Travel

Since my last post I've taken a trip to Portland, Oregon, my first in several years. My stepson lives there in a russet-orange bungalow with his wife, two sons, and a cat. I'd been unable to travel due to my husband's health, and I worried about the accumulation of time and distance between myself and my grandsons, now 7 and 9. All four were waiting for me at the airport. Story and Harry gave me big hugs and chattered all the way home. So much to catch up on! So much that was new! The next several days were wonderful -- relaxing and refilling. After the first cool and misty morning of "postcard Portland," the sun came out and shone the rest of my stay. I basked in boys' attention, neighborhood walks, scrumptious market produce, music and theater in the parks, masses of roses and front yard gardens. (My stepson, Donald, grows artichokes in his, and hops trained to form a screen filtering sunlight to a sparkling peridot liquescence.) I was introduced to aikido and to yu-gi-o, a terribly complicated (to me) manga book/game series. When it was time to say farewell, I was reminded again of the fluidity of time, how it can stretch, fill, deepen, wait.

I was aware from the first that my husband's death set him free, and gradually it has freed me, too. I can travel, accept a last-minute invitation, or linger over coffee. Relationships, like time, are also not as fixed as one might think. I am still nurtured by the bonds of love and the life Roger and I shared, but the thin, electrical ties of tension, the alertness for the next disaster, are breaking down, disintegrating from lack of use. I'm glad to know that his death isn't an "all or nothing" deal, that some parts will go and some will stay--and those will inevitably change, just as I am. Maybe some will even become me, the joins rubbing off, changing with the seasons . . . seen sometimes, in perfect clarity, to contain all that was and will be and is. Moments of intense joy and deep gratitude.