This post was initially going to be a note on Facebook with a few photos. It is, I feel, more appropriate as a blog.
I have not been visiting Robert: there are Covid cases in the building and until this is under control, I’ll limit going: I need to break out, away from the stress and tension of what has become my life.

Strangely, talking about breakouts, I had a close look at my aging, almost unrecognizable face in a magnifying mirror and gasped at “stuff” that didn’t belong. I poked and prodded and probably injured myself in a fruitless attempt to remedy the weird goings on of this dermatological nature: My skin is in revolt. But, I am sick of going to doctors. I scour YouTube and Amazon for do-it-yourself cures and tools that would likely maim me in the long run. I remember my mother complaining how she was getting “hard, white bumps” on her forehead. I seem to have joined the club.

Be that as it may, today I am grateful. I try to begin my day in gratitude.

When life changes radically and creates holes and shifts in once was reality, in those empty spaces, fear fills in. Like water. it creates emotional floods. It is easy to drown. Negative brain chatter flies in and roosts. I attempt to embrace the evolving inconceivable differences that have invaded and changed my life. It was easy to become reclusive and to dwell in the world of what-ifs.

My neighbor called this morning, a friend who is going through many challenges, some similar.

“I’m still in bed,” I said.

“It’s beautiful out, let’s go out and walk.”

So, we met an hour later. I have become hyper-vigilant about walking in the street where tree roots push up concrete and can snag an unsuspecting person into a tumble. I don’t want to be that person. Ever since Robert has been out of the house, I have felt more vulnerable. I used to have a Walt Disney belief system: someone would be home if I had an accident, if something happened, if I needed to be saved. Now I live in the land of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. But the true reality is: I am my own prince of rescue. I am a whole person despite not having a viable partner: I am still getting used to this.

I am fighting with massive accumulations and collections that Robert has bequeathed me. Things that he thought were important filled up 1,000 square feet of my basement. My new parfum is Eau de Mildew. I scream obscenities constantly and inform Robert that I will kill him. He can’t hear me. He is already dying in a nursing home.

I have felt trapped in the semi-knowledge that some of his books are valuable, so much ephemera, so much music. I want more than anything to donate all of this fossilized culture to schools, to people who are needy, who can use the culture of massive art books to take them away to other lands. Who can lose themselves in architecture, in New York City history. Who might be in music school studying for a profession and want a few thousand vinyl classics in a ready-made collection. 78s, 33s. I spin along with the rpms and hope for the best. My turntable, however, is running out of steam and patience.

VHS tapes, CDs. Surely someone would want to see Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, an extra copy of which is down in the area that was meant for gifts. So many gifts that were never given.

I can’t say much more and I am embarrassed to show you what I am contending with. But I just might have that first Mad Magazine, or Archie comic, or those Classic Comics. In fact, I just might have everything you haven’t seen in your lifetime, from the 1950s or earlier. To wit: Scientific Americans from the 1800s to the latest novel.

So, today, after a night of going through thousands of Playbills from theater performances and concerts, I needed to break out. It was the first time in years that I pried myself off the couch of fear and put on my Nikes.

We went to our lake, my friend and I. It’s been a couple of years since I attempted to take a photo, outside of my immediate domain, something I always loved to do. Whenever Robert and I went into Manhattan, he would drive and I would sit shotgun, hanging out of the car doing my favorite street photography. This will not happen again, not with Robert driving.

Soon something took over me: I was somehow back, almost normal. I was without a partner but safe within myself.

As we rounded the lake I got into a staring session with a black and white dog, maybe a Border Collie named, “Thomas.” He cocked his head and looked at me. I introduced myself to his owner, Eve, and remarked at how lovely her dog was. Thomas approached and whined for me to pet him, he rolled on the ground like one of my many saved feral cats, he put his paw on my arm. I was never a dog person but this dog heard me, sensed what I needed. His owner and I chatted; she was in the middle of listening to St. Francis’ prayer when I had this interaction with her dog:

Lord make Me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness joy.
O Divine master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand.
To be loved. as to love
For it’s in giving that we receive
And it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born…
To eternal life.
Amen…

I told Eve that I believed we were all meant to be at the lake at the same time. The Universe knows, I said.

“I hope I see you again.”

“Oh, you will.”

That dog made my day, that unconditional love poured over me and began to heal a very lonely part of me. A part that has felt abandoned by loss.

I didn’t even take a photo, I remained present in the moment.

 

 

My friend and I walked the perimeter of the lake and took it in. The lake as a whole, the lake and its parts. The last time I was here with Robert was years ago, this lake at the end of our street. But at that time he could still walk. He has since been transformed into a person I never met.

He is gone.

I took out my phone which has been my mode of photography for about eight years. I took a few simple snaps of what I saw, trying to bring back the joy of what I used to feel, and do: Capture moments. Preserve light.
Be awed by color.

 

Come to the lake with me.

 

And then home, as seen back on the deck.

 

I am beginning my escape. I am breaking out.