Dreamland

Sometimes I think I am my most creative when I am asleep. I am a veritable Shakespeare of dreamland—writing, producing and directing five act dramas all shot in brilliant technicolor with complicated plot lines and lots of characters. How to bring all that energy and creativity to my conscious, everyday life is the challenge.

Lately I’ve been dreaming a lot about Steve. The dreams aren’t happy or sad just very intense. He’s not always on his best behavior. Sometimes he’s annoying the hell out of me as admittedly he could do. We did have epic fights especially when we were first married. Once when we lived in an apartment building on Locust Street, he threw a bunch of my clothes out the window. They landed in the tree outside our building. Who knows how I finally retrieved them.

My apartment is studded with pictures of the two of us. We’re happy in all of them. Looking at them doesn't make me sad but sometimes I do feel anxious. I don't ever want to forget what it was like to be together.

Dreaming in Belize

I have discovered the best antidote for loneliness—hanging out with a bunch of Jamaicans on a sandy spit of land in the middle of nowhere. Well, not actually the middle of nowhere, but it might as well have been. Living at Thatch Cay for six nights in a one room cabin built on stilts above the ocean, going to sleep with the sound of the waves and and the wind, I felt like I was far, far away from anything cold or sad or unhappy. Civil war in Libya, endless conflict in Afghanistan, nuclear meltdown in Japan all in the distance, maybe not even possible.

In the morning I woke up with the sun and watched it rise slowly out of the ocean. I spent the days on the water, fishing or snorkeling. I could lay in the hammock on my veranda and be mesmerized by the blue of the ocean or watch frigate birds and and pelicans make patterns overhead. Out there somewhere on the horizon were other sandy bits of land, an alternative universe certainly to city life but even island life as I have experienced it in Jamaica. In the evening, I drank and talked and laughed feeling relaxed and free and wonderfully tired. Then, flashlight in hand, I walked back to my cabin under a canopy of endless stars, falling instantly asleep.

The Strong One

I’m finding it way too easy to be by myself. No need to concentrate on being the softer, gentler Ellen, the one with long hair not the one with the aggressively short and dykish hairdo. (BTW, why oh why did it take me so long to grow out that supremely unflattering ultra short style? I look so much better and so much younger (!) with long hair. Did no one notice or were they afraid to tell me? Probably the latter.) I can eat a baked potato for dinner or even stuff myself with Mary’s crackers dipped into a container of Bobbi’s ultra garlic hummus. (Full disclosure: Sometimes I eat the whole thing!) I can blast Etana at full volume and sing along as I dance around the apartment. I can talk to myself all day long without worrying about freaking anyone out. I can be happy; I can be sad but, most of all, I can be lonely.

Status Report

Pragmatic not dramatic. That's my new mantra. That doesn't mean I don't wake up some mornings and want to start screaming. Tears are always a possibility but hysteria is outlawed. Never been my modus operandi.

It doesn't help right now that I am basically living in my small downstairs bedroom having initiated a major renovation of the master bedroom and bath and my study. If ample space to live in is the greatest luxury, I am definitely experiencing a loss of status. I had fantasies of coming home from Jamaica and finding those spaces magically transformed but the reality is I will be living in a construction site for a while. Yet another work in progress.

B or not to B

To blog or not to blog. That is the question. I can’t decide whether I should continue this very public form of self expression or just keep a journal. Maybe I should buy one of those old fashioned diaries with a lock and key. I had one when I was around 10 and every entry began “Dear Dairy” as I realized when I reread it later on.

I feel like I have entered a new phase of widowhood. This is my life and I am dealing with it as best I can. Still shocked, still uncertain but not completely bewildered or overwhelmed.

Changing Lives!

I woke up today and decided I was bored being a widow. I’m bored feeling like a widow; I’m bored writing about being a widow. I am definitely bored reading about being a widow. I did order Joyce Carol Oates’ new book though. Maybe I’ll learn something.

I drove to Mandeville today with Liz and Giuliano. At the hardware store I saw a van with a bumper sticker that read Jesus, Changing Lives! The exclamation point made all the difference. I’m not looking for Jesus but I am looking to change my life. I need to find some exclamations points in my future.