Fairy Dining, Open Seasonally

This year our time in Maine is so soon after the death of our dear Old Yankee Man.  It will be two months in a couple of days.

Is that long?

Short?

To us, Granny and I, it is both.

We talk openly about it all.  Laughing at some of it, crying at other bits.

I know Grief well enough to know that she is a very insistent dance partner.

Ignore her, try to run from her, or mask her influence with bravado? Grief gets pissed.

It is far worse to deal with an ignored and pissed off Grief, than spend time with her on your own terms… as hard as that may be.

When we talked about Maine weeks ago, I called this our Summer of Recovery. Time to acclimate to this new world, fortunate to be able to step away from daily reminders, and yet not to run away from what we are feeling.

The time around the death of someone close to you is absolutely chuck full of activity.  So many people, if you are lucky to have that many who love him… or you… or both.  And then there are the weeks and months following all that.  Some people lament the absence of that activity, the silence of the noise.  But I yearn for it.

Processing time.

Time to figure out who I am now, and who I will be, having been touched by life’s inevitability.

Those who don’t think each death, and each life – each new baby, each friend, each love – doesn’t change us are not thinking, I think.  We are all a result of so many of life’s happenings. The addition and subtraction of humans in our lives… not big deals?

Yes, big deals.

I came up first, just a day or so before JoHn, Sam, Gabe, and Granny would arrive.  The boy-folk would leave a few days later, for a couple of weeks.  A summer job, and college searching, and the rehabbing a broken foot would take them away.  I came early to open up, and air out, and clean, and fill the refrigerator and cupboards with foodstuffs.

And on the way here, driving and spending time with my own brain, I stopped at a little garden shop.

There, on a dark shelf… with a little dust on them… sat the most beautiful miniature wire furniture set.

Two chairs.

A table.

A shepherd’s crook to hold a swinging basket… maybe for flowers, maybe for a candle.

Not my choice of course.

We would, I decided in that little garden shop, make sure that fairies were welcome in Maine this year.

Because why not invite a little bit of magic into the midst of our new world.

The first thing I did when I got here was to carefully unpack my new and delicate furniture.

I placed it beside the walkway to the porch screen door…

For people watching of course.

We would have a summer of recovery, I thought.  Granny and I, and maybe a fairy or two.  And we would talk, and laugh, and cry.  We would deadhead flowers and delight in the sounds of lobster boats in our cove.  We would hunt for great seafood and smell salt air…

And we would breathe.

Just breathe.

Thanks for readin’.

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