7/3/25

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, I suppose my first moment should be that I’m remembering that this is a Thursday and I’m writing this blog! I can’t believe I so totally lost track of time and days.

So I am also well aware today that tomorrow is my last full day here in Waldport, Oregon. On Saturday, I am driving in to Portland, staying overnight, and then flying home on Sunday. By Monday morning at 9:00, I will be back at work. I’m heading into a whopper of a July. The AllWriters’ annual retreat is July 17 – 20. I am in the process of putting together the 16^th Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books (I’m the coordinator). I’m teaching two labyrinth classes at Kinstone in Fountain City, Wisconsin, on two consecutive Saturdays, and so I am staying the week in between in La Crosse, where I will turn 65 years old.

It’s going to be crazy.

However, one of the things that has lessened the sadness of leaving here is that I am going to be coming back before another year has passed. I did a reading event last night at the Café Chill here in Waldport, with my friend, Oregon coast writer Sue Fagalde Lick. One of the attendees was a part of the Friends of the Library association here. I donated a book to the library – Don’t Let Me Keep You has two chapters that occur in Waldport. Within an hour after the event ended, I had an email from the head of the Friends, inviting me back to do a reading and a workshop. It looks like I’ll be coming back in April, a month I’ve never experienced here.

But lessening sadness has been what this whole trip has been about. In previous years (I’ve been coming here since 2006), the trips have been about the chance to be just purely myself. I leave behind my roles as wife, mother, teacher, and small business owner to be just me. A writer. When I’m here, I live the life I always dreamed of having. I work when I’m here, it’s not a vacation – but all of my work is writing.

This year was different. That part was still important to me, and in fact, I finished a final draft of a poetry book here, and the first draft of my next novel. But it was also about grief, being able to grieve on my own, without feeling like I was affecting anyone else.

I don’t remember much about my trip here last year. I arrived 66 days after Michael died. I know I went out to the ocean on that first day, stood before it, and said, “I just don’t know what to say.” I didn’t ask for anything. But during that trip, on a walk on the beach, I suddenly looked down and found a whole sand dollar (remember the sand dollar story?). I immediately burst into tears.

This year, I didn’t talk to the ocean until the second day, because my daughter was with me. Talking to the ocean is a private thing with me. But on the second day, she was chugging along well ahead of me on our walk, and so I stopped and faced the ocean.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said again. “I’m not asking for a sand dollar, because I don’t know if I believe in them anymore. But I am asking for help. I need help.”

Later, on our evening walk, I suddenly saw something gold in the sand. It was a rock that looked almost translucent, especially when wet. I posted a photo of it in one of my Oregon Facebook groups and asked if it was an agate.

Someone identified it as a golden sard. Since it doesn’t have a pattern, that makes it a chalcedony. When I looked it up, I found this:

“Chalcedony has a remarkable ability to soothe emotional turmoil and promote feelings of inner peace and tranquility. It is often used as a healing stone for individuals dealing with anxiety, stress, or excessive worry. Holding or wearing chalcedony can bring a sense of calmness and emotional stability, allowing one to navigate challenging situations with greater ease.”

I also read that the gold or yellow is a rare color. A friend here told me to put it on the flashlight of a cell phone. I did, and it just glows.

Olivia only stayed with me for a week, leaving me with two weeks here alone. The morning after she left, I took my first long solitary walk alongside the ocean. And so I spoke quite a bit to Ms. Pacific, thanking her for the agate, but also talking about how I’ve been feeling. As I walked back to the house, I looked down and found a small sand dollar, the smallest one I’ve found yet. After a few more steps, I found two more. Even smaller. When I laughed and said to the ocean, “Why are you giving me progressively smaller sand dollars? Is that supposed to mean something?”, I walked a few more steps and found the largest sand dollar of the day. I think the ocean has a sense of humor. In all, in quick succession, I found six whole sand dollars. All small. One was so fragile that when I tried to wash it off, it snapped in two. But I still have five.

I’ve never found so many. And I’ve never found an agate.

Last year, when I was here, I suddenly burst out into poetry. They were all about Michael, what we experienced, and what I’ve experienced since he died. I decided I would continue writing these, but only as they came, not with a specific plan or intent. For some reason, I put a deadline on it. I said I would work on this for the first year of widowhood, and the final poem would be written on Michael’s one year death anniversary.

That anniversary, June 19^th, hit while I was here, and Olivia too. But I found that day that I couldn’t write a word. So I let it go. The next day, the first full day after that anniversary, a poem rose up. And…the book ended.

As it did, I felt something turn in me. Not the end of grief, no, but a turning. A looking forward.

I wrote the introduction to this book while I was here too. In it, I described the relief I felt writing these poems as “soul-soaking”. And they have been. Then I wrote:

“Is my grieving over? Not by a long shot. But is it transitioning into something manageable, something that I can walk beside, rather than being fully underwater? And can I start opening my view again to the rest of my life, who I am, who is around me, and what I want to accomplish?

Yes.”

Yes. So my Moment this week is that I know I’m coming home in a better place. I’m feeling better. My relationship with Michael continues, just in a very different way. For a while there, I felt in very real danger of losing myself, along with losing Michael. In one of the poems that I wrote after a 3-month hiatus from writing anything at all, I wrote:

“I think about these poems

and about how I’ve gone silent.

My writing voice never silent before

but beginning to move away from silence

to missing.

Disappearing.

Dying.

Like you.

And I just can’t take another loss.”

And I can’t. So I won’t let it happen.

I’m coming home. I’ve felt the turn, the turn in me, and the turn of time and tides,  and I am looking forward.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.