A functional graveyard.

Today the kids and I are on our own.

I got a call last night from the city, the park bench has been designated and there is a bronze plaque affixed at last, stemming from a request I put in and paid for last fall in anticipation of honoring father's day for Cole, who missed his first one since Ruth was born in 1999.

I'm going to take the kids to see it today. It's in the park we used to visit, where Cole started taking pictures and ended drawing, sitting on a bench with someone else's name inscribed on it, telling me someday he hoped I would do that for him.

I remembered, Sweetheart. I remember everything and not all of it is bad, I promise.
Jacob and August are driving to the border to explore on the bike so I get the truck. After I think I'll take the kids for ice cream sundaes if they're up for it.

I don't think I'm up for it, Jacob is definitely not up for it, but it isn't about us.

Caustic kiss.

    Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
    Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.
    All five horizons revolved around her soul
    As the earth to the sun
    Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

    And all I taught her was everything
    I know she gave me all that she wore
    And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
    Of what was everything.
    the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything

This morning I rolled over sleepily to snuggle into Jacob's chest and received my usual good morning kiss: a soft muzzle just under my ear. He kissed me and then I sensed that he was making a face in the dark.

Bug spray, honey.

Yes. And lots of it, Bridget.

"Jay" is sort of better than 'JT' but not by a whole lot.

Crow has become a standard menu item for me.

This morning August found me down at my secret patch of lavender and mullein that lies a short walk through a field at the end of my neighborhood. I often stop there on the way back from taking the kids to school and wander a bit and bring home handfuls of the wild herbs that grow there that no one seems to notice.

I was gathering up a bouquet when he was suddenly there, sheepish. Probably following me. I'd never notice anyway.

Need any help, Bridget?

No, I'm good. You can return to supervising.

Why do you need to bust my balls so much?

Because I don't think your presence is required. By not going to therapy I didn't mean it was going to become an in-house thing instead.

For the record, I came to visit Jay.

What are you talking about?

I invited Jay to go two trips in the past year, both ones he would have jumped at in the past and he turned me down. So I had to come to him.

So you're saying I've ruined his adventurous spirit?

No, I'm saying I had to come and meet the one person who stopped him in his tracks, the one person he can't and won't live without.

Did you say that or did he?

I did. He told me he has everything he needs, all the adventure he'll ever want with you, and with the kids.

So you came to visit him and not to help with me?

I honestly had no idea what happened here until you told me the other day.

Not a clue?

Jay doesn't kiss and tell, Bridget.

Jacob asks for help when he's in over his head, August.

Less than you might think. He's doing well, he's a strong guy with a good head on his shoulders. Frankly I think you're doing well too and as long as you have better resources in place to deal with the harder parts, I don't expect you to run off and do anything drastic.

I don't plan to.

Why can't you tell Jay that?

I did and then sometimes I think I did ruin his life and maybe if he has a way out he won't get down.

He's follow you anywhere. I've never seen him this way. And I knew about you, years ago, I just dismissed it as one of those things. Like how when I see pictures of Christy Turlington I get wood.

Do I need to know this?

You need to understand the difference between Jay loving you and wishing for you for so long and him being only out for himself. He wants you to get better for you, for the kids, for your future, with him as a part of that. Otherwise he'd keep you crazy, in a box and let you out for sex. That's what most guys would do if they were all about themselves.

Nice.

It's the truth, Bridge. He may be obsessed with you but it's a good kind.

He's worried it might turn into something bad. I've had something bad.

I know. We talked a lot yesterday. It's a fear brought on by being exposed to that. Which doesn't mean he'll turn into that, but it's fresh. You both just lived through it, you moreso but it's in the forefront. It doesn't mean anything though.

So you're not going to analyze me and report back?

I'll only report back that you're as beautiful as he said you were and that you're not vulnerable to my charm.

Oh but I would have been without the suspicion. You're a lot like Jacob.

I'm going to tell you that's the highest compliment I have ever received in my life, Bridget.

You can't be serious.

Guys like us never get the girl.

Jacob did, eventually.

Right on, then maybe there's hope that someday I might find a princess of my own.

I hope she's not as much trouble for you as I was for Jacob.

Me neither.

Nice, August.

Please, the one thing he did tell me was that you were impossible.

Yeah, he says that a lot.

Deeper, still.

I can't find the solidity today either. I think after all this time maybe Cole took it with him. I put in a request for spoilers which I bet will go unanswered. It always does.

This morning's sky brings the blue after an epic thunderstorm last night. This morning I expected to leave the house and find dents in the pavement. The rain beat down and the wind roared and howled last night to the point that I felt completely cut off from earth, as if I had woken up in an alien landscape. Nothing was familiar, little brought comfort. Today it's as if it never happened. Which only makes me feel more insane.

And so I stared at the train this morning and I read the graffiti on it while I briefly wondered if it would hurt if I tossed myself under it's wheels. Or maybe if it would just hurt less.

I gave up therapy because I didn't want to spend any more of my meager nonexistent fortune on running laps around people who don't know me. I had promised I would give it a year and that's what I gave it and I fought it the whole way and gave it back a year to the day later. I gave the reins back to Jacob in an effort to prove I trust him, knowing full well he performs poorly and unobjectively when given control but he craves that out of control control. Are you with me? He says it's really unsettling to him how I can trust him with my life and my heart but my head is slow to follow. He has his own best interests at heart and I know that now. We keep coming back to that.

I don't think he likes me. Well, I think sometimes he does and the other times he wishes he could run the fuck away from me. Which is fine, if I could run away from me I wouldn't be here.

And August? Is a plant. Which figures. A professional. I am sick of professionals. How many people does Jacob know who just happen to be good friends who all went into the same field and are now people who can help? God, did you set us up or what? How long have you known this is the way things would turn out and can I please please just see how it ends?

It's attempt #455623354 to fix Bridget.

Who remains unfixable. And unconcerned

Chasing August.

I think Jacob made a big mistake.

He left me here while he went to return the borrowed airstream (I know! For all the OMG you've got an airstream emails, we don't but now I wish we did), a two hour drive, and he took PJ with him, and I have to ferry the kids back and forth to school so I couldn't tag along, but being the Forward Thinker that he is, rather than leave me alone he gave me the coveted job of picking up August at the airport, his friend who lives in America (I was CORRECTED by August when I said the U.S. but he won't tell me why). Which is hilarious, because August is from Newfoundland.

August is a very slightly insane, freewheeling, psychotic sometime-rockstar vegan psychopath.

He is what Jacob would be, unchecked. He told me he and Jacob met in jail. Which is true, except he'll never be the one to admit he was on the inside and Jacob was passing through when he was offered a job there a dozen years ago.

August is safe, the arrest was for refusing to move during a protest and he's sworn to me that he grew up in the time he's been absent from Jacob's life.

So far together we've had nine cups of green tea and spent an hour walking the dog and shopped the organic grocery store not once, but twice. The kids have been and gone again and Jacob called twice to ask me how I was. PJ called once to ask August how I was and he lied and said I turned rabid so he tied me to a post in the backyard. So far we're getting along like gangbusters.

August's plan is to spend two weeks here helping Jacob finish some of the bigger house projects and get caught up on their friendship and then he's headed North for the summer. He's fun and cute and incredibly kind. He's already written a list of things we can do to improve our quality of life, he's convinced we'll all be on a raw diet by the time he leaves. He figures it will help me especially. When I told him what kind of year we've had I got a fifteen minute hug. I'm keeping him, I swear.

The only down side I can see is that he says Right On every seventeen and a half seconds, which I'm sure is going to get annoying by the end of today but for now it's cool.

The Dreamcatchers.

Or, how I spent my weekend.

    What the hell have I meant
    If this is how the day ends, I regret
    Close your eyes and dream now
    The world so far your heart sounds alone
    and I connect
    In all the ways I've dreamed you
    I choose a song to reach you
    But why it's sad again, only now I see it.

    And when you're acting so proud like
    Like you never had your doubts
    You never said once like you were throwing it away
    And then you're hanging round
    Shining like the sun
    Shocked everyone how it's making my day
    And you, you can try so hard
    With everything that's going wrong
    I know you're strong and you're here for the change
    You're never far away
    You're making my day
    Or you're throwing it away
This weekend's surprise group getaway featured four vintage airstreams, nine adults, five children and one single soundtrack and I didn't even pick it. Jacob can sing and play all of All My Real Friends by High Holy Days, an awesome Canadian band hardly anyone seems to know about. He brought his guitar and sang for everyone just about constantly, when he wasn't throwing people into the lake or sitting and reflecting on the end of the dock with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. I brought my violin but I hardly touched it, preferring instead to sit with my feet dangling in the water while I taught all the children how to weave crowns of wildflowers.

Every time I looked at him he'd smile and keep playing. Whenever I started to get up to do something, someone would give me a hug and tell me they'd get it. I didn't have a single nightmare for two nights. I didn't have a shower either and wow, did that ever feel good to come home to this morning.

I lived in a blue bikini that is ready for the garbage. I never wore a watch. My freckles came out and I shed my anxiety like an old pair of jeans. I stood on the bare feet of my husband while he hung out over the water precariously, my hands around his neck holding on for dear life and then he grinned and shook me off and I fell in. Repeatedly, because it was fun.

I passed my belay test. I didn't shake like a leaf once I realized I was higher than I am tall. I found a new level of trust in hanging off a rope attached to Jacob and one little bolt somewhere higher up. I tried not to think about it, instead focusing on the knowledge that he would never let me die. The kids scaled their mini-mountains like little blonde spiders, enthusiastic to a fault.

It was awesome. Best way to spend Father's Day I ever could have planned but didn't. The kids had made presents for Jacob at school and we gave him roses for the backyard, because the trees didn't make it but we will so we're being more ambitious.

Yesterday morning Jacob and Sam led an impromptu Sunday service in the woods that brought over a nearby group of university kids happy to share in the love and a round of spirituality acknowledged in the woods. They jumped in with their own prayers and talked so openly. It only makes Jake more excited for the fall.

And this morning I had booked an abbreviated session with Claus that I burst into, breathless, with wet hair because my God, it's Monday and life is trying to start the week without me and I threw the kids in the shower and then jumped in after and then drove them to school and booked straight downtown and the first thing out of my mouth was,

I'm done, Claus. I'm leaving you.

I knew the time would come.

Am I fixed?

Not in the least, Mrs. Reilly. But you know where I'll be if you change your mind.

I do. And thank you, Claus, for everything.

I expect to see you again, Bridget.

Not if I can help it.

Just keep my number and go and be well, young lady.

I will. And I love you, man.

Yes, well, you would have loved me more if you had done your homework.

I know. Sometimes people are unconventional.

Yes, and you're a shining example.

Bye Claus.

Goodbye, Bridget, and good luck.
I kissed his cheek and flew back out, where Jacob was waiting with his hand out to take mine and head for breakfast. Now we're home and I have to get the laundry going and then I'm headed outside to help Jacob clean out the truck and the motorhome, which look as if someone turned them inside out and dragged them through a muddy river bed. It's going to take the rest of the day. It was worth it.

Hell and high water.

There is an Allman Brothers revival going on in my dining room this morning, as Jacob plays and shows Henry a few tricks over the remnants of bacon and toast, juice and coffee.

Last night he asked if I would climb with him again if I'm going to live without the constant rollercoaster of antidepressants and mood stabilizers and sleeping pills. I had great plans at one point to conquer my new, ridiculous fear of heights and had started a climbing course for beginners but had to drop out when my reaction times slowed as the medications took over and I kept making pathetic jokes about the gingerbread at the very peak of this house. He didn't want me halfway up any walls then.

Now there is a need. Distractions via living life. Getting back on the horse since we'll soon be out from under a crushing schedule of therapies and talk. And I don't care who disapproves and I don't care who is disappointed and I don't care who might know better. What matters is Ruth and Henry and Jacob and Bridget. Let's not forget Bridget.

I'm going climbing now. A family climb. Our first 'real' family climb ever. I'm scared to death.

Life. lessons.

Open your mind, princess.

Sometime in the last forty-eight hours I learned to use the sky for solace, for reflection, and for comfort. My ocean is going to be jealous, raging lover that she is. But she isn't here, and the sky is and when the clouds come rolling across the endless expanse of blue somehow I feel very small, one of billions and my problems are blips on a radar that doesn't recognize me because it is too busy wrapping the planet in weather and beauty. The inky blue darkness that nestles the moon in a quiet embrace agrees.

And there you have it.

It's a soft grief in writing that. I'm supposed to be the saltwater princess. The girl who could bathe her wounds away, implied or actual, healing her scars in the icy grey water and being swallowed alive, deafened and rendered blind under the waves.

The clouds, the air, none of it affords the same surround.

But it is better than nothing.

I've gone from nothing to everything.

Easy rider.

Jacob is home, with sunburned muscles from riding with a t-shirt on and no jacket. His cords are worn, frayed at the bottom and almost-holes in the back corner pockets. His hair is tousled, his eyes are wild and he stopped on the way and brought home some salad nicoise for dinner.

He came into the house with his riding boots still on, helmet tucked under one arm, put down the take-out and folded me into his arms tightly. He smelled like sweat and fresh air and dust. He grinned and his dimples came easily, a relaxed and relieved smile, just for me.

This is one time there is no question in my mind, no doubts that we're doing the right thing by leaving it all behind. Fixing it was killing us and so instead we need to let it go.

Not sure what the hell I'm going to write about now.

Hmm. Oh yeah, cake.

Sea change.

    Oil streaked daisies covered the living room wall
    He put water-colored roses in her hair
    He said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you mountains, the sunshine,
    the sunset too.
    I just want to give you everything as beautiful as you are to me."
    'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
    A lovely world.
    So they sat down and made a drawing of their love, an art to live by
    They painted every passion, every home, created every beautiful child.
    in the winter they were weavers of warmth,
    in summer they were carpenters of love.
    They thought blue prints were too sad so they made them yellow
So I sat down to write and for several minutes nothing came and I got up and walked away. I keep coming back. There's your metaphor. Tough post today.

Jacob and Sam are off on a day trip, a motorcycle ride to the lakes. A guy thing, probably so that Jacob can seek some guidance from a close confidant and maybe so that Sam can throttle some sense into Jacob at the same time. It was Sam's suggestion that I get a day off from Jacob without weight, without being provinces and days apart, just barely out of arms reach, but enough. For a day. I gave Sam my promise I would just hang out and work on hobbies and write a bit and eat some more of the pears he brought over. Some time alone because Sam trusts me.

Time alone I've barely had.

Time to think about why I'm completely helpless and dependent when Jacob is around and just about perfectly fine when he's not. To reflect on issues Claus runs in circles with. Pills, no pills, low, pills, no pills, low, pills and what the fuck are you doing, Bridget?

I feel like I'm on the power trip of the century and yet I'm not steering the boat. Every time I try to take control I can't seem to manage it and have to step down and let everyone else take over. I've proven I can't be trusted with my own wellness plan. I'm fed supplements and directed to eat like a child. I'm given easy directions to swallow pills and I don't just so I can have control over something. I'm driven to appointments and parked in chairs and asked to spill my guts to strangers and told when to go to bed and when to run and mostly I want to cry.

And why am I not trusted? Because I act like a child. Shhh, don't upset the princess. She'll break into pieces and then what will you have? Jacob lets me get away with it, for it simply reinforces his image of strength and power. Something he clings to when he feels helpless and lost. In the very same way I cling to my fragility as a way to maintain innocence from any real sort of responsibility.

There I said it. I can own it. I can eat those words and admit it because I want him to still be here when I wake up tomorrow for the rest of my life.

Every time we make huge progress in our selves and in our relationship we go through an adjustment period where things seem to fall apart briefly while we incorporate the new and good and find places for those things in amongst the dark and the baggage that's piled up to our ears and we usually wind up throwing out something we no longer need, some type of issue that just up and dies. It's good, but it's so hard. A brief suffocation. This time we were ready for it and that's the best progress ever in the history of the world.

It's very hard to gloss and here I am trying to peel my skin off while standing behind a curtain for modesty. I don't have other words to somehow keep counseling private and yet deal with it.

Jacob again threw a surprise iron on the fire that I thought was long gone and then he had the nerve to yell at me in that office that I should be the last one to be surprised and that was when I walked out yesterday.

His obsession with me.

It's worse, not better. I still can't wrap my brain around it, but I've always known about it, if that makes sense. He always was obsessed with me, and I used that, and I wrapped him around my finger so tightly and yet he still went off and did his own thing and he seemed to have such a good handle on it and then when we got together and got married I figured it was impossible to be obsessed with your own wife.

And I was wrong.

So very wrong.

He is positively weakened by it, by me. He has changed his life in extreme measures to be with me and even then he changed careers to look after me and to help me get better while he got worse, quietly. He's worried about the slippery slope all the way downhill tumbley-fall he's going to take when the day comes that he acts on the urges he has to control me.

Control me like Cole did.

Maybe there is something in the water here.

No, there's something in the Bridget and it ruins people.

I can't think about it, it's too overwhelming. He can't not think about it, it's all-consuming. I asked him if I was his God of the moment because I was angry and he swore at me. Sometimes I think he hates me for what I have done to him. He'll tell me out loud that he doesn't, without even hearing my question first and it's frustrating. I have power over him I've never known exactly how to work, and he has a weakness for me that somehow gives him strength.

And we've got an army of professionals, well-meaning friends and oblivious family who all think they know what will work for us and we're about to ditch all of them. Because we did better when we had less help. No one can agree and this is impossible.

Oddly, the less help I have always had, the fewer places to hide, the better I fared. Because I feed off the attention, and because life is easier without the reminder that I brought down the giant with a smile and he'll never be the same.

I'm eating crow today, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and possibly a bedtime snack. It's an all-day buffet and I'm stuffed but I'll keep eating it until he sees that I love him for him and I don't want all this other bullshit. I just want us to be left alone. He wants us to be left alone too but at the same time he's afraid of himself.

I don't think he has anything to worry about. He's proven himself a million times over and I trust him with my life, understandably because he's caught it in his hands already, like a reflex, like a precious gift that he's been given and I can't picture him ever doing different and so we talked at length over the past few days about deeper things, if you can believe we can get deeper than anyone has previously dug. We needed lights and miner's helmets. But we agreed on one thing.

A leap of faith, taken together.

By the end of the month everything will be gone, my precious Claus, the marriage counselling we've quit three times already, the perpetual prescriptions I ignore, the directions and exercises and advice and afterthoughts, the meddling, the experiments and the constant beat-down we've put ourselves through in the name of happily ever after, when happily ever after went and started without us. We've given it almost a year and so it's time to get moving.

All of it. Gone.

So we can just be.

Just be us. Jacob and Bridget. Pure and simple. Iron & Wine.

Dumb and Dumber. (Okay, I couldn't resist).