Some evenings I wander outside to my darkened backyard in the grip of a cold Canberra winter, gaze at the stars and really ruminate on where my life has led and the absurdity of it.
I live in the house Linda and I bought 18 years ago and lived in together until the start of this year. The walls are painted in colours she chose specifically. She spent four hours at a paint shop directing the owner to find yet another colour palate she found desirable until she had the combination she wanted for each particular room. Then I painted them.
Her belongings lie everywhere. In the cupboards. In her wardrobe. Her chest of draws. She has so many pairs of socks that I have taken to wearing hers and I may not have to buy another pair until my own last day arrives.
Her earrings and necklaces and pieces of jewellery that belonged to her mother and she couldn’t bear to part with are still displayed in the self-curated alcove she created next to where her clothes still hang.
The paintings she bought are still on the walls, but I have made sure her economics degree and Graduate Diploma in Education are prominently displayed.
And here I am alone.
It’s like life has been suspended. There is nothing to do about it. It is just strange that this life continues, our life yet, depending on what you believe she has gone to a better place or just ceased to exist. It’s hard being left behind.
It will be six months since she went on ahead next week and it’s hard to believe she has been gone so short, yet so long a time.
I’m okay. I’m enjoying my life, but it is somewhat directionless; like a drum beating with a hollow ring. I’ll find my place. I know it takes time.
It’s a salutary lesson, I guess. The earth keeps turning. It keeps orbiting the sun. We die but life continues. People grieve for us and miss us but eventually they have to return to the grind of their own lives and be content to enjoy that passing memory of us. A grain of sand in the universe is all we are.
Many years ago, in what almost seems like another life, years before I met Linda, I travelled to the ancient city of Troy in Turkey. Many Australians, watching the new movie, The Odyssey as I did with Corey tonight, will have no idea that Troy is an artillery shot from Anzac Cove, on the eastern side of the Dardanelles. The ancient legends were set here, real life heroes of history like Alexander the Great visited here and of course our own nation created legends and myths of its own a few miles away.
I liked the movie. Once I got over the jarring effect of Odysseus and his contemporaries speaking English with American accents, I actually enjoyed it. But be aware, it’s very long. And it might help to quickly look up Homer and the Odyssey before you see it, just to know the context and who is who.
It made me think of my own journey. My own Odyssey. I was just thinking this morning about the plans Linda and I had made before she got sick. Plans to retire early. Plans to travel back to Europe and do a river cruise in 2024. Her desire to see the Ord River in Western Australia. Plans to cash in and get the payoff we had worked hard for. All blown away like dust in the wind.
All that remains is to go on. The only thing Linda ever insisted I do is be happy. In whatever form that took. I will do my best to complete the journey, my lifetime Odyssey, exactly as she wanted me to. With her always as my inspiration.
Until next time.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 