November 12, 2009
Thursday

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment . . .
                — Mary Oliver, b. 1935
                    American poet

I am determined, despite the interruptions and distractions that have already complicated my plans for the 3 Rs I want most to work on (readin’, ‘ritin’, and reddin’), to complete NaBloPoMo this year. I’m doing it on my terms, of course. Unlike Holidailies, which allows for back dating and batch uploading, the rules for NaBlo call for a post to be made every day. I’ve already wobbled off that track, and some of these pieces are being inserted into the days I’d left blank in favor of posting something in a timely fashion, such as the material I wrote for Veterans’ Day. Readers who learn of new posts through my notify list or through Facebook will know this content is available. Readers who only check the front page from time to time might miss these. That’s unfortunate, because I like to reach as wide an audience as possible, especially when the subject is something I care deeply about.

Another thing that will keep me filling in the blanks is the joy I am taking, as well as what I am learning about myself, in following the NaBlos of the Past. Only in 2007, when I was in Wyoming for half of the month, did I post every single day (and, as I recall, that was in real time.) I left three weeks of November 2008 blank because I channeled too much energy into worrying about the future instead of appreciating and noting the gifts of the present moment. That is not going to happen to me this year.

Today’s roundup the NaBlos of the Past reminds me that it was on this day in 2006 that I learned of the death of my beloved friend Michael Vergot. In some ways, I think, it was that knowledge, come suddenly and without warning, that is part of what changed my life that year, propelling me into an annus mirabilis which became an aetas mirabilis, a new era in my life, one which continues to unfold.

Although learning of Michael’s death sent me into a howling grief and caused me to make some positive changes in how I honor and cultivate the friendships that mean so much to me, I did not immediately follow through on my resolve to write to his wife (whom I had met once) and share my memories of him and my sorrow at his early death. I would mention Michael from time to time in this space, whenever the looping way my imagination mines my past landed on a particular memory of him. And every time I would think, you know, I haven’t written to Dede yet.

When I wrote the piece about Fingal’s Cave and recalled the history Michael and I had with the music, I knew that I was a month away from my sojourn in Rabun Gap, Georgia. Michael and Dede lived on Edisto Isalnd, South Carolina, some three hundred miles south of where I would be. That’s a good five or five-and-a-half hour trip, but when you’ve already come nearly a thousand miles, what is three hundred more?

I wrote to Dede, reminding her of the weekend we met in 1980 and including some of the writing I’d done about Michael. I more or less invited myself for a visit at the conclusion of my sojourn in Georgia, saying that I wished to visit Michael’s gravesite or the place where his ashes had been scattered. I made it clear that I would not be a bother or a burden to her, that I would secure my own accommodations in Charleston, and that I would understand if she were not open to such a plan.

I probably don’t have to tell you what happened. A young man I had loved so much, whose character and personality helped set the tone for every male friendship I would ever have, would not likely have married a woman who was not equally generous.

She called me the day she got my letter. I was more than welcome to visit her, but under no circumstances was I staying in Charleston. I would stay with her, in the house she and Michael had shared and had designed and built themselves.

And so, after my incredibly productive month in Georgia (which began on my birthday — you can follow the saga from there, although I didn’t post as much as I did when I was in Wyoming, and I took all of April off, never writing about the South Carolina leg of the journey), I drove south to spend most of Holy Week with Dede.

I arrived in the early evening of April 5. I brought flowers. She had homemade soup ready. Within minutes we were like sisters, and talked late into the night.

Losing Michael was hard for her. He had been sick for seven years (none of us here who loved him knew this), and she’d spent the last two-and-a-half years working her way out of the deep depression his death had sent her into. She had only recently returned to her studio (she is a potter and a sculptor), and had never actually scattered Michael’s ashes. She thought she might be ready to do that, and invited me to share this task with her. She could not have honored me more.

And so we walked among the magnificent live oaks that dot the ten acres Michael and Dede lived on and cared for, talking about him, singing some songs, reciting some poetry. She gave me some of the ashes to take with me, portioning it into a wooden box a friend of theirs had fashioned from one of the trees that had to be removed. She taped it shut and wrapped it in tissue, as if it were a gift.

It was. “I’m bringing Tillie home,” I wrote to a mutual friend, using the name we called him in high school. When I stopped for the night in southern Virginia, I took the package in with me. At home I put it on the counter, a move which somewhat discomfited Ron, but I figured if we can have mealworms in the refrigerator, we can have Tillie Vergot on the counter.

I have since moved the box to a glass-front cabinet in the kitchen, where it sits beside some blue glass dessert plates and drinking vessels I keep there. Dede made no demands and extracted no promises from me on what I should do with them.

The central conflict in the novel I am working on is what to do with the remains of a young woman who has died suddenly without ever conveying her wishes. Her father and stepmother want to cremate her, her paternal aunt, who raised her until she was a teenager, wants traditional burial, and this conflict reignites old quarrels and tears the family apart.

Over these past eight weeks of autumn I have watched the trees outside my home and outside my studio turn their bodies into pillars of light. It is the season that calls us to turn inward, to complete the work of heart and head that we began in the energy of spring and summer. Tomorrow I am bringing Michael to the Aerie, along with some cinnamon candles. What better talismans to help me write toward the last line of this novel that came to me nearly eight years ago: It is their perpetual light that shines on us.

 *********

The NaBlos of the Past:

2008: I did not post on this day in 2008.

2007: Goodnight, Saddlestring — When I tell people that I am going to Wyoming, some of them react with wonder and excitement. Sheridan is 1800 miles west and a little north of where I sit right now, and I wonder if there are any people there who are dreaming of a trip to central Pennsylvania some day.

2006: Kumbaya — My friend Michael came to me in a dream last week. . . . This morning I opened the newspaper to read his obituary.

Love it? Hate it? Just want to say hi?
To comment or to be included on the notify list, e-mail me:
margaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the bracketed parts with @ and a period) OR
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/silkentent