as I live a few more questions

I know, I know....

...I haven't posted here in almost a full year now.  Mostly it's because I have been doing my posting elsewhere, to my facebook account, where I have most of my links to my friends and acquaintances and family members.  I'm still in the process of figuring out if I am going to keep this blog, and if so, what I intend to post to it.  Obviously longer-format material than what I can fit into a facebook post.

This week I also started up a Google+ account, and it's been déja-vu for me, the whole startup of a new social network reminds me so much of Orkut, and Tribe, and Friendster befor that, stuff that happened six years ago for me.  By now I'm an old hand at this sort of thing, but I still get a bit of a thrill as I make the cosil network connections.

 

Just leave a message on the fridge...

I found this little Flash program on myspace (it requires the Macromedia Flash plug in):

Click Here to get this from FreeFlashToys.com!

Humbling

It has been humbling (and painful beyond belief) to realize that I need to focus on one key thing in my life: my foundation is cracked.

I'm serious.

I've spent most of the last eight years (1997-2005) trying to build up a network and an identity for myself, failing and flailing as I go along, digging myself deeper and deeper into a pit of my own making.

And it is only the hard way that I've learned that I can't work on the higher-up stuff without dealing with the lower-down stuff first. The fundamentals, the foundational stuff that needs to be stable and strong for you to build upon.

For example, I can now see that it's pointless to try and make a romantic relationship work when I can't even love myself.

It's useless to work myself up over not getting what I think I deserve, because life is *not* fair and there is *no* contract that says, if you follow all the "rules", that you will get what you want. People are not always going to follow the Golden Rule, and God is not some celestial vending machine.

And it's deadly dangerous to suppress parts of yourself so severely, that you land up with a continuous "background process" running in your brain, constantly at work to keep those parts out of your consciousness, in order to "save" yourself. Because in "saving" myself I just burdened myself even more. Being blind to yourself as you really are is worse than any prison.

And that it's better to have a smaller number of closer friends than a Rolodex packed full of acquaintances. One minor miracle of the past eight months has been to realize that I don't have to *do* anything to be loved and valued; I just have to accept that I already *am* loved and valued (even if I don't see things from the same perspective as my friends and family do).

I have to focus on the little things before I can expect to achieve the bigger things in life. Which means accepting that I have cracks in my foundation, areas which were slapped together and now need to be repaired properly before I can move forward.

Painful. Humbling. But necessary.

To Where You Are

Who can say for certain
Maybe you're still here
I feel you all around me
Your memories so clear

Deep in the stillness
I can hear you speak
You're still an inspiration
Can it be
That you are mine
Forever love
And you are watching over me from up above

Fly me up to where you are
Beyond the distant star
I wish upon tonight
To see you smile
If only for awhile to know you're there
A breath away's not far
To where you are
("To Where You Are", Josh Groban, Josh Groban, 2001)

For me now, this song will forever be associated with Scott. "To Where You are" was played at the very beginning of the funeral, and the pianist played an arrangement of the tune as we all filed out at the end. It's a beautiful song, and the lyrics are so fitting. (I actually had to ask Scott's partner Dan what song it was, I had never heard it before, if you can believe it.)

I was able to hold it together until after we had sung Ave Maria and had sat back down in our pews (there were about 50 of us I think, past and present members of The Rainbow Harmony Project). The next choir (a mix of voices from The Winnipeg Singers, Renaissance Voices, and several other choirs with which Scott was associated) came up and sang a beautiful arrangement of "In Remembrance" by Eleanor Daley:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

...

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die

That did it. I started crying at that point and couldn't stop for the rest of the service. Michelle passed me a Kleenex, and Stephen offered me his hand and whispered to me to keep breathing (when I was about to break out in sobs).

It was a beautiful funeral. I'm so glad I was there, and glad also that I changed my mind and decided to sing with my chorus tonight. It meant a lot to Scott's family and friends, and it meant a lot to me, too.

Are you gently sleeping
Here inside my dream
And isn't faith believing
All power can't be seen

As my heart holds you
Just one beat away
I cherish all you gave me everyday
'Cause you are mine
Forever love
Watching me from up above

And I believe
That angels breathe
And that love will live on and never leave

Scott, My Father, And Me.

Transcript:

I was thinking about it last night before I went to bed and I realize that one of the reasons why I've been feeling upset about Scott's death is that it comes pretty close to what happened with the death of my father: in that he died very suddenly and unexpectedly, although in both cases looking back, there werre warning signs; and also in that neither one took very good care of themselve physically and I'm guilty of that as well.

And I see this as a sort of a warning sign, a chance for me to get my act together and haul my raggedy ass out to the gym.

I'm not looking forward to the funeral, it's starting in about four hours, and I'm just sitting here this afternoon, trying to keep myself calm. There's this sense of turmoil inside of me and I know that I'm probably going to start crying at the funeral, but I realize that that's what it's for.

Anyway, I think I'm just going to end it here, thanks.

dontthinkaboutit

Spent most of the day in one of three ways:

1. Trying (and failing) to get my new notebook to connect to the campus LAN;
2. Trying (and failing) to get my new notebook to connect to the wireless LAN in my local café;
3. Searching the Internet (particularly the Dell knowledge base) for answers to #1 and #2.

Argh. At least it works when I plug it into my cable network connection at home, and I've already proven it works with the wireless network at the Law Library. I must hust have a setting wrong somewhere for #1 and #2. So I keep worrying away at it, like a dog with a bone (all right, so call the Hackneyed Cliché Police then).

Besides, it keeps me mentally occupied, busywork, don't-think-about-Monday's-funeral busywork, don't-think-about-the-massacre-in-Beslan busywork. dontthinkaboutidontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit

Obituary

The full obituary was published in the Winnipeg Free Press today. Scott had died of a heart attack, a friend told me this morning.

I'm singing

Spent the evening with my best friend Stephen (who, like me, was a member of the chorus from the very beginning, and who also took last year as a year off)... we were supposed to go to the baseball game tonight, but neither of us really felt like it, so we just sat and talked about Scott and other things. I think I needed the big hug and the conversation more anyways.

The chorus is singing Ave Maria at Scott's funeral on Monday, a choral piece I already know and have performed, so I've changed my mind and I am singing. We're going to get up there and sing for the friends and family and students and fellow teachers and musicians and choristers of the man who was our musical director, our conductor, our leader.

Don't expect anything coherent from me for the next few days. I might not blog at all or I might binge-blog. I don't know what I'm going to do. Whatever happens now, happens. But I'm singing.

The Conceit of Forever

I just can't focus on work today. I find myself staring into space, lost in thought.

I still keep thinking about Scott. I'm still in the shock and denial phases; it just doesn't seem real. Which means that it's gonna hit with one hell of a whallop when it does come home. I'm not looking forward to that moment.

I had always expected that, once Scott hit bottom, he would bounce a couple times, then rise. Like I had done, like other people who struggle with personal crises do. You work your way through it, and come back up.

But Scott didn't come back up. It never even occurred to me that he would run out of time.

At one time or another, each of us lives with the conceit that we have forever.

And we don't.

I haven't got time

I have a song fragment from Carly Simon running in an endless loop in my head:

I haven't got time for the pain
I haven't got room for the pain
I haven't the need for the pain

The worst part is, today is a farewell party for a coworker, so I have to paste my smiling face on and get out there.