Under the Silver Maple

How still and wide the presence of you is. Still like the air just before sunrise, quiet with presence not yet revealed, and wide like the sky in Nova Scotia, the stars I had never seen back in this part of the country, the breathtaking glory of night by the ocean.

How quiet the house, and long the day with a small smiling angel removed from it.

I've been keeping myself so busy and distracted, Bo. Just to hold the emptiness at bay. It's always like this; my friends are here, Danny needs to be cared for, and then there's the cats. Yes, Ogden is sort of moving into the spot Howard left...you remmeber how Howie used to sit on that part of the railing, near the kitchen, overseeing everything that went on? That's where Ogden sits now, he's the new Sentinel. Jay's been bringing him in to the livingroom to lie on me at night, it's so strange to have 11 cats and none of them feel they can enter the livingroom. But Danny has settled down now,he doesn't harass them so much - and I often have Ogden, Amidala, Rupa and Rasa in at the same time. Ogden is really bonded to me now. I'm afraid for him, since I love him, and idiotically I feel everything I love is in danger. If that were true, how did you and I manage 13 years?


I keep myself busy, watching movies, working a little, and now, with dad. But more on that later. This blog is for you and me.

No news on the deck; I struggle with anger as I try to help people's dogs and I cannot do this for Danny. But I know it will come, and if it doesn't, we will move next year. Simple as that. I do all I can to shield Danny, but the wood is arsenic laden and splintered and worn with age. I feel I must deserve at least this much, that I can keep Danny safe? But it's been a circus around here about the deck. Everyone's gonna do it, nobody does. And right now I'm just too down- hearted and tired to get out there spreading the word about natural nutrition (and thus - hopefully - making a living as I do). I need the downtime, and so the deck just sits there. Still no van, either. So it's the same old struggle, to be grateful for all I have while not exploding over the injustices I can do nothing about. I have a long way to go on that one, still.

But...the things we can do. Yes, that's more positive. I took Dan this morning to the long trail down to the lake - I'm a wee bit nervous with him offleash when the foliage is dense, but he stays close. He seems a bit better now. He misses you so much, Bo. He was just the soul of dejection for the first while. We all think he's doing better, and he is. But I lie beside him at night and feel his breathing, listen to his heart as I used to do with you. And I feel the hurt. He's growing now into more of a young man, as pain will always accelerate the process. But he's never going to be the same, Bo. None of us are. Me most of all. You have left me so much a better person than you found me, and also so indescribably sad.

I'm going, now, out to that spot I always sit on, the green wicker chair, you know the place you disliked because it wasn't shady. I still have those pics of you in the lilies, when with your usual understated sense of humour you had crawled into them to escape the sun, but still be close to me. Luke and Dan will just loll in the sun, RRs are like that. Luke would loll till he was panting with heat then demand to go inside (NOW). Dan sits watching the back field with that bright, alert little mouse-face of his, and then collapses for a few minutes, rests, pops back up again - looking, looking..(Cats! Groundhogs! OMG Mom - DEER!!) dan doesn't loll as much as coils up and lowers the drive for a few seconds, then explodes back into full throttle enthusiasm and energy.

But it bothered me you had to go across the yard to the lilies. I couldn't move my seat to the spot under the aspen you seemd to prefer, it's not a good spot for me - no view, too close to the bird feeders, no sun at all. And I felt like those were my choices, you know - sit in my green wicker chair, where I could read and view the fields - or move myself under the aspen close to you, but unhappy with the sahde and seclusion. I guess I've long felt like I was trying to balance things that just can't be done. So, although Younger Me loathes the very word, I had to compromise. As I've grown older I more or less have Younger Me in check, and I understand that compromise is not always great, but very often necessary. But I was sorry to sit with Danny and have you all the way over there, distanced from the pack. I worried that you felt the distance as significant, dogs are so visual and sensitive to things like that. I always worried you felt pushed aside by one large dynamic RR male or another. You were so accommodating, while our boys, errr...are not. :)

Then the other day I noticed the silver maple as if I'd only just then discovered it's presence.

And I understood something - THAt was were we were *supposed* to sit...dammit! that was the spot outside the box, the resolution to all this consternation about which tree and how close and so on. And it struck me through the heart, because not only did YOU not really find your spot, so too did I not see what - now - is so patently obvious. I was struggling to balance these two apparent choices, and the right answer was neither one. The silver maple was "our spot". And for several minutes I just couldn't believe I'd been so dumb, as to let you down, and my heart twisted with the pain of thinking you'd never sit there with me..smiling, panting, feeling close to me, this person you loved so much (and I still wonder why).

but then, as you might predict, a wave of peace washed over me. Peace - and triumph, Bo! because I knew that the spot under the silver maple was still mine to sit in... that you were really pretty cool, literally and figuratively, under your lily patch. That I was the one looking all night for my spot and not seeing it till I fell asleep and dreamed. But now I have it, and that's where Dan and I will sit - and Iona, when she comes. We will sit there and I'll write and calculate and read and..best of all...just BE. we found a new special place and even though it will mean moving that damn ugly fence a little, it'll be worth it. Because, you'll be so with us, so present and so at peace. In my heart you will be there and, I am sure, outside in the air, the light, the holy soundless morning, the first rays of sun through the forest, the rustle of the aspen from away across the yard.

Delicate, beautful, and strong like you, the silver maple will shelter us, and we will all be cool and covered, and I will enjoy the view.

Such a small thing, this, and so brimming with poignance and meaning...you, and the silver maple.