Trying to figure out where I should even start today. That’s the issue. I can talk for five pages if I have something to talk *about,* but when it’s just a regular rainy day in H-town, I think “maybe I should go watch TV.” I have no energy for writing when it’s rainy. I’m all like, “you mean I have to talk to people?”

Yes, yes you do. This blog does not write itself. But oh, how I wish it would.

This is the first week I’ve been in Houston where I haven’t constantly been thinking about “her.” I don’t use her real name to limit the damage to the people who already know the situation and both of us. I am trying to drop this story line completely, as if I can just move on to a different show or channel. However, there are days when I just feel guilt and pain, one of those shallower wells of emotional injury that I talked about in Death and Loss. The bruise is healing, but that doesn’t mean that when I accidentally hit it on a table, it doesn’t smart.

Usually, the table represents a church. It doesn’t matter which one. When I walk into a church, I can hear her voice as clearly as I could the first day I met her. It feels so strange to be without her that I will myself to concentrate on something else. She used to put her elbow on my shoulder and lean into her hand, and if I sit just right, I remember how it felt. I remember that she sang beautifully but could never remember the words to anything. If she didn’t know a hymn, she’d just make it up. Who would know the difference? Barely anybody, but I’d laugh to myself. I also knew that even if she didn’t hit the very top notes, she’d just say she did. No one noticed that, either, but it made me cackle. Focus on something else… focus on something else…

But in a church, there is no something else to focus on… just an ever-present reminder of how it began and how it came to an end. I had to start my own church just to reinvent and re-frame my beliefs. For me, church is in the middle of the backyard, with no music at all. It’s a Quaker Meeting and I’m the only attendee. Sometimes, I’m not there, and the squirrels just forgive me.

The squirrels have to forgive me for a lot, but they’re far less judgmental than a Vestry and I don’t have to attend any committee meetings. So, all in all, a plus.