Home.

I drift around, go running and cry, work in a disconnected way on my PhD stuff.  Answer emails.  Video calls with mum waving a wine glass and asking the same questions over and over.  The dog sits with me, Miguel pats me and hugs me when I'm visibly upset.  The sun shines and the mountains glisten in the overarching light.  I listen to the Julian Bream album Dad had on his workbench next to his CD player, crisp clear Baroque guitar.  Coffee and cigarettes, dreams that I don't remember but know were fractured and make me wake up with tears in my eyes.

I talked to my friend Karen on the phone the day before yesterday, slid over the whole death thing, we chatted about our kids and the future.  I don't want to talk about it anymore with people who aren't my brothers.  It makes people uncomfortable and they say unhelpful things.  'One day at a time.'  Seriously, is there any other way to do it??  My dad's older brother emailed me.  We discussed the Royal family scandals.  

I rummaged through my two boxes of memorabilia, found some more pictures of and letters from Dad, framed a small photo of him smiling, for my desk.  I feel I am lovingly archiving him, tucking him away safe in my heart, concentrating on the bits of me that are him.  I hate that I'll never be able to give him a hug again.  If I get the job I interviewed for last week he'd be the first one I'd want to tell - an emergency response job and he gets why I would want it.  I took his seeds from his potting shed (they are last year's and the year before's but I'm gonna plant them anyway) and they will go in my greenhouse.  That I'll never get to show him in person.  The time passes slowly.  I fail to see the point in a lot of things.  I'm re-reading Pema Chodron - 'The Places That Scare You'.

"We know that all is impermanent; we know that everything wears out.  Although we can buy this truth intellectually, emotionally we have a deep-rooted aversion to it.  We want permanence; we expect permanence.  Our natural tendency is to seek security; we believe we can find it.  We experience impermanence at the everyday level as frustration.  We use our daily activity as a shield against the fundamental ambiguity of our situation, expending tremendous energy trying to ward off impermanence and death."