Today, for me, was of those days when you are more thoughtful than other days. Not thoughtful in the sense of being kind and good to others but thoughtful because you spend time with your own thoughts and become quite introspective, even although you are not alone. It has been an "at home" May day. Besides having had a long walk early this morning, we have spent the rest of the day at home. At home moving furniture around and finding the right spot for the couple of new items we have inherited.
I was lucky enough this morning to have two surprise visits from two very special girls in my life. We drank tea and chatted and ate hot cross buns (Aren't you glad they carry on making hot cross buns long after Easter is over and your eggs have been eaten? Weird, but good).
I have been busy finding new places for books, glasses, photograph frames and vases. I have had Michael help me move furniture from our passage into the entrance hall and then, after an hour or so, back to the passage again. I have been hanging new pictures in new places and then re-hanging old pictures in the old places. I have been reading notes and letters that Helen had in her writing desk. I have found sweet notes she had written to herself and there are special cards that she wanted to keep (How can I now throw them away?)
Michael has been busy too. He has been going through papers and trying very hard to decide which of his 1 000 's of copies of Golf Digest he can send to recycling (I think he finally decided on about 16 copies and all the Compleat Golfer and Financial Mail magazines (another 12)). He too has been reading and sorting through his mother's papers and accounts. We have worked quietly but together. Things are coming together.
About an hour ago I moved to the study for the first time to check emails and see if I had missed out on anything dramatic happening in cyberspace while I had been in my own space today. I checked a couple of my favourite sites and, because I have felt like a bit of a voyeur today, these attracted my attention:-
Teddy Roosevelt’s diary entry from the day his wife died. He never spoke of her death again. How beautiful and romantic and sad and I now want to know more. The ultimate love letter.
Then, probably because of my mood, I came across this blog and a love letter from 1932. This paragraph is awesome:-
"I say this is a wild dream—but it is this dream I want to realize. Life and literature combined, love the dynamo, you with your chameleon’s soul giving me a thousand loves, being anchored always in no matter what storm, home wherever we are. In the mornings, continuing where we left off. Resurrection after resurrection. You asserting yourself, getting the rich varied life you desire; and the more you assert yourself the more you want me, need me. Your voice getting hoarser, deeper, your eyes blacker, your blood thicker, your body fuller. A voluptuous servility and tyrannical necessity. More cruel now than before—consciously, wilfully cruel. The insatiable delight of experience."
This is from a letter that the American novelist Henry Miller wrote to his lover Anais Nin.
Read more of this love story here. I now have to watch Henry and June all over again.
"...your eyes blacker, your blood thicker..."
My aching nerves. Time for sleep.
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