More Experienced Ghosts III

[Teresa]

The Black-capped Chickadee sat with me every morning at the beach house in Martha's Vineyard, perhaps waiting for food or just curious about the woman in the wicker chair, her scribbling in a journal about how love sometimes dies, how even rocks erode over time.

 

I opened every drawer, door and cabinet in the house, noted the same ancient smells but never found anything of interest except the books downstairs:  Life & Death of the Salt Marsh; Chess Traps, Pitfalls and Swindles; A Field Guide To The Birds; Freedom and Farewell.  Then I saw Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and read it for the fifth time while wondering how often this seventy-something believer in soaring and soul mates has fallen out of love.

 

I skimmed the field guides, identified my feathered morning visitor, learned about deer ticks and lyme disease, about recognizing poison ivy: "Three green leaves, let me be."  

 

It was still too hard to distinguish three leaves together from the dense tangle of green covering the island, and the dreaded deer ticks I might find lounging on grass tips were almost invisible, so I just avoided touching anything natural that wasn't sand, water, rock or tree.

 

I stayed in the center of every path, kept my children close, checked their bodies at night while thinking about the Brad Paisley tick/love song, who Bach is flying with these days, whether romance is just a light biological breeze or real enough to die like everything else, clumsy enough to get tangled up and lost.

 

 

[Angela]

Breeze, death, longing and loss.  My kind of six. Favorite.

[Joey Delgado]

Heartbreak is a well for great writing and you, miss, are scooping up overflowing bucketfuls. First and foremost, it's time to heal, but until that day comes (and it will come, Miss) please write, write, write.

[LynnMichelle]

and I agree with Bill (L&F) comments.

[LynnMichelle]

Yesterday I thought I saw a dead pigeon hanging from the powerline above me... but I couldn't bring myself to get close enough to be sure, told myself it was a shoe...  and I thought of you.  Life can turn on a dime, but you my dear, you will be fine ;0

[Bill Floyd]

Not sure I could give any advice that wouldn't scan as a platitude, but reading you as you struggle with this makes the heart feel empty and full all at once.    

[Cita]

And the tag is better.

[Cita]

Retreating love is part of the life/death/life cycle. This write is great.

[Mike Handley]

Metaphor, yes, but it's also a road map with exits marked.

[Gita]

I see you walking down the middle of a path with your children close to you and dangers (real or imagined) on all sides. It reads like a metaphor... 

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

Sometime love does not die but retreats into a deep coma.   And like patients in that kind of sleep, love can sometimes awaken.