Look at the flowers in Stockholm; yellow is your colour
We spoke on my birthday, Aug. 19. 'Look at the flowers in Stockholm'
you said. 'I remember how beautiful the flowers were in Europe.' And
I told you I'd dressed to match the decor in green and yellow. 'Ah,'
you sighed. 'Yellow is your favourite colour...'
Not an angel, a force - a fierce, tenacious, glorious star
Exploding in skies, illuminated by wit, armed by
Grace, charm, intellect.
Our Texas nights, our slamming-door fights,
Trips to Corpus, nights on parallel couches,
Happy sometimes, aging,
Grouches.
'I'm glad you told me what you did about how that was
one of the best years of your life,' Mom wrote. 'It
made having bought that house worth it.'
Twenty-thousand square feet. A den we called 'the Man Cave'.
There were huge cockroaches especially at night, and
my cat Wally would study them, possibly eat them
when my back was turned.
The sound of your car purring into the carport,
the day you admitted you'd nicked a fence. Your
refusal to give up Bluetooth. The charming way you
asked for your coffee at Starbucks. How the way I ordered
a turkey and cheese sandwich with oil and vinegar and toasted
just so on our drive out of San Antone amused you.
'I keep telling people how you ordered that sandwich. It was the
WAY you ordered it - so specific. How you took charge,' I think you
said. A mixture of specificity and control but you loved that sandwich.
The plumeria in your yard. How I cleaned the muck falling in
your pool, and as I write this feel it was never really enough.
You were already what 77? And knocking about the attic with a man
looking for critters, guarding your fiftysomething daughter from
the reality of what you found. You were a tough broad with a poet's
soul. Men swooned, even at your age. Unless I was wearing
mascara and a short skirt, I couldn't compete.
The nights we ate at El Jalisiense, those lovely cheese enchiladas that
made me fat. How you never drank but enjoyed your iced tea! Oh did you
enjoy it. That was the Texan in you. The young man who worked there
seven days a week, one of the owners I think, would come and flirt
with you. You were so well-loved and liked in that town, Alice,
that I sat back and could only admire, sucking in the detritus of
your stardust.
The day David told me you died, I had a choice. I could swallow
a bottle of pills, hang myself, jump off the Millennium Bridge, or
simply stop breathing underwater .... Or I could try, struggle, breathe,
cry, scream, hit the walls, each day, try, try try try try
to find joy.
For this life, this life you've left me, feels so joyless without you.
My light, my guide, my muse.
Our Texas nights, our slamming-door fights,
Trips to Corpus, nights on parallel couches,
Happy sometimes, aging,
Grouches.
'I'm glad you told me what you did about how that was
one of the best years of your life,' Mom wrote. 'It
made having bought that house worth it.'
Twenty-thousand square feet. A den we called 'the Man Cave'.
There were huge cockroaches especially at night, and
my cat Wally would study them, possibly eat them
when my back was turned.
The sound of your car purring into the carport,
the day you admitted you'd nicked a fence. Your
refusal to give up Bluetooth. The charming way you
asked for your coffee at Starbucks. How the way I ordered
a turkey and cheese sandwich with oil and vinegar and toasted
just so on our drive out of San Antone amused you.
'I keep telling people how you ordered that sandwich. It was the
WAY you ordered it - so specific. How you took charge,' I think you
said. A mixture of specificity and control but you loved that sandwich.
The plumeria in your yard. How I cleaned the muck falling in
your pool, and as I write this feel it was never really enough.
You were already what 77? And knocking about the attic with a man
looking for critters, guarding your fiftysomething daughter from
the reality of what you found. You were a tough broad with a poet's
soul. Men swooned, even at your age. Unless I was wearing
mascara and a short skirt, I couldn't compete.
The nights we ate at El Jalisiense, those lovely cheese enchiladas that
made me fat. How you never drank but enjoyed your iced tea! Oh did you
enjoy it. That was the Texan in you. The young man who worked there
seven days a week, one of the owners I think, would come and flirt
with you. You were so well-loved and liked in that town, Alice,
that I sat back and could only admire, sucking in the detritus of
your stardust.
The day David told me you died, I had a choice. I could swallow
a bottle of pills, hang myself, jump off the Millennium Bridge, or
simply stop breathing underwater .... Or I could try, struggle, breathe,
cry, scream, hit the walls, each day, try, try try try try
to find joy.
For this life, this life you've left me, feels so joyless without you.
My light, my guide, my muse.
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