12 years

12 years ago on september 11th, a very different kate married a person that could not exist, hope set on a horizon that would never be reached, set on a love that was not possible.

i mourn for that kate now,

that kate who wanted so desperately for everything to be fine. to be as fine as it seemed. to be as fine as anyone could imagine just by looking.

10 years ago jeff and i were in pittsburg new hampshire. it was morning, and instead of fishing, we set out looking for a new place to share our anniversary dinner. we were carefully going through the motions of what it meant to be married, what it meant to celebrate our marriage, what it meant to push through and be as present as we dared be within our very complicated fiction. i remember how careful i felt, how incredibly careful.

we walked into a lodge we'd never been in, and a TV was on, a movie i thought. it was early morning still, and no one else was there but someone at the desk, stunned to tell us about the plane, the tower. we stood and watched as the second plane hit, thought it was a re-run of the first, and then realized we were watching it happen right then.

the immensity and complexity of what we saw was not something i could comprehend in that moment (and perhaps ever after), it was too big, too much, with too much loss.

sometimes when i am already mired in my own sadness, my own trauma, it is as if there is no more room. grieving, there is no more room for grief. it is not gone or set aside, instead it is as if it is paid forward, and only in looking back i can see what i could not see then. my own crumbling life eclipsed my immediate emotional reaction to the towers falling. i could not grok it. it was too much on top of too much.

i feel selfish admitting that, even now, even here. i can be compassionate to that kate, but i also realize that since i was not able to process even one little bit of the trade tower catastrophe, i had to process it later. i have had to process it since. i still cannot see images, protect myself from my own memories of bodies falling. i cannot hold that level of horror.

there is no law of conservation of horror

or conservation of grief

or conservation of loss

mine does not lessen yours

yours does not lessen mine

and both, it seems, move forward with raw stinging tenderness, unhealed, unhealable.

so on this day, this year, i consciously honor all of us

here's to the people we were before

and here's to the people we are after

and the raw tender hope that pushes up in spite of all we've known and all we've lost

hair, vanity and the echos of a birthday missed

this is a post about hair. a vain post.

once upon a time, just after jeff died, i was living in a small cabin with a tiny bathroom. the bathroom had a white linoleum floor. each day after i showered, i would clear a big wad of hair from the drain. and after drying my hair, i would use the dryer as a whiskbroom and blow all of the many shed hairs into a corner so i could gather them up and throw them away.

more hair fell out

and more

and more and more and more

until i could no longer be unconscious

i could see my scalp, developed a very bald spot in the back

and it just felt like one more thing that was falling apart

the doctor told me it was from the intense stress, and would likely grow back

and, over time, much did but far from all. one by one they'd poke through, then spend months as tiny hairs that stuck straight up.

i still had thin spots, but could mostly ignore them by not looking

or when i couldn't there was always the option for a pony tail.

i'd lost hair before-- two rounds of accutane in my youth had cut my insanely thick hair down by half

and earlier stress had caused some localized loss, and the regrowth had been so jaggedy, i would unconsciously pull them making a bad thing worse

ok

so here i am, hair falling out in alarming quantities

wads and gobs and hairs everywhere everywhere

i know it is expected, 3 months post partum, but it sucks to have it happening right now (no good time, really) when it feels like one more thing falling apart.

me, specifically.

i'm fine really

amazingly great in the obvious and miraculous ways of della and doug

but more than a wee bit stressed about the myriad transitions and potential ramifications of this,that and the other thing.

doug told me he would still love me if i go bald, but i think this is all about me

coincidental echoes from a very difficult time

that began with job issues, house issues and then all came apart.

yesterday jeff would have turned 52.