DOLLY

Back from Auckland and tumbling into my week

Stumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen pour myself a cup of ambition yawning stretching trying to stay alive

Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumping out on the street the music is jumping for folks like me on the job working 9-5

If I could pink up these words and add some rhinestones it would be near perfect.

You may have guessed that I made it to a Dolly Parton concert when I was there, cant believe I almost didn’t. I wasn’t sure how awkward it would be to get there, but it turned out fine. Man do I love Dolly.

This Gal knows how to maximise her assets and is not at all shy of sharing this. She is nearing 70 I am guessing and she wore diamanté stilettoes for roughly three hours singing and dancing. She was funny and clever and engaged beautifully with the Audience. Storytelling, evangelising and flirting. Her energy was awesome and so great to see someone so professional doing her thing.

Her persona and how she does it is who she is.

As a stage act she is one of the best.

I’m not doing 9-5 this year, but feel I need to borrow some of the structure, as I muddle around in the point four to six bracket with study and volunteer in between.

Came back to Dunedin trying to sort my computer out. Arrived on Tuesday and ended up with both computers out of action for two whole days. No access to course info or email either. I got to work on Thursday night very stressed and emotional. Gary always did anything to do with the computer and trying to deal with it all and him not there I felt my brain and heart popping. Had the urge to run away. Consequently I have given up trying for the time being. At least until I get some of my work written and handed in.

The work looks great and the layout of study is interesting. Great group –interesting, intelligent thinkers and feelers. Articulate.

I am calmer today, really didn’t enjoy the stress of yesterday just made me want to bawl all the time. Yuck!

It rained yesterday and overnight and my garden is singing, and now also thankfully sunny. We need a few boosts like this to speed up autumnal crops.

Had my second session with some young mums and babes down at Plunket. ( I am a volunteer) We have started making sock monkeys. They are such gorgeous young women I am learning a lot being around them. Think it went well.

Back to Dolly.

Someone texted when I was away and said ‘well Kat you would have been on your own at that one anyway as I cant imagine Tai there’

Actually a little known fact about Gazza is that he also was a dolly fan. Not necessarily of her music but of her.

He liked that I liked her. He appreciated her enthusiasm for life and how she did it. He did also download a few tunes for my playlist he made me and would play them in amongst others.

The history of Dolly and me

28 years ago I had my knee operated on and spent two (maybe three-cant quite remember…) weeks on bed rest in the hospital. Gary loved that I was stuck in hospital and couldn’t go anywhere. Before hospital I was keen on him but was still sorting out how I felt about someone else. So there I was in one place.

He visited everyday, sometimes with his text books and studied. Consequently our relationship took a different turn. About the third day I think after the op, Gary had just left and I could see him walking along the street to the Captain Cook out my window. I was feeling pretty miserable and was in pain. I asked the nurse for some paracetamol, she said I wasn’t due for any but that I could have Morphine. I wasn’t keen on that as it made me sick and so I stuck it out.

I turned on the wee tele that mum had rented for me, and Dolly and Kenny came on. Two hours passed with them singing and talking, and at that point I fell in love with Dolly. She cheered me up, took me out of the space I was in and I felt she talked just to me.

 Gary joined Google circles and added Dolly as a friend so he could update me when she emailed him. His face the first time he got an email and told me was so funny. We laughed and laughed. She represented joy.

He may not have been there as a music fan (more ACDC) but definitely as a Dolly fan.

Something about Auckland I found tough was being downtown in the business district and seeing suits everywhere. I was tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed with all I had participated in in the weekend. Burnt the candle a bit at both ends and so my feelings and emotions which I can regulate a bit easier now became harder to contain. I found myself looking at every man in a suit searching for Gary. I wanted to go up to people who looked like they might be in IT and ask if they had ever met him or heard of him. Had they seen him?
There is always two parts to self. The rational that knows and deals and the other which is predominant that says 'this doesn't make sense, its all a dream, snap out of it and things will revert and go back to what you have always known.
When I was younger-much, someone very dear to me died, my boyfriend at the time. There are things in this process now that I recognize from before. The searching for the missing person being one of them.
When I committed to Gary I made him promise to never leave me. He thought this was silly as he could not see that he ever would but I knew that it happened. I also knew asking for the promise was impossible. Still I asked. It was my biggest fear. And here I am.

My chickens are watching me through the glass in my study. It is old and runny and they wobble slightly as I look. Sun is filtering through the trees and patterning my desk.
Time for a sneaky wine I think. x

POEM by JOHN O'DONOHUE

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

John O’Donohue

http://serenadevi.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/a-poem-for-grief-by-john-o-donohue/