Diary of Not a Wimpy Widow

Author: kcmoyer65

  • And the World Turned Upside Down

    January 29, 2017

    Executive Order Banning Muslims from Entering United States
    In this dreadful week that is filling me with sorrow and intense rage,  for self-care I am listening to Comedy Central on Sirius on my car radio while driving, and sometimes laughing hard; watching funny movies at night (Galaxy Quest a personal favorite ), and this Sunday going to church to be among kindred souls to listen and sing and pray in our own ways.

    This afternoon I saw a bluebird on my patio, and my heart lifted up with such joy.

    This is going to be a long haul, dear sisters and brothers. Do what you can to warm your hearts and infuse yourselves with energy, love, and determination for the long road ahead that we will travel together. Take care of yourselves and know that we are not alone.

  • Solstice Song

    December 18, 2016

    Solstice Song

    In the cold church hall
    The singer tunes his guitar
    And in the empty chair beside me
    Your ghost sits down
    Wearing the same blue shirt
    And khaki pants you wore
    That hot summer night
    Six years and seven months ago
    On our wedding anniversary
    When we came to hear this same singer
    Tune his guitar and sing of
    The holy in everything

    Your ghost hand takes my hand
    Your ghost fingers wrap around mine
    And with your other hand
    If you wished
    You could touch the tear on my cheek
    As the singer sings of the dark and the loss
    And the light in everything

    The guitar thrums
    The air hums with music
    And your ghost breathes my name

  • Candles in the Windows

    December 6, 2016

    This afternoon I placed electric candles in all the windows of the house (good thing it is a small house.)

    The candles in the windows were one of Bill’s favorite Christmas decorations, and although he left much of the Yuletide decorating to his own personal Christmas Genie (whose efforts he applauded and admired) he did help with the traditional candles. They also were the decorations that he liked to go up early in the holiday season and take down very late (as in March or Easter!)

    Now I plug the candles in and test them, replace light bulbs, and place them in the windows by myself.

    So dear Bill, wherever you are, I hope you can see the warm lights of home shining with love from our windows on this dark and rainy night.

     

  • By the Light of the Moon

    Sunday November 13, 2016

    This is the month of the super moon, when the moon is closer to the earth than normal. The moon won’t be this close again until 2034. So if I subtract the year 2034 from the current year 2016, that equals 28 years. And my age plus 28 equals 101. Meaning I probably won’t be alive by the time the next super moon arrives. Or maybe I will be alive but I will be too frail to go outside and look up at the night sky. Whatever, I must go outside and look for the moon, especially when it rises and appears on the horizon.

    Last night the moon was shining clearly, but not as large as it will be tomorrow night, the penultimate night. Last night the moon’s cold, dispassionate light shone down on all of us humans with our worries and wars and riots, our kindness and our cruelties, our fear of the other and our defense of the different. The moon has shone like this on mankind in similar circumstances and never blinked its eye or turned its face away. It is no different now. The moon shines, the owl calls through the trees, and the deer lie down on my hill top, dark shadows under the moon.

  • Travel Diary, July 2016

    July 9, 2016

    Edinburgh, Scotland

    In James Court, just off the Royal Mile, we are very close to Edinburgh Castle and the bagpipers who play for the mobs of tourists that crowd the street, but here in our second story flat in this building that smells of must and time, it is quiet. Tall windows look out onto the calm courtyard, where I can see trash bins for the small cafe in the courtyard and a corner of a raised seat. In the evenings it gets a bit noisy when modern day pied pipers lead bands of tourists into the courtyard. I cannot hear the stories, only the storyteller’s raised voice and the ebb and flow of laughter. Some of the listeners perch on the edges of the raised seat. Then the crowd moves on, and the court is quiet again.

    At night I wake and look out the tall window at the foot of the bed. The window frames the opposite tenement building (for so these were in days gone by) and the twilight sky. It is never truly dark at night in July, this far north in Scotland. If you look at a globe, you will see that Scotland lies on the same meridian as Moscow. No one is siting on the seat in the courtyard. I return to bed, and to sleep.

    In the morning I visit the courtyard and examine the square seat. It is three tiers of stone, topped  with a metal sculpture: a classic garden trug with what seems to be a parrot perched on the handle. At the base of the sculpture is an inscription:

    Susannah Alice Stephen

    1960-1997

    Later I learn that Susannah was a Scottish landscape architect who died in a diving accident in the Galapagos Islands, the enchanted isles on the other side of the world that I have visited myself. Her friends erected this memorial for her.

    Around the base of the second stone tier is another inscription. I walk around the stone slowly, reading the words:

    “Turn your face to the sun

    And the shadows will fall behind you.”

    Five days from now will be the anniversary of Bill’s death. He has been gone almost six years.

    Turn my face to the sun

    And the shadows will fall behind me.

  • In the Garden

    July 12, 2016

    And while my outer world comes unraveled
    With hate and confusion and fear of the other

    At my left elbow barely eight inches away
    The bees are fumbling the mint blossoms:

    Yellow and black bumbles
    Slender tiger yellows
    Black bees no bigger than a wink

    And a lone white delicate moth

    Going about their business
    With the tender purple blossoms

    Intent only on the sweetness of life.

     

  • While I Slept

    June 12, 2016

    While I Slept

    While I said good-night to my guests, laughing
    And looking at the half moon through the tree branches overhead

    He was dressing for the onslaught
    Under the same moon

    And while I was putting away the left-overs
    And loading the dishwasher

    He was checking his rifle and gun
    And counting his ammunition

    And while I tumbled into sleep
    Tired but happy from the evening with my friends

    He was on his way through the dark street
    To the slaughter

    And while I slept…
    I cannot say the rest.

  • Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs

    May 13, 2016

    I am standing high on the shore, above one of Cape May’s beaches, watching a banner of birds swoop in across the waters of the Delaware Bay, land on the sand, and immediately begin to probe the sands for the eggs of the horseshoe crabs. These small birds are red knots, members of the sandpiper family. They have flown from their wintering grounds in harsh Tiera del Fuego at the tip of South America, with a brief stopover in Brazil, and then nonstop for two days to the Delaware Bay. I am filled with awe and amazement for these pretty little birds. Somehow they time their arrival at the Delaware Bay for the high tide and full moon of May, when the horseshoe crabs come out of the ocean and drag themselves above the high tide mark to lay their eggs.  The birds must double their weight in about ten days time, before continuing their journey north to the Canadian Arctic, where they will breed. It is a migration of over 8,000 miles. And until today, I never knew about these birds.

    Due to the harvest of horseshoe crabs for bait, their numbers have plummeted and so have the numbers of red knots, almost to the point of extinction. A moratorium on the harvesting of the crabs has helped stop the drop in numbers of both species, and there is some hope. Dedicated scientists from Australia, New Zealand, and the US track the little birds, from the tip of South America to the barren Arctic lands in Canada. In Delaware, beaches are roped off to safeguard the horseshoe crabs and the birds, and volunteers monitor the beaches.

    Above the roped off beach, I watch the red knots in their mating plumage plunge their beaks into the sand (foreground.) Ruddy turnstones dig holes in the sand, looking for eggs, and herring gulls and laughing gulls probe at the insides of unfortunate horseshoe crabs who lie upside down on the beach, unable to right themselves. I wish I could help the crabs, but no one can go onto the beach and disturb the birds. At night volunteers turn over any crabs that need help. The beach is filled with the cries of birds and constant motion. And I am filled with a sense of wonder at the mystery of life.

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  • Hearts and Roses

    February 15, 2016

    On Friday I watched with some amusement as male shoppers at Costco swooped up to the display of red roses, snatched bouquets of a dozen roses, and stuck them in their carts. I  knew they were checking off a mental box, and wondered if the candy aisle was next.

    Bill was always conscientious about remembering me on Valentine’s Day. The gifts were not lavish—a small heart-shaped box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers from the grocery store, a card either funny or sentimental—but he never forgot. Usually the gifts appeared at the dinner table, or at breakfast if Valentine’s Day fell on a weekend. I don’t think we ever went out to dinner, but we had a special meal at home.

    I have missed those tokens of love since Bill’s death. No cards, no flowers, no chocolates. Poor me. So this year I did something different. I ordered flowers to be delivered to my sister-in-law who always has been loving and kind to me, and who misses Bill as I do.  I sent electronic Valentine’s Day cards to friends, especially those who might not receive any. And I got out the last Valentine’s Day card Bill gave me; it is a Peanuts card, with Snoopy on the front, and inside Bill wrote, “love always.”

    I look at those words and realize I do not need flowers and candy; I was loved by a good man, and I have his love always.

    And on Sunday, Valentine’s Day, I went to church where a blue-eyed little Girl Scout presented me with the two boxes of cookies I had ordered: Thin Mints. Chocolates for me after all, on Valentine’s Day.

  • Penelope

     

    February 5, 2016

    And so every night, Penelope undid the threads of her weaving of the day before,
    Carefully, delicately, pulling apart the warp from the woof,
    Separating the yarns of sky-blue and sea green,
    Yarns as green as the olive tree leaves,
    Yarns as purple as the grapes,
    Preparing to weave them together again in the morning

    And here in the morning
    I weave together this new cloth
    From threads both old and new
    Knowing that your ship will not return to the harbor
    And that I must pick up threads from our life together

    The yellow of the young honey of our early lives
    The red and purple of the busy, tumultuous years
    The calm blues of our lives as time slowed down

    Weaving into the new cloth the cut threads of your life
    Until they melt into the cloth and shine as richly

    As the morning sunThreads