Spanx or sanity?

A beautiful sunny and cool morning in Algonquin, not a cloud in the sky, and the Mac dashboard says it'll be in the mid 70s today.  And here I am, back in Illinois again after another weekend down south, feeling the warmth of friendship and song, and basking again in the knowledge of the love so many people feel for Jerry.  I don't know what it is about knowing this, knowing that Jerry was so well loved and respected, that I find so comforting - confirmation of my own good taste?  But almost every single person I know of who ever met Jerry knew what a treasure he was, and I've had so many people tell me things he did that made an impression on them, helped them in some way, encouraged them, made them feel good.  And that was the man I love, absolutely.  So if anyone is afraid that hearing stories and reminiscences about Jerry would be painful to me - well, yes, of course, there is pain, of course - but please never think you should keep it to yourself.  I know I'm talking people's ears off about Jerry, including people I've only just met (sorry again, shop clerk at that Godiva store in Nashville a few weeks back...). But I love to hear people talk about him, add things I didn't necessarily know before, repeat things I do already know but love to hear again, tell me how that man of mine made them happy in some way, just by being who he was.

The weekend was exhausting because of scheduling, but worth every second of sleep deprivation!  (And I even slept an entire 7 hours last night without waking up, still only taking the Xanax, which is still not zonking me out during the day, so that was a good thing too.)  Jenna and Karen and David, thank you again so much for your hospitality!

This was the first time I actually wrote Jerry's name on a memorial list.  Incredibly, on Saturday I completely forgot to do it, but on Sunday morning when I found the list there were only a few names on it so far, and so I was the one who put Jerry's name on it.  Deep breath.  Another "first" gotten past.  John and Karen R. did a beautiful job with the memorial lesson, but I missed a lot of what was actually said, because I started crying, I think, the minute Karen said Jerry's name, and even when the portion for the deceased was done and John moved into the section for the sick and shut-in, I remembered sitting by Jerry's bed in the hospital and reading him the cards we were receiving and the e-mails and the comments on the CaringBridge site, and I just cried on until the entire lesson was done.

I used to see people at singings, when I first started attending them, and I'd be so intrigued that they'd seem fine all day until we got to the memorial lesson, and then they'd weep as if a switch had been flipped, and weep until the memorial was over, and then stop, and pull themselves together - switch flipped back again - and seem fine the rest of the day.  And yesterday that happened to me.  It's hard to figure out - some have suggested the memorial becomes a sort of safe space to let go and let the emotions do what they will, and I guess that's true, although I don't seem to be the kind of person who holds in those emotions at all other times, and why I recovered after the memorial and was "fine" the rest of the day, I don't know.  (Xanax?)  But then again, this is one of those things that isn't so important for me to understand - Sacred Harp singings are, by and large, a place where I can fall apart and know it's okay - and as one of you kindly told me, when I do cry and am seen to be crying, it also lets others grieve Jerry as well and remember the pain of his absence themselves.  So it's all a good thing, for, as Seamus would say, "a given value of 'good.'"

77t on Saturday: new variation.  When it was called, my heart started pounding before the singing of it even began.  I actually felt like I wasn't going to cry - my heart pounded through the entire thing, I couldn't sing much of it, my body did start shaking - but it wasn't until we were singing the song after it that I realized I was going to start crying, left the room after that song and went to the bathroom and sobbed.

But it's good.  Feeling panicky and upset isn't good, but going through those things and coming out the other side, that's good.

On to other things.  Such as, Spanx or sanity?  Right now the answer is Spanx, but at some point I really am going to have to start being sane about eating again.  I will not go out and buy larger-sized pants (or live in elastic waistbands).

And speaking of eating: fresh lima beans: a revelation.  Karen had gotten them at the farmers' market, and I guess Lynne and I had never had fresh lima beans before, because we both were astonished that lima beans, of all things, could taste so amazing.

Also, excellent BBQ tofu burrito (seriously!) at Raging Burrito in Decatur, and Thai food in Atlanta.  And I loved the fabulous frozen yogurt place Jenna took us to, the Yogurt Tap (self-serve soft-serve, and on tap, with a self-serve toppings bar.  Plain frozen yogurt to die for).  Although this circles back to the Spanx or sanity question.  I can't believe the amount of food I consumed this weekend.  (The burrito was pretty much the size of my head.  And I ate the entire thing.)  If I were being analytical about things, I'd guess I was trying to fill a huge Jerry-shaped hole with food, but that would be too simple, wouldn't it?

MARTA to the airport yesterday was a piece of cake.  Add it to the list of subways I've been on in my life (NYC, Washington - this is how old I am, folks, when we lived in Maryland, construction on the DC Metro was just being started - Moscow, London, Paris, Chicago, Toronto I think, Montreal I think, Madrid, Leningr...oh man, sorry, I mean St. Peterburg, but actually, no, it was Leningrad when I was on it... that might be it).  I liked it.  Then again, I don't have to commute on it.

Beginning to ramble here.  Counting the weeks until I head off to Rhode Island for the New England Sacred Harp Convention, first one I'll have been at since the last time it was in Rhode Island, in 2006.  At that singing, I called 300, and I had Jerry come up to lead it with me.  Now Jerry definitely modeled his leading of 300 on Barrett Ashley, which you can see if you look at the videos I've posted on YouTube, both the ones of Jerry leading 300 and the one of Mr. Ashley, and that kind of leading - energetic, moving confidently and fast towards each section to bring them in on the fugue - is not really a two-person thing, and Jerry practically ran me down as "we" led the song.  Just the memory of it makes me want to throw my arms around him and kiss him.  But I always want to do that.

Concrete guy supposedly coming now on Thursday.  Counselor tomorrow.  New internist Friday.

And here's the thing.  I keep telling people I "should" do this, I'm "considering" this, I'm "thinking about" this, but really, I'm pretty sure by now: I'm going to move south.  I don't know exactly when this will happen, or how - oh, the house, oh, the sorting of Jerry's things, oh, the parting with our home, our beautiful home, the silk purse Jerry really did create out of the ugly sow's ear the inside of this place was, with his vision and creativity and talent and hard, hard work, and with such love.  And oh the housing market now!  And uprooting myself from a place I've never actually felt rooted, but that I'm used to - change is never something I embrace happily.  But I can't stay here without him.  My home was here because Jerry was here, and Jerry was my home. I have to make a different kind of home for myself somewhere else now.  I think it's going to be where I'm finding the most solace right now.  As people have said, nothing is set in stone - I could try it out and decide it's not the place I'm meant to be and then try somewhere else.  But I think it's right, the right thing to try.  I still don't know how I'm going to do this or when exactly, but I'm thinking.

(My computer sits on a little wooden stand Jerry made, on the rolltop desk in the dining room.  Big, heavy rolltop desk.  One of the many things that make me want to lie down and weep at the thought of the logistics of moving.)