Oh, I am so fey, so much sometimes that tea-towel in the wind. As the weather warms, the trees all fresh with new green leaves, spring flowers burst out with their pinks & yellows & purples, and as the light rises in the sky, it illuminates so many memories. Good f’n maudlin sometimes. I push myself, every day, I show myself how wonderful it is OUT THERE.

“Look GIRL!!!”, I say to myself. “JUST LOOK!!!!”.

That is a battle of wits I have experienced so often in the last few months. But nothing like lately. And it is not just for Tim that I mourn. I mourn the life I lost, the place I left, the things I had to leave behind. In winter it is easy to forget what lurks under that blanket of cold, grey landscapes. I wonder about my beauties that grew in my garden, I wonder at their fate. I long for how my Miscanthus “Morning Light” would have looked this year, next to that wild & crazy pond. That area would have had a good swift kick, and been renovated, if life hadn’t taken this turn for the worse.

I miss my little hobbit-shire-esque front, in all its tranquil whimsy. I miss its little surprises, and how the air seemed different underneath those evergreens, amongst the moss and humus-y scents. I miss its little paths, and twisted branches. I miss the quirky slipper boat, the Ajuga, the ferns and those beautiful Astible “Sprites”, um um, they were gorgeous with their late summer touches of wispy pink to brighten dark corners.

How does one live again after you’ve been to paradise? I lived in all that quiet beauty. Everyday when I woke up, it was silent, but for bird song and ear deafening chorus’ of frogs to herald in the night. I loved and laughed and cried and screamed and lived this bohemian rhapsody of dramas and queens, and damsels in distress, and wicked witches and court jesters; of Robin Hoods, and merry men, of little wizened wizards and all the denizens of middle earth.

And there in our little cottage, we were hidden away from the world “out there”. Not for long, though. No, nothing that good can last. Yet somehow I have to create a way to live with its loss. More the loss of those we have loved, are the losses of place, the goodbyes to lakes and rivers, and streams, and morning serenity, and walks in the woods, and bonfires for 350 days of the year. Of newfie neighbours, with their squeeze boxes and Irish Aires. Of it all, of it all I am mourning. But I didn’t own it, and it was never to be mine forever; that I knew from the start. Nothing that good is good for you. Like gazing into the eyes of god, and hearing it’s voice. Of knowing it is all around you, that divinity is close at hand.

Some will never understand. Never understand how someone could just turn their back on their life and walk away for four years; well, ‘cept the last two of those four were quite frankly a counter opposite to the first two. The last two being a rollercoaster ride through chemo and radiation, and pain and suffering, and then death. But you learn to live without. I know, you just do. Eventually it won’t be so hard. Sometimes it would be easier to have made other choices, sought a less dangerous way, took a more cautious approach. Yet, that wouldn’t be me. I am not afraid to walk through a fog or haze, I’m cautious, but I just see the world alittle different from everyone else.

And so I find my muse in dusty fields, and wide open spaces of gentle rolling hills, in grasslands, little woods, and old gardens. And it would appear as though which ever path I take, I will have to carve it out from scratch; for there are no more gifts from the muse, or god, or whomever doles that stuff out. THAT has been made abundantly clear so far. If I want that, I will have to seek it on my own. And so I do. Everyday I try to figure out a way to get this new life to start, but I may be in need of a new starter. :-) Or I’m just outa gas!