The ocean is so still this morning, silent and cold. I've resumed life in a bathing suit with a hoodie for the time being because these are the things I want to embrace, like when you get pine needles stuck to your bare feet or get a hint of the scent of lilacs when you step out your front door.
The sand is ice cold, the rocks somewhat warmer but uncomfortable and I wade along in the water, numb from my ankles to my toes. I won't leave her. I won't leave her ever again. That makes me the most dedicated lover to my ocean. She doesn't have to look up one day, reaching for the morning with the highest tide she can muster, wondering where I went.
I will be right here.
***
Lochlan spoke a warning in the dark that changed things ever so profoundly.
He's telling you one story and I'm getting another.
I know this.
And?
And I need to see how it ends.
Why.
Curiosity. Remember? It will be what kills me. I'd like it in my obituary, if there is one. 'She was born into the fair. She wrote a whole shitload of horror stories, she loved really really hard and then curiosity killed her. What an amazing poignant life. What a show.' Put that in, please.
Can't. He's gone rigid, removed. Bridget's mortality isn't something Lochlan can deal with.
Yes you can.
Someone else will have to. There's no life if you aren't here. Nothing before you and so there will be nothing after you.
Pulling out the big guns today, I see.
I never said I wasn't armed.
(That. That was the sentence that changed things once again. Never saw it coming.)
***
Resistant to living in the moment and yet learning ever so slowly precisely how to do just that. Stop, Bridget, slow down. Re-plant some peppers that never sprouted. Inspect the grapevines and take a deep breath in the orchard. Take a stick and poke into the ant hill. Learn the names of all the plants in the grotto. Buy more lilacs. Walk the beach three times a day instead of once. Wear sunscreen but put it on in the morning and then it's not an issue to try and remember to bring.
Breathe.
Think about Jake without being drowned in grief.
Think about Cole without guilt.
Think about Caleb, who is not evil, just debilitatingly lonely.
Think about PJ, so selfless and kind to me.
Think about Sam who is stretched so thin but who always takes the time to remind me not to hyperventilate or to panic when around the corner hope waits, held out by God. Just take it, he says, Sam will help you learn to use it.
Think about Ben, who is attempting to fix everything in his own way. With emotional pyrotechnics. With jangling guitar leads and absent-presence.
Think about Lochlan.
Lochlan.
The sun. The constant. I open my eyes, he's there. Every good morning since 1983. If that wasn't a sign then I will paint it myself.
Think about life and what it means. Life is peppers and orchards and ants and lilacs and sunscreen and love. Life is not mourning for those who can't care but for loving those who do. Life is lights and magic and fire and exhilaration and wristbands and freaks.
Life is weird.
This one is mine.
