One Thousand Days of Longing
... the endless nature of loss and grief, infinite random thoughts, squinting into the light.
This week marks 1000 days. One thousand days of longing.
I haven’t been counting. It just hit me in a toss or a turn during the night. Don’t ask me how the mind does these things. Our bodies know more than we know.
One thousand days and one thousand nights.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a blink. And in the same grand scheme – eternity.
One thousand days. I don’t mean one thousand calendar pages.
How many moments and memories? How many breaths fit into 1000 days?
How many silent secret-language smiles? How many explosions of laughter? How many annoyed eye-rolls or elbow nudges to adjust the snoring?
How many pelicans would he have counted on our countless beach walks? How many shells admired, jellyfish avoided?
How many treats would he have snuck to the dog?
How many over-wrought conversations would he have gently and generously endured?
How many entries might be added to his journal of quotes?
How many UNC basketball games would have raised his hopes, his blood pressure, his pride?
How many viewings of Casablanca? (at least 3, as that was the non-negotiable for NYE) How many times would he pretend to want to watch Princess Bride or Fiddler with me, and how many times would I pretend I’d love to see Patton again. And again.
How many bananas would he have peeled? Or oranges? Or shrimp?
How many champagne bottles would have sprung open and toasts made to celebrate a friend’s new house, or spouse, or novel?
How many words of compassion or concern or cautionary tale or maybe tender advice would he have uttered to the people he loved? And how many high-volume rants as he watched the evening news?
How many sweet conversations and phone calls and texts and facetimes and visits with his children? How many basketballs/baseballs/soccer balls/ lacrosse balls/ tennis balls would he have dribbled/ thrown/ kicked/ caught/swatted with grandkids?
OMG, how many cans of tennis balls would he have opened, delighted by that subtle unique sound and scent of an open can of balls?
How many mornings of waking together, coffee together, walking the dog together? How many nights wrapped up together, grateful for the immensity of the gift and simultaneously incapable of fathoming its fullness?
Oh, by the way, this isn’t an inventory of what’s lost or missed.
But it is an (incomplete) inventory of the mundane and magic moments that make a life, moments and minutes and minutia that we miss – until we miss them altogether.
I sort of knew then what I know more certainly now: It all matters. All of it.
Those times we grumbled in traffic or rushed through the day? The chores of pulling weeds or preparing taxes? Folding the laundry or feeding the dog? Those moments are just as rich, just as life-infused, just as sacred as the sunsets and sensual sighs and high celebrations and grand adventures.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a specific book on my shelves. I still haven’t found it, but the search led me, happily, to Julia Cameron’s Right to Write. I thumbed through it, and saw words and phrases underlined and circled, some in ink, others by pencil. Tom marked books with a pencil; I used a pen.
Re-reading the book now, I’m in a silent conversation with him.
In the first chapter, he underlined this: The first trick, the one I am practicing now, is just to start where you are.
Yes, I tell him. That’s what I’m trying to do. Each day, start where I am; start again, today, just where I am.
A couple of chapters later, he marks I love staring into the distance. I love squinting at the image of things yet to come. I love the process of watching them come into focus.
That’s where I am now: staring and squinting, watching. Those “things yet to come” are unclear, for the most part, but I’m learning to trust the process, and sometimes something beautiful comes into focus.
A stunning male cardinal has been coming to the feeder this week. He’s one of many; they’re legion here. But this one, there’s something about him. The way he perches, and watches. He’s noisy sometimes, with that big song, but mostly he’s quiet. He eats, of course, with gusto.
A cardinal lives three to five years, on average. More than a thousand days, but not much more. “Consider the birds of the air,” the ancient text says.
This morning, I will feed the birds, and notice their song, and wonder at their grace. I will focus where I can and squint into the distance sometimes, and ask a thousand questions.
And I will savor every. single. moment.
Nothing is mundane. Everything everything everything pulses with wonder.
Who can know what the next thousand days will bring, or the next moment? But I know this: It’s all gift. All of it.
Thank you for this beautiful piece, it so described my experience as well
Beautiful! You speak my language. 💖