B is for butter and better and bye.

Breakfast with Joel this morning. I made butternauts and they explored the Grand Croissant Mesa, a desert of the flakiest, greasiest pastry landscape they've ever seen. I think they prefer the cold surface of the porcelain plate-moon, for in the desert they just melted and withered from despair. You know what they say, you can take a butternaut from the moon, but you can't take the moon from the butternaut. 

Well, they say that in MY mind. Haters.

Twice the servers tried to take my plate. I hate to be a snob but if you hover, you're getting a smaller tip. I get that on Fridays you just want to turn your tables over as fast as possible but when I'm being psychoanalyzed I want to take my time. Get it all. Miss nothing. Jesus, what if this only paints a partial picture, after all and in butter, no less?

Can't have that. Hey look, I'm going to order more food that I don't plan to eat, just to get you off my back.

Oven-browned pretentious fingerling potatoes. Organic, locally sourced. Hand-cut. Fried in extra virgins (which is even more virgins than ever before).

Not vegan though, because butter. Mmmmmmmmm.

(Butter is better than Joel, if we're keeping score.)

He said this first breakfast would be strange and probably difficult, reminiscent of some of our earlier meals together, after flight. Or maybe I should say after the front hall. He is right. He's always right about everything except for the things he is wrong about. I have no desire to correct or elaborate today. I'm busy making butternauts because they keep disappearing into the ground. This Mesa is clearly a trap made of emotional quicksand, just like this breakfast date. Who knew?

Cold and charm.

Caleb swept in early yesterday. A little work. Some food. Some easy meetings and decisions without emotion. Some more work in the form of planning. Some followup. A lot of cuddles in between. It's got to be some sort of tremendously sad and thoroughly ironic day when one suddenly finds themselves welcoming a metric ton of sexual harassment on the job.

A failed venture. One of my emotional trigger pulls that he warned me not to get involved in but trusted my emphatic pleas and wrote the cheque anyway (figuratively speaking).

A really delicious-looking lunch that I hardly touched in spite of his efforts to bite his own tongue for once, instead of mine, sitting quietly while I ordered for myself. It was a first, almost.

A mischievous round of hooky played when we opted to stop working and go for a walk on the beach because it didn't rain after all. He put his hand out for mine and I took it. He squeezed my fingers and I squeezed back.

He told me he loved me and I pretended I couldn't hear him. On the way back up to the house when his time was up I thanked him for being so sweet but he had already hardened back over.

Navy blue.

When the phone rings at six in the morning it's never good news, is it?

I thought my grandfather was going to live forever but he stuck around long enough to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and then he slipped away when no one was looking. He's to be reunited with my beautiful grandmother and they can be in heaven together now where nothing ever hurts and it never snows or rains. There's never a bad crop, a rough sea or a long day.

It's a bit of a surprise when you expect people to be immortal and you find out they're not. It's not a nice surprise but it makes more sense, I suppose and while I was prepared for this, I was never fully prepared and therefore a little dismayed to discover I wasn't prepared at all.

He gets credit for giving me:

All the Irish I have.
My obsession with the sea.
The two decades of vegetarianism.
A love of bonfires and exploring the woods.
The fascination with creepy glass eyes on taxidermied critters.
Plaid flannel as a comfort object.
Confidence in building things myself.
This debilitating wanderlust, which turns out to be the best inherited, genetic gift and not a flaw in the least.

Cards for humanity.

It's a cold foggy morning and the first thing I did when I woke up was to pull on pajama pants and Cole's big grey sweater. It's a habit. Comfort objects. You know, routine.

Don't wear that. Loch's voice comes out of nowhere. I didn't even think he was awake and yet honestly? We both wake up when the other even so much as changes from REM sleep to stage one. 

Why not? I ask. It's emotionless. I don't know. I'm tired but curious, always. 

You don't need to be wrapped in him today. Come see me. 

I debate. I'm warm. It's already on. He's breaking promises, asking me to do things he said he'd never ask me to do again.

(Bridget, we're going to skip dinner tonight. Okay? Just tonight. We'll have a big breakfast tomorrow.)

(Cole will keep you safe.)

(It's always going to be just you and me, against the world.)

But he's trying hard, and this isn't the hill I want to die on, arguing over a big worn-out scratchy hand knit sweater with a hole in one elbow and singed cuffs and paint streaks on the back of the hem.

I pull it back off slowly, up over my head and when I put my arms back down, letting the sweater drop to the floor, he tells me I can wear his hoodie from yesterday. 

It smells like rain and sugar and pine needles and dryer sheets and adventure and hope. Like Lochlan. 

I zip it all the way up to my neck and stick my hands in the pockets. I pull out a playing card (three of hearts, always the magician) and his reading glasses. Both go on the nightstand. He throws his arms around my legs and drags me back into bed with him, whipping the covers down over us, smiling in the dark as he shoves my pyjama pants all the way down to my knees and then off. 

Sleep, Peanut. 

How long?

Just until the fog lifts. Then we work. (He's half asleep now, words come out via muscle memory.)

What if we didn't work today? 

Then we can sleep till the sun hits the bed. Deal?

Deal. 

When I woke up next (when Lochlan stopped dreaming), sunshine had flooded the room and the three of hearts was in my hand.

Assholes and angels.

"A cold-water surf trip to a remote and frozen Canadian frontier."

That's the description of Nova Scotia in this month's feature article in SURFER magazine (the large photo is a slide show). I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I guess when you grow up on a tiny peninsula surround by the harsh Atlantic you forget that the rest of the world has hardly any idea what that's like and will probably never see it with their own eyes.

And for that you have my deepest sympathies.

Actually, I'm kidding. If you never see it, that's fine. There is a lot of this world I'm never going to see either and I've made my peace with that but if you are as proud of where you come from as I am, then please write and tell me about it. I love to hear other people's depictions of their own home bases too.

***
Standing on the floor of the ocean. That's where it all makes sense. It all seems easier. It all turns out to be smaller, somehow. Less catastrophic. There is this big beautiful tumbling entity in shades of blue, green, black and white and it shapes solid rock, tosses huge vessels, drowns secrets and steals souls. Her highs and lows are noted, recorded and observed. She demands respect and commands attention. She steals and she gives back the most amazing treasures and she will continue to do all this relentlessly until the end of time. Long before me, long after me.

And I love her so.

I'm fine. Thank you for your concern. The pressure of how long is appropriate to grieve sometimes gets to me, when usually I can deflect it with a few well-placed invitations to fuck off. Sometimes I can't find the strength to do that and then I feel awful twice over. Once for missing them. Him, both. And once for putting everyone else through that. Especially Ben, who has dealt with far worse grief but had professional handling over months and months of his voluntary stay to get sober and actually learned something.

Unlike me. Tie me down and tell me you're going to teach me how to feel properly and I will buck and strain against it right to the bitter end, arching my back and flopping back down in frustration. I will hold out and pretend everything is fine right up until the moment that I fall apart.

Dismay is expressed all around. They wish I wouldn't cry. They tell me to get mad. I told them I don't want to be an asshole when I'm hurting but they figure it's probably safer than falling apart. I'm not so sure. There are of few of them who express sorrow through rage and it isn't any prettier from where I'm standing.

Trigger pulling.

Backwards
Into a wall of fire

It still works. I can crawl into bed and pull up a blanket made of memories and sadness and it's safe. It's warm. I pull it all the way up over my head and underneath it the music is loud and a familiar face is right there, stealing my fort. Taking my comfort. Leaving hardly enough room for me to stay warm, suffocating my sanity or what might be left of it now.

Matthew Good is singing so loudly I can't hear what Jake says to me until he reaches out and turns down the song.

Are you going to stay in here forever?

Until the weather is better, yes. It's called Hunkering Down. Don't they do this in Newfoundland?

They do indeed. But the weather is fine here.

Not inside my head it isn't.

We can fix this.

I don't think I'm fixable, Pooh.

What if you are? What would you do then, Piglet?

Oh, I would be so happy. I would never ever stop smiling.

Then that's what we should do.

I woke up because I couldn't breathe anymore and I threw off the covers to find total dark, complete quiet staring me back in the face, a waiting adversary and yet no match for my dreams. I get up, naked, gasping for air, borderline/hysterical, and I go and get a glass of cold water and bring it back to bed with me. When I get back into bed I smell sandalwood and it smells like Jake and I start sobbing because I miss him so bad and at the same time I feel so horribly ashamed for still feeling this way.

Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, we're going to kill you.

They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
You're a star

I woke up this way. Lochlan picked a song and twisted the knob on the stereo until it couldn't go any further. Then he went out back to the patio, leaving the music blasting through the house. It seems like a bit of a mean way to wake everyone up but in his defence it was after eight when he did it and today is one of those rare and wonderful days that every. single. one. of. us. have. off. Even the ones with actual jobs. Even the children, who are on March break. Even Sam who has weddings tomorrow and church Sunday managed to get everything done ahead of time so that he didn't break our stride here.

Even the Devil and the Batman too. Best behaviour all around.

I'm going to get my day (see yesterday's post), is what this means. It begins at lunch. Just have to pick a movie and nix the whiskey because I don't really want any today, and have a baseball bat handy so that someone can knock me out when I decide it's a perfect nap time but not be able to fall asleep (but then drop like a stone in the dark the minute the movie spools up).

But first! Ben is going to throw Loch off the cliff into the sea because it's sunny and twenty degrees and we've decided it really was a mean way for him to wake us all up after all. You can't make love to U2 music. It just isn't something that can be done.

Not by me, anyway. I start singing along. It's a mood-killer.

Babe, it must be art
You're a headache
In a suitcase
You're a star

Easy to please, difficult to comprehend.

A perfect day right this second would involve some ramen. Maybe a couple hours of shopping and a stroll through the gallery. Then a nap. Then maybe a sleepy movie before some potato skins and whiskey. Maybe a blisteringly hot bubble bath and then sex and sleep and more sex and some eggs benedict the next morning. 

I said to only pick one day, Bridget.

Right and there's twenty-four hours in a day. I started at lunch on the first day. Yeesh!

Throwing hope.

Step right up, boys and girls, olds and bolds, mids and kids! No matter what age you are, we got something you're gonna like! Prepare to be astounded, amazed and impressed. Prepare to scrape your wits up off the ground after you see what we have to show you! There's room down front, though please don't put any part of your body past the chalk line here and you'll go home intact! And now, if everyone is ready-

Peanut! 

I memorized it exactly like it was written! 

No, you need to be louder. Too soft. Too sweet. I didn't fall in love with a mouse. I swore you were a girl last I looked. 

I need a microphone. 

We have no power. Just project. Like I do when I'm relaying the poems. You can hear me down the street. 

That's because you have a big booming Scotch voice. 

No, it's because I'm loud. Act like I walked too far ahead of you on the path and you're mad because you can't keep up. 

I roar his name and he grins. Yes. Just like that. Start over, okay? 

STEP RIGHT UP, BOYS AND GIRLS! 

I look back at him and he looks like he owns the world. Maybe today, right now, here on this filthy street corner in the middle of nowhere, he does. There are no boys or girls here. No olds or bolds. No mids or kids. There's just us and the fire and the unrelenting sun and the nub of almost-gone chalk and a dream so big it'll probably crush us before lunchtime.

August found me late this evening and said,

Don't do that, Bridge. Don't build me up like that. Don't ever think I didn't come back because I'm running from things you know nothing about. It's easier to find a soft landing then to try to make it from scratch. You know that better than anyone. 

Well, ow. 

Got it.