I heard the song in the video above on YouTube. A rather remarkable young Italian boy sang it, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Last night, I Googled the words of the first sentence of the song and discovered it was written and sung by Brandi Carlisle, a woman I admire, even though I’m off popular music. I’ve seen her in collaborations with amazing artists. Joni Mitchell’s late-in-life revival was driven by Ms. Carlisle. What a woman! What a singer! What a song!
But wait! Don’t click on it and listen to it. I listened to it and watched the images, but I couldn’t understand the lyrics clearly, so I turned on closed captions and that helped me realize to whom she was singing her song, and I was deeply, deeply moved. You can also Google the lyrics, but without the imagery of the video you would not know to whom she sings.
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It was a very warm day yesterday. I as outside at 7:00 am to get a head start on watering all the plants. Then, at 9:30 our morning forest walk with our friends had everyone gushing about the weather and their love of life at this time of year. When we got home, I had a long Zoom call with Steve and then the brood had lunch.
Once lunch was over, I was keen to get to work outside. I finished the watering and then I got to work on trimming the growth in the cracks of the courtyard and then cleaning up all the mess. There was a gentle wind that kept me from overheating, and I was glad for it.
As I watered, clouds formed. and I was thrilled because the water wouldn’t burn off quickly as it often does. I did a very thorough watering, taking lots of time with each plant. I love my plants and gardens so, so much that it’s a pleasure to feed them, especially when they are showing signs of being thirsty as my Plumb tree was.
The morning walk, plus doing all the watering tuckered me out. By 1:30, I needed a rest. But what always happens, as my rest goes on, more and more I want to get back to work. So, we went into the village for some rebar that I can use to build a Deer fence around my Horse Chestnut, a favourite tree, and I also got more plants to fill holes where plants died in the Winter.
At 4:00, I slid happily into the spa. It’s the most wonderful way to relax. Then Her Highness and I went for out afternoon walk before coming home to another delightful evening with the brood, dinner and a movie.
I love my life now that the good weather is here. And my love of Pinecone Park has grown with the emergence of the garden. I had two seizures yesterday, which was weird, but I thrive in this solitude and love doing my chores. Slowly, slowly, Pinecone Park is starting to really shine.
At dinner time, it got quite dark. I prayed for rain, and it came. It was, what I call, angel piss. It was very light rain, but it persisted, and all water is good. All my watering yesterday is still in the ground.
Grayson may be here this coming week. I’m going to ask him to set up the chairs and my outside table so that next week, perhaps, I can have my dog-walking friends over for tea after one of our walks. The gardens look so nice right now, I’d like my friends to see them while the weeds are green and there are little, tiny Daisies. Soon enough, it all will be brown.
Last night, I pondered my regrets. I’ve always said I had none, and I was telling the truth, but I thought I was being asked about things done or not done. But I do have regrets. I got to thinking about them because I had a sense of longing for a man to put his arms around me, not in a sexual way, but in a loving way.
I regret being unable to partner with someone. I’ve spent years wondering why, but since my diagnoses from Dr. Shoja, I’ve gained plenty of insight into why, in all probability, I was doomed by childhood parental neglect. I saw what neglect did to Rhesus monkeys deprived of parenting. It was in my psychology class at UBC. How could I doubt Dr. S’s diagnoses of my condition, and her belief that the cause was childhood neglect.
I wanted a partner, and I wanted a child. More than anything, I wanted a child. My childhood was plagued by dreams of isolation. I felt disconnected from the human race because I had no story, no history, no people. When I discovered I didn’t want to have sex with women, I was crushed, and everyone thought it was because I was gay. That was true, but a lot of my anguish was about not having a son or daughter who would connect me, bind me to a baby and it’s mother, even if the mother was paid.
Those are my regrets. Some wonderful women and their partners shared their children with me. Those relationships were the best gifts of my life.
And there was Steve. He was so handsome; we charged into our relationship from the moment we met. We dated every weekend for a year because he lived in Seattle. And then we lived together for 14 years. He is never alone and lives to party. He is in the company of others every evening and his weekends are packed with things to do. And you all know I live and thrive in quiet solitude. When we broke up, he’d had another boyfriend for four years and he was casually dating outside of his two partners.
I need devotion. I’d never had any. That’s when I realized that my failure with Steve was likely tied to my upbringing. People have heard of illiteracy. I diagnosed myself with social illiteracy. I had never had to negotiate with an intimate when I met Steve at age 30. I was uncomfortable and nervous with people early on. Since my breakdown, that need for solitude magnified many times over.
Thank God for my friends. Particularly Dwight, Steve, Beth and Bruce. These are my logical siblings. And Dwight and Beth have children, and their children give me a feeling of what having grandchildren might feel like. And I have several logical cousins, wonderful people with whom I’m not so frequently in touch as I am with my siblings—especially John and Bunny! Thank God for friends.
My last regret is AIDS. Not because I got it, but because of what it did to my community of gay men. There were a lot of us in the professional theatre community in Vancouver. The plague was a horror. And then, there was how we were treated. Homophobia raged. I was saved by the cocktail, but I regret that human error let that virus loose on mankind.
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