Tufted Titmouse

Tufted Titmouse / Oil on black canvas / 4x4 / $38 including shipping 

Sold 

I HAD A ROUGH TIME last week, and it took me by surprise. 

I need a new laptop, and really want to see Peter's big desktop computer be gone. It took me a year to come to terms with that last fact, but I had. I'd looked for someone, anyone, who would want it, but though it was big and powerful and clear and bright, it was old, and nobody wanted it. So I decided to trade it in, to cut the price of my new laptop a little. 

I have backed up all the files (or at least, I believe I have), and I knew I wanted to cleanse the hard drive before I sent the computer off for credit. So I started the process, and as I sat there and watched it delete 14,000 files, my heart broke again. It felt like I was deleting Peter. Even though it was files, even though I'd backed them up, it still left me weak and weeping. All his art, all his writing, all his funny ideas and photoshopped pictures, all of it gone, in a long blink.

I called my counselor and she helped. Thinking about it and understanding it also helped. And I know there will be more moments like this, more surprise detours into the land of sorrow. I imagine they will continue to take me unawares. But I will get through. 

***

Dog of the Day

DR. COOPER AND I are starting dog school in a couple hours. This morning on our walk, we practiced with the nose leash. Doc didn't love it, but he tolerated it, sort of like all of us with our masks. 

He's a much better behaved dog now than he was a year ago, rarely snapping at anyone unless they have something in their hands or they are a golf cart or a truck with a trailer. Or another dog. And this last issue is the one I hope to solve at dog school. I will report back. 

***

Coda

From "The Weighing"

So few grains of happiness

measured against all the dark

and still the scales balance. 

The world asks of us 

only the strength we have and we give it. 

Then it asks more, and we give it. 

- Jane Hirshfield

Thanks to my friend Heather MacLeod for sending me this. If you want to read the whole poem, please click here.

 from Jane Hirshfield’s splendid poem “The Weighing”:

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.