Crossing over

Well, it's only been a couple years since my last post, so I thought it was about time to start again. In a lot of ways, not much has changed since the last post. I still live in the same place, still work ar the same place, and nothing earth shattering has happened.

I've gotten older, that's all. The other day I was in the transition period between wakefulness and sleep, and I had a vision of a much, much older me. I was alone in a very bare white hospital room, and I was dying. In my "dream" I was aware that this was the end for me. It terrified me so much that I panicked myself awake- my heart was pounding, I was sweating, and my throat was very dry. I was horrified because I knew that I am going to die someday. At some point, I will breath my last and the world will continue as it was. It seems silly, because we all know this about ourselves of course, but never have I gotten such a lucid vision of what it may be like for me. It was extremely unsettling. I have to say that it's still bothering me today.

I heard a Walt Whitman poem the other day that I can't forget. I'm not a great poetry lover, I don't claim to even read it. But this one is exactly what my thoughts are about death and life after me. It's sad and beautiful at the same time. This is just an excerpt, I have linked the full poem for those interested to the title of this post.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;

Anyway, it's very strange to live in this house and know that someday, someone else will live here after I'm gone. Maybe they'll wonder what I used to do. Maybe my bleeding heart will bloom for them in the spring, and they'll mow it over never knowing that I planted it with the thought that a house like this needs old-fashioned plants in the yard. They won't know that I bought it at Pappy's Market, a little mom and pop shop in Bunker Hill that is a favorite place of mine. They won't know that the German Shepherd I fostered for while almost killed it, but after he was gone the plant sort of got its second wind. They won't know that I had a little studio in the basement where I made my candles. They probably will never find the secret wall safe in the basement hidden under the coat of Dry-lock paint. I should have put a letter to them explaining all of this, maybe giving them a sense of who I was, and how much I loved this house. Maybe someday I'll open it and leave a copy of that Whitman poem along with my letter. He says it better than I ever could.