd be perfect. But it doesn't have those things, and it is what it is. Thank god it doesn't suck, though. (I actually had to write down, "It might not be as bad as I fear," when I was making a list of pros and cons back in the summer, to see if I could afford to accept this low-paying, work-from-home job, both mentally/emotionally and financially. What on earth does that one "reminder" say about the last several years??) But honestly, the job is actually going quite well. I just wish I had some free time to myself, though…but what single parent doesn't want that?

So overall, things are going much better than they were last spring…thank god. The voices in my head are dimmed (or more than they had been, at any rate), and I'm not miserable, anxious, and endlessly worried every day.

But as we roll into fall here in Portland, there are still little pings, little reminders of Charley and how much I miss him. Fall has always been my favorite season, and I love seeing the leaves change and feeling the nip in the air in the mornings in a way, love curling up under a blanket and reading a good book on a rainy afternoon. But fall brings unexpected memories and melancholy at times, too.

Like two weeks ago. It was the first week of October and the weather had turned just chilly enough that I had to turn on the furnace for the first time since the start of summer. One nice, tiny side perk of working from home is that I can listen to whatever music I want, without having to bother with headphones or worrying about annoying my coworkers. And as the furnace churned on and I settled into my chair for work, with a down throw blanket over my lap and a cup of hot coffee at the ready, I sighed in contentment. Ahhhh…fall, I thought to myself. As I customarily do most days, I turned to play some music on my iPod speaker. And since it's fall, seems like a perfect morning for George Winston's Autumn. But as soon as I reached over to hit Play on my iPod, something--the confluence of the day, the season, buried memories--made me pause, and then the familiar flush of missing sank down my throat and into my gut.

I first heard this particular album on a recorded cassette tape in the family car growing up. My brother--who's thirteen years older than me--had recorded it, along with a host of other tapes (Flashdance, Thriller, Footloose, a Fresh Aire Christmas tape) sometime during his early years in college, around 1983. My sister and I started piano lessons when I was in first grade (coincidentally, also around 1983), and I always remember hearing--and loving--this particular recording of solo piano. I bought a CD of it at some point--probably in college--and listened to it frequently on headphones at work at Intel.

But that's not why the music made my insides sink two weeks ago. It's also because, almost exactly nine years ago, going to a George Winston concert--my first and only one--with Charley was our first official date back together.

Thunk.

I'd just broken up with my then-boyfriend from work, whom I'd dated for almost nine months. Charley and I had started hanging out more more--just as friends--in August, after he moved from Salem (an hour away) to Tualitan (half an hour from my house then). I'd been increasingly unhappy and dissatisfied with my romantic relationship, and at the end of September and beginning of October, broke it off. I enjoyed getting to hang out with Charley--one of my best friends--more frequently than we'd been able to for the previous year, and thankfully, the leftover grudges and anger I'd had toward him had been healed and erased by dating my coworker…and by time and getting to reestablish a different friendship with Charley. But I didn't really have any conscious romantic thoughts toward him; he was just Charley, and we got along extraordinarily well. But apparently he had a few less platonic thoughts in mind. A friend of mine visited me for the weekend--ironically, the same friend who died almost two years ago--and like always, she wanted to go out drinking and dancing. I didn't have much interest in those particular pastimes anymore--I was too poor because I'd bought a house the year before, for one thing, and I lived over 45 minutes from downtown Portland, a distance that wasn't worth the effort of bar-hopping--but she insisted, so she, Charley, and I went to a bar downtown on a Thursday or Friday night. And under the auspices and social lubricant of alcohol, Charley kissed me while she went into the bathroom.

And as it turns out, that was pretty much that.

I had planned a short, five-day-long vacation by myself, though--a cruise to Cozumel and Playa del Carmen to make up for the trip I originally was going to take with my ex-boyfriend to Florida to meet his family (but that obviously got cancelled)--and I left a couple of days after that fateful first kiss. It also fell just after my 25th birthday--a fact that I didn't consciously connect until just now. It's no wonder that the start of fall and my birthday can often trigger unconscious grief; I simply didn't realize it (or remember, anyway) until writing about it just now--and after pulling up the old blog post from my birthday in Oct. 2009 to link to. (Huh. Whadya know. I can still learn something new after six years of this widowhood gig.) I remember going to my parents' house for my birthday dinner, with Charley in tow, a few days--maybe only 2 or 3?--after that kiss; he was there with me officially just as a friend, but I remember the undercurrent and quickly stolen embrace or kiss while my family was off in a different part of the house.

We didn't really talk about or work out what exactly it was we were doing, until after I got back from my cruise. And even then, it never really required much talking or working out. I'd have to go back and reread my old handwritten journals from back then--assuming I wrote much about it, that is--to remember what exactly we might have said or did, but nonetheless, I remember we did have an official, first, back-together date:

To a George Winston concert in Eugene, a city two hours south of Portland.

We drove down after work, ate at some nice(ish) but forgotten restaurant in Eugene, and then went to the concert. There'd been a snafu with the tickets, though--turns out my online transaction never processed, or something--and we only took our seats just as the lights dimmed for the concert to begin. And as the pianist began playing his first song, "Colors/Dance"--a song I'd heard for almost 20 years--chills ran down my back.



I couldn't believe I was there hearing a song and pianist I'd loved for years--and I couldn't believe I was there with Charley, again, after all the history between us.

I don't really remember much about the concert, aside from feeling that I was wrapped in a dark, warm womb of music. Charley, of course, loved the jazz pieces more, the ones inspired by Vince Guaraldi and the music from the Charlie Brown and Peanuts cartoons--ones I've never been as fond of. Since it was a Wednesday night and a work night, I remember it being a long drive and evening--but in the throes of a new relationship, it didn't bother either of us.

But as I reached to turn on that same George Winston album two weeks ago, all of those precious memories hit me in one unexpected, although gentle, swoop. And while it wasn't painful, it was wistful. Sweet, but still sad. And every year, I tend to forget that this time of year can bring back so many unconscious memories.

Perhaps inspired in part by widow friend Melodie's recent adventures under a tattoo artist's needle--a tattoo bearing the word "love" in her husband's handwriting (a choice that several other widowed friends have made too)--I went into my bedroom to find any scraps of writing with Charley's signature on them, as well as the program and tickets that I'd saved from the concert.

Anything that could bear testament that he'd been here, that he loved me, that I had something tangible left from my memories.





Definitely sweet, but sad, too.

The random, unpredictable flushes of missing Charley have hit me other times lately, too--in the shower, as Anna and I drove home from a weekend camping (RV-style) trip on Sunday, at other inexplicable and insignificant moments.

Most of the time I don't notice his absence. I've grown so used to it that it's not a tangible, gnawing presence anymore. And it may have been over six years now, but I still miss him…and it's unbelievable that it could be nine years already since we first got back together--and over six years now that he's been gone.

Yes…missing….