We're getting into the time of year when my dear husband, Walter Maya, declined and died. This photo speaks for itself, including the little flourish of flowers apparently growing out of Walter's head: his playfulness, his imagination, his ability to take what was in front of him and make something good out of it.
And this pertains to writing how? I am in the thick of making a collection of poems about him, mostly directly, and incidentally about mortality and decline. There's a lot of that going around. My memories and preoccupations have always been influenced by the time of year. I wonder if it is the slant of the light and the length of days, but who knows--not me. Anyhow, I am writing new poems about him and adding them to the older poems. I've always written about death and decline, even mortifyingly early on. In the years since his diagnosis with cancer, I wrote very few poems that were not about loss and change, his changes, losing him.
As a psychologist, I performed neuropsychological evaluations. Which is to say that I used my experience and the available tools to answer questions about changes and difficulties in other people. You might say that I was peculiarly trained, suited even, to notice his changes, his losses, and therefore my losses too.
So, since the last time I posted in this blog, I've been steeped in thoughts and feelings about who Walter was and about the hole his death has left in my life. I do believe I'm making progress in this project, this book-to-be. I don't know if the smaller or larger worlds care about such a thing, but it's what I need to be doing.
