Ascending Through Grief
Via YouTube and Some Sweet Sedona Spice Girls
10/28/18 Preface
I woke up this morning to that silly “Norman” song blaring in my brain with visions of hippies, barns, wooden birds, avocado strawberry salad and my broken bracelet. My left lower thumb was being pressed rhythmically the way my dogs bite themselves to remove an itch. I felt the urge to move over to the middle of the bed off of Norm’s side--the sunken side. The 19 ½ year old mattress should have been replaced ten years ago when I started complaining about sleeping on the “hill”.
“I want to see you,” I whispered.
Still more knawing and the song, “Norman, oo oo oo oo oo oo oo, oo, Norman, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, . . . . Norman my love.”
Memories of goat cheese pizza, selfies on the M22 overlook, a van with river rocks painted all over it flash across my mind like an old 8 mm film strip.
“Didn’t I already put this in the book?”
“Nope.”
“I need to change the title, too. This should be your book, Mr. Hollywood. It’s too much about me.”
“Ours. It can be about us.”
So here I sit, in my red room chair with Chewy’s toilet water soaked beard dripping on this keyboard and again taking this book in a different direction.
“This is it, Norm. I’m not going to read it anymore because every time I read it I’m in a new place. I’m sadder, I’m happier, more spiritual, more of a disaster. Then I end up adding and editing too much. I’ve changed the title at least six times. I have other stories to write and I need to stop changing this one. And your dog is so damn annoying. He’s farting up the bag of Snickers he ate last night and wanting me to throw the Kong ball across the bedroom.”
“Throw it. Let him outside first before he shits all over the carpet. I’ll stay here with him and calm him down. He listens to me.”
And just like that the dog is laying quietly by his ball near the bed. I even took a picture to prove it. To whom, I have no clue, but there is evidence that some thing or some one calmed this hyper smelly bird dog down so I can retell our story. A story that will never be over.