One Week to Steve

Yesterday, I began the Sabbath by stealing more stones from next door. I’ll use them for edging around my incinerator area. Then I went on the large community dog walk before doing a massive watering job on the gardens. I’ll do another today because tomorrow I’m gone all day to Vancouver for more asthma tests.

Then I tackled the repair of my Pinecone Park sign and transplanted more plants. Slowly, I am getting every task done that I wanted to so this season.

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Lucky, lucky, oh so lucky me. I found this clip on YouTube. It’s of Jordan Donica singing On the Street Where You Live.I think this is the finest stage singing I have ever heard, combined with exemplary acting. 

Mr. Donica is American, but listen to his British accent! Listen to his remarkable diction and look at the emotions in his face and body as he sings. He’s vocal perfection and he’s singing one of my favourite songs—one of the first songs I memorized and sang publicly and a song sung by a dear friend on the first national tour of My Fair Lady  in the USA. Reid was one of my first friends to die of AIDS.

It was bittersweet to hear this incredible young man, Mr. Donica, singing it so impossibly perfectly. As I listened to him I saw Reid (Shelton) on stage in my imagination.

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Steve arrives here in a week. We parted very amicably in 1994, yet he and his family remain central to my life. Steve, his sister Lydia and his mother gave me the most extraordinary gift: They authentically welcomed me into their family. Martha, the materfamilias, signed all her letters to me with, “Mom.” 

All I ever felt from the Tyrells (the people who adopted me) was disfavor, so the warm welcome of the Schillings was overwhelming. Martha gave me a taste of what every person wants: Mother’s love. 

Steve and I talk every Monday—he lives in L.A.—so today will be exciting. After we talk, my only task for the day is to tidy up my studio and prepare it for him and Tim. They’ll be sleeping there and Lydia and her husband, David, will sleep in the house. (The other two people coming, Don and Fernando, are staying in a B&B.)

I haven’t been with Steve in person for two years, so this visit is something for which I’ve been longing since I moved here.