It Must Have Been Love

Fisherman Bay Sunrise Lopez Island, WA taken by Moon

Well, I don’t think I am alone in saying that the world feels really heavy right now. On top of the current political climate in the United States, I am dealing with the enormous grief of losing my partner of 28 years. In moving through this grief these last seven months, I am feeling uplifted in a way that has eluded for me for some time. The grief is present, but there is more to it now. There is communal grief. There is grief for my planet, there is grief for our people; starving, raped, murdered, prejudiced, oppressed. And though I am finding that we are not alone in this grief and suffering, I am learning to live alone with it all. I have no-one to turn to on a moment to moment basis to talk to. I sleep alone in my bed every night. But I am becoming used to it. I am finding that with this aloneness comes a certain feeling of freedom. I am rediscovering myself and searching for my true identity in the privacy that I am immersed in with my cat and dog. Just after my nineteenth birthday, Steve and I fell in love. April and May of 1998 we were enraptured with each other in pure bliss. I have done much reflecting this last month of what it felt like to fall in love. How blessed I am and was to experience such a thing.

In this solitude, I have begun to grieve for our planet. Anger has arisen, and I have sorted through a lot of righteous anger and grief. So, I started a twenty four day challenge. Everyday for twenty four days, I am doing research and writing my legislature regarding the de-legalization of plastics. I am learning a lot. Each email is short, not too long, and I am exploring a different aspect of this issue in every email. I am amazed at how good this feels. To take action in this way. We are not helpless. A friend who is recruiting me to be on the Transition Lopez Plastics Action Committee called me a fellow activist. What a word to metabolize! I considered myself an activist of sorts when I was young, but then my life very much became about living with severe mental illness, having a relationship, and painting in order to process my pain, suffering, and trauma. Since moving to Lopez Island in 2007, I have entered my healing journey in new ways. Time spent in nature everyday, continuing my work with children, getting back into music, continuing to paint and write, doing yoga, swimming in the cold Puget Sound, and discovering what community is really about and what it can be. Now that Steve is gone, I am slowly starting to find my footing in community as a single bi-sexual/pansexual person.

I feel like a nineteen year old sometimes. But I am not. I am forty seven, and I have a lot of experience and experiences under my belt. I have learned and grown and healed immensely these last 28 years. Steve was so wise, even as a thirty six year old. He held my hand and shared with me his wisdom. We nurtured each other. And I was blessed to care for him through his spinal cord surgery, his COPD, and his cancer. All the way up until the day he died. I have cried and mourned for him, saying out loud that I would do anything to wheel him around in his wheelchair, brush his hair, empty his urinals, put pot salve on his legs, make him a protein smoothy, anything! I loved taking care of him in the end, and I savored every moment of it. He was truly the love of my life. It was a beautiful experience, up to laying my head on his shoulder after he became unresponsive and listening for his last breath.

I have a lot to reflect on about our life together. And I have a lot of searching to do. I am left blank. Who was I before I met Steve? I was a singer songwriter, I was an environmentalist, I was a vegan, I was passionate about human rights, I was writing poetry, I was an athlete and runner. It is so weird to be alone and be in touch with these early parts of myself. But it is good. I am left with that I absolutely have to take action in some way. I know I can write, I know I can do simple research. So, that is what I am doing, everyday. Finding some new way to say that our planet just absolutely cannot stomach our blatantly abusive production of plastics in almost every aspect of our lives. It simply has to stop.