The Little Words Mean the Most

Sim One - the memoir: Arriving this summer 2024

 

Decades of true love

then once in a blue moon

a terrifying diagnosis comes along

 

Came the bouquet

Doorbell rang....

This arrived, courtesy of Sim TWO. Why? Because I was having an "in the dumps day-before phone call" ... and Sim TWO was trying to perk me up ... which she did, shockingly!

Sim ONE was OUR (highly) original Simone. Simone Joyaux. Kind, generous, accepting, mind-opening teacher of thousands ... including many she didn't agree with politically.

Sim TWO was her beloved student at St. Mary's Uni. in Minnesota.

Sims ONE and TWO bonded over SO many things: especially social justice.

 

To a trusted ED of a beloved regional community foundation asking for a speaking date

 

[To him; could have been her; could have been any pronoun....]

 

The best I can say is this: in theory that date works (and thank you for the invitation). It's open on my calendar, in other words.

 

Honestly? I haven't done an in-person presentation since early 2020, March. I was leaving Scotland after a 2.5 day masterclass on the banks of Loch Ness; Simone was at my shoulder, making things SO much easier. We all knew something was odd because the big Chinese delegation had cancelled at the last minute. Suddenly they were forbidden from traveling. Simone and I flew back to the States, on small planes, then bigger planes.

 

Within two weeks the real news hit front pages: global viral deadly pandemic.

 

In the year previous, I'd done 36 presentations, mostly live. Simone was doing the same. Airplanes every 2 weeks for us.

 

In 2020, after we returned from Scotland, I did ZERO in person. Her, too.

 

[To him/her/regional foundation:] I'm not out of practice exactly. Today, for instance, I did a 1.5 hour webinar with a record crowd from 8 countries re: cases for support ... then answered audience questions for another 2.5 hours, alongside a guest expert. So, yeah, I still practice ... just not in person, in breathing distance, since March 2020.

 

Being in front of a live audience is different ... and better!

 

What I hope you'll garner from this wandering confessional: times have changed; I've changed; my dear beloved mainstay Simone died in the meantime; and maybe the rail gauge I run on now, at age 75, isn't what you need.

 

In case this sounds TOO desperate, I have a great, international expert, mid-50s, to recommend: [first name last name], who lives near you. She's a top copywriter; works internationally ... and has at least one current [nearby] as a client. And she's nice. And patient. And SUPER-well-informed (as you can discover for yourself from her blog).

 

Just saying,

 

The last song Simone and I witnessed live

 

In Worcester, MA.

We were maybe the oldest people in the audience. Our feet were glued to spilled drinks. Rows above treated us with kindness. Rows below, on the stadium floor, fans punched each other ... with joy! Their reason for attending; not ours. We stood for hours as the concert unfolded. Simone and I danced, as people in their early 70s do. We'd come for one song, though. It was the last song of the night.

THIS:

 

 

Dear Me Butterfly: Have I grown dead wings?

 

what surrounds me

doesn't interest me

enough?

enough?

 

the laundry

 

the laundry's in

tumbling toward a fresh future

 

I'm making the bed

our bed

 

I wish you were on the other side

looking up at me now, laughing; mineral blue eyes

both sides, bedmaking ping-pong

back

and forth and

back

it was a lovers' game

you made it sharper straighter

we made this tired bed together

 

with principle and purpose

across the usual mattress frontier

with all due awe & conventional bodily functions

 

This was us

 

No more now

without you barking reasonable orders

down grocery aisles

 

umm just a fool

without a queen

nor any great desire to feedly care look presume know

 

I ended when you upended

yet breath goes on

remainder is mine and

this so-called person left unpaired

only

can

maybe inspired enough

to roll our this maybe faith bin a bit further

a well-inflated tire

headed somewhere

 

DC was bizarrely uplifting...

 

DC was bizarrely uplifting:

I'd forgotten how much I NEED the arts ... and other people, too

Swarms and mobs of other people; not just delightful friends

It's coming back to me, XXX

Me. I'm coming back to me

 

Thank you for staying.

For reassuring.

For angling YOUR light into my corners.

 

Thank you ALL who are reading this; thank

 

YOU ALL

 

 

 

Getting to gratitude: There are 2 ways to say it

 

I wish you were here

same place my love? same grand central? same eye contact?

same grimace, doubt, assurance, you make me, i make you

 

so yeah too: wish I weren't here

not without you making sense of it for me and ours

 

wish you were here every day EVRY hour

EVRY glance glimpse everywhere I now look

"us compiled" for 37 years on walls in closets

 

you drilled into me thanks

thank Jane thank Georges thank your family's kitchen drill team

thank your intolerably miraculous siblings, mates, Fab, J-C, Toma

an exploding map of love pressed across so many cultures

 

well done, with a sloppy side of gratitude

many times today

and tomorrow unknown

there's hope

there's no hope

there's

 

 

a bit more human after loss

 

I have ears

left ear no longer quite as acute as my right

as in: Last night it took four tries to hear

"How's your meal?"

 

Intriguing, excellent, surprising, innovative

well-plated, with attentive staff who

mustered care and enthusiasm around 4 diners, 3 with canes,

together moving slowly as the Fall of the Roman Empire

> could lecture on that very topic

in classic Latin

aging brains and muscles

 

now so much

really

I don't care much WHAT I hear

except what I invite in

Eminem LOSE YOURSELF is one; just

about right; on repeat

 

Enjoying a good wind this spring this midnight

 

Twist open the windows!

trees knocking about

their drumbeat settling, Gene Krupa takes over

dead branches declaring left and right

lichens flying, frog peepers coming soon to choral us

 

getting sorted for another year

bring it on