Her thoughts. The one in my head when I'm not there. Gatekeeper.
Medieval chicken in my kitchen. Just before Covid-19 shut off visits to Canada, I was there for a weekend in an Airbnb. Medieval Times was on my itinerary, but one sister had other ideas. I had been trying to get back to Canada since that visit. Then my son David and his girlfriend surprised me with a birthday gift. I was told to have my passport and that we were going to Canada. The drive was long, and after a couple of hours, the surprise appeared.
Who will win?
It’s been a long time since I was so tired that my body started falling asleep while I’m still awake. Right now, at 10:41 p.m., it’s starting at the top of my right shoulder. Arthritis and carpel tunnel are sending aching messages to my hands and fingers. These I am not used to but not surprised about. Shoulder fatigue, that’s a rarity. I will be off work in 19 minutes. It will be the end of the week for me after a 15-hour shift on Monday. It was an 8-and-a-half-hour shift yesterday and a 10-hour and 45-minute shift today. Hence, I have a fatigued shoulder. My body continues to complain that at age 73, I should be retired from a job that has me lifting an almost thirty-five-pound patient from crib to wheelchair or from wheelchair to floor and back again. I should be working from home to complete and submit my writing. At what age do you walk away from homecare nursing? I have been with this little girl since before her 1st birthday. She will be 7 in April. It’s not just my shoulder. Everything aches sometimes. At what age do you walk away? When she’s 7, or when I’m 74?
We recently buried one of my oldest friends. Ruth died on the 10th of November and a snow storm postponed her funeral until the following Monday. I have lost many friends over the years. Exes. Baby daddies. And today I found out that 3 weeks before Ruth died, another friend died. This was mentioned in Ruth’s obituary. People are dying from broken hearts. Ruth’s cousin was like a sister to her and I was told it was this cousin’s death that killed Ruth. They told me the cousin, Earlene, lost a son and that was the reason she died. My youngest child’s best friend Tamara died at 32 years old. She’d had a baby die at 2 months old a few weeks before her death. No matter the diagnosis, a broken heart can be an underlying cause of death in some cases. My oldest brother was killed in Vietnam in August of 1966. My mother died the year before in December. My last memory of my brother was him leaning against a fence and crying because he would have walked into our apartment and seen our mother dead on our living room floor. So many deaths in my life. I grew up with it. Older sister, older brother, my mom. Older cousins, younger cousins. A 5 year old nephew and a 6 year old niece died three weeks apart. Death is so constant in this family that it is like an intimate relative. Years ago I lost a grandson who didn’t live long enough for me to meet him. More recently I lost a great grandson who came into the world after God had already taken him back. Stillborn. The ones you get at the same time you lose them. The ones who leave before their memories are tangible but are memories nonetheless. A tiny body wrapped in a blanket. A tiny cap on their head to keep in warmth that no longer exists. And you, wishing you could breathe them into this world even as you wonder about the future of the ones already here. Just love them. The ones here and the ones already gone. Just love them.
I’m in my kitchen frying chicken and thinking about the feelings brought forth by Chris. It makes me realize that you’re never too old to fall in love for the first time. My mind speaks up.![20141215_184153[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20141215_1841531.jpg)
“You can be so careless with our heart sometimes.”
You’re one to talk.
My mind and I at it again.
Like anything you lose because you don’t use it, creative brain cells can atrophy. Words set aside and forgotten. Ideas on scraps of paper that fade with time, or fall apart from being carried from place to place, but never put down on something harder, more concrete, permanent.
![20150821_195328[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20150821_1953281.jpg)
You know your ability to create was not a fluke. It was there for years, from childhood, beyond adulthood.
Then you don’t feel like writing one day, then the next, and the next. Then one of those next days becomes a year. Those journals you were filling month after month, take a year to finish.
![20150821_185048[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20150821_1850481.jpg)
Then comes the journal you never finish. It’s as if you stopped living. There’s nothing to write about. ![20150821_185256[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20150821_1852561.jpg)
Then came you.
You brought that back to me. You filled my creative well with inspiration. Feelings that were new, made life exciting, like unexpected gifts, an unwarranted bouquet of flowers on your work desk, or doorstep.
Sunshine bursting through dark clouds.
A heart stilled, skipping a beat smoothly, like that thrown stone across the water. Ripples building and spreading further and further until they reach the other side and the entire pond is nothing but happiness. A love so strong that it pulls you under, and you gulp for air, your heart and lungs full to capacity with immeasurable pleasure.
Butterflies of delight flutter and lift you up because you’re as light as a feather. And you cannot stop writing because there’s too much to say, words flowing faster than your fingers can type.
So you put them here this time. ![20150821_201056[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20150821_2010561.jpg)
Some place harder, more concrete, permanent.
We wrote this letter from within with unveiled honesty. Now I don’t remember it. The words were sent off to someone who didn’t treasure them enough to hold on to them.
We’d often sit on the beach here in Canada and watch the waves rush in, make love to the beach, then rush out again. That’s what we’d like. A lover who rushes in, makes love to us, body and mind, then rushes away again.
Odessa says, no I would not. She was talking to her, not us, definitely not me. Charles said, he thought her something or other. Neither of them understands. Now in retrospect I realize that I held back when I sent that letter to Charles, because I was the captain of those words. She was the crew. Charles thought she was keeping herself in an unnecessary prison. Living with our daughter and not allowing our selves the freedom to love. In truth, even if we lived alone and was undisturbed the majority of the time, I think we’d never be lonely.
Margene understands. She just told us this about herself the other day. I think Pinky feels this way too. This is truth. We don’t want to be bothered by a man, not even one who rushes in like the lake. For now, in this little capsule of time, we want the solitude. I doubt we’d ever tire of it. We may get bored. May reflect in sadness, but for the few times we did live alone in our life, there were never regrets. The only regrets are that we allowed a man to intrude.
Does this make us selfish, shallow? I don’t think so. It means we like, even love ourselves. For how could I stand to be alone with us, if I do not love us? If we, do not love us?
So I won’t allow anyone to cause us doubt about this but will, instead, seek it out. The proof is in our writing.
The letter I sent to Charles that flowed beautiful and positive was written in a little block of her time. In touch with our thoughts time. She gave me control that day.
The stories she’s written here in Canada, finished here, have been during her alone with me time.
A month or two with this kind of solitude and we could finish “Torry” and “Stealing Time.” I guess that’s why she set them aside. She knew, that I had the solitude to realize that our alone times would be in small blocks. That’s why short stories and articles are flowing like a river, into an ocean up here.
This inspires me to strive for freedom on a larger scale. She has to book a room for a weekend, where we’re completely alone. To eventually save for a real vacation. A writing retreat. Someplace with pen, paper, music, ideas and lots and lots of 
water.
Then we’ll write. we’ll only write.
I have broken free. Let me rephrase that. She has set me free. I am the ‘her’ who does not hide, who will not bite our ‘collective tongue.’ There will be warm and fuzzy here, but there will be cold and jagged. There will also be shards of glass on a path that will hopefully, be frequently traveled, so please watch your step. There will be an ongoing series of an online relationship between us and a person who has captured our heart as no one has ever captured it before. The we, and us on this blog is ‘her’ to whom this blog belongs and me, when my ‘mind’, keeps us honest. So the texts we’ll be posting will be, what Chris (our person) says, what she says, and what I am thinking. Other conversations between me and her, take place in our kitchen, so we’ve dubbed these posts, Kitchen Blogs, with different subtitles. Most of this will be Chris related, but there are other men in our life, and you’ll learn about them in the kitchen, or other rooms. So come on and join us, let’s see what’s going on, and also, what’s cooking.
shesfightingforherfreedom 