Not a tattoo...yet

So... remember how you wanted us to get a group tattoo and you wanted it to be iwa birds? Well, after you passed away, I promised myself I would. I even saw a guy and started planning out the design, and had the actual day scheduled to get inked, but a few days before I chickened out and canceled. I wasn't sure about the design anymore and just got cold feet.

I still plan to get a tattoo with an iwa (or possibly plural-- my original design included 3 birds flying together), but I'm waiting on it... Maybe next year on your birthday...we'll see. I know I want it though. I want some sort of permanence etched on my body. Some proof that "Tawny wuz hea" grafittied on to me. I was against it when you were alive, always putting you off, but now I want it badly-- when I finally work up the guts, that is.

Because I didn't get the tattoo just yet, I decided to do something else to put you into permanence. There's this guy... Ninja Rob. He's an artist who uses tree pieces and as he puts it, "collaborates with the wood." He uses the textures and patterns to create his art. I first saw his art awhile back, read his bio and got a little teary eyed because it was honest and fresh and so incredibly endearing. He loves trees and that made me love him. I remember even back then thinking about you and thinking you would like his work too.

Anyways, I've contracted him to create a piece in honor of you. The night we met to discuss the project, I talked his ear off about you. It was not eloquent, and I probably sounded crazy. I gave him too many irrelevant facts about you. Like how in high school you used to sit in the center console of my car so that we could all ride in the front together... and how when you declared yourself a vegetarian, you would eat the skin off the mochiko chicken and say it didn't count because you were just eating the batter... But he listened and was kind with his time and in absorbing my ramblings. And, I trust his artistic style. I'm excited to see what he's going to create and I hope that wherever you are, you will be able to see it and that you will love it. I also wouldn't be surprised if you might be guiding him now as he creates it... He asked for a picture of you to look at as a way to connect with you while he works on it. I like that he did that.

He's someone I think you would have liked a lot. Maybe even crushed on. When I met with him, I couldn't help but wonder what you would have thought about him. He's married and you're dead so it's a pointless thought, but one that still danced through my head.

I always worried about your choices in men while you were alive. You were so amazing but you seemed to fall for the wrong guys... it's something I never told you outright, and I sort of wished I did, but I'm not sure it would have made a difference. We all have our "things..."

Anyways... I love you and miss you so much. I hope you are well.

i saw your kids yesterday. they were at paia bay, on the right side of the beach. there were waves and it was a perfect day. i watched them play in the white wash for awhile then walked down toward your girls and waved shyly. naia waved back first. i could tell she couldn't quite place me at first, but that she recognized me. i kept my distance from them to give them their space-- i didn't want to invade, and they were so happy playing.

i was there with jelly's kids, kai and nelli. kai and i made a sand heart with a moat around it, and he collected seaweed to outline it. naia and ariel walked past us with one of their girlfriends and made the same thing.  even though we didn't really talk or interact too much, i felt a connection. and it touched my heart. i could feel your energy in that moment.

there's a big awkwardness i feel with you family. it keeps me quiet, on the peripheral, and... awkward. i don't know what it is... 

i called your parents on thanksgiving to say hello and give holiday cheer and greetings, but i ended up hanging up on your dad. it wasn't intentional... i called and right when he said hello, i tried to say hello back, but the call dropped. i didn't have it in me to pick up the phone and dial again. i already felt so nervous about calling and when that happened, i took it as a sign. i don't know why i get so nervous. i get mad at myself for it, and yet, it's there, and there's a part of it that feels natural too. i don't know how to explain it.

right now i'm remembering the weekend last year that jelly came home to visit. that afternoon before my mom's birthday that we hung out at jo's house, then polly's and then the park. the kids were all with us, and it was fun to hang out with them. i gave your girls and jed their distance in the beginning but as the day went on and they got more comfortable with my presence, i found them cuddling in my lap, asking me questions and connecting with me. i remember ariel started crying when it was time to leave and she pretended she had an owee on her finger. you used visine as fake medicine to heal her aches, and i marveled at your mom skills. i remember thinking about how your children will always know gentleness from you, and it made me really proud of you and happy for them. later, after you had dropped them off, and came back up to my house, you told me that your kids really liked me. you said that they told you that i was their favorite. which i knew was a momentary honor, but still one that made me swell with pride.

after you died, and i got back from my travels in south america, i went over to your parents house around christmas time. the kids were there. i brought them presents and kimi and i hung out for a good couple of hours. naia and i connected the most-- i can't explain it, but i know she feels like i really see her and get her. she clung to me, and we talked quietly in whispers. ariel and kimi connected a lot too. ariel had fun playing with kimi's phone and editing pictures. she's quite techy. and jed was just mellow and happy and having fun with the attention and people to play with.

yesterday seeing them, i can tell you this they looked happy and alive.

i will make more efforts to connect with them. i want them to know that i'm always here if they ever need me. i know that i can say that, but unless i somehow make myself a presence, it won't hold water. i'll just be a stranger that watches them from afar.

i love you and miss you. xoxo

new year's words

So, as mentioned in the last entry, I chose you as my word. It's what sang to me the loudest when I thought about what I wanted the new year to bring. I just wanted you; in anyway that I could possibly incorporate you. I wanted to make room within my spirit and have you sneak in and reside with me--stay alive with me. I still can't let you go. I just want you back. So choosing you as my word was an attempt to somehow bridge the gap between you being dead, and me being alive.

I'm not so sure if it's worked out that way yet. You continue to feel so far away. I talk to you daily in my head/heart, and I feel your presence, but I don't feel us inhabiting the same space. I don't feel as if I have taken on parts of you- not in the way I was thinking. I was hoping for this divine connection with you, and that on some level, I would emanate your spirit. Carry you on. But it's impossible to be no one other than me. Trying to be you is a tall order to fill. Probably an impossible one. That being said, I do carry an invisible "WWTD?" ("what would Tawny do/say/think?") bracelet with me daily. And, I wouldn't say it's been a completely futile effort

You have brought rainbows to the top of my list as an instant pick me up and an instant connection to me. Whereas before I was a rainbow liker, now I am a rainbow lover; and each time I see one, no matter how brilliant or "meh," I rejoice and feel connected to you. In fact, most times I will whisper to myself "hi Tawny!" and I feel you smiling down at me.  Thank you for making rainbows more magic for me. :)

I'm also gardening more this year than ever before. In the previous years when Erik set up our little mini garden, I let him do most of the tending, while I did the reaping. Nowadays I take great pleasure in all of the care involved. It's another activity that makes me feel closer to you. You always had such a love for plants and such a green thumb and I am starting to gain a passion for plants and growing things. It is so therapeutic and it makes me feel closer to you. I am having fun learning the personalities of my different herbs, veggies and flowers and having fun getting to know their details. My Okra is sneaky- it shoots up quickly and if you let it go untended for more than a few days, it's delicious fruit becomes inedible and fibrous like sugarcane. Basil, another sneaky one too. It becomes all wood and flowers if I don't trim it regularly. My Chard is steady and dependable. It is always there for me producing beautiful leaves. (You would love my chard btw, it's got a bright pink center and has mutant leaves I know you would appreciate). My Eggplant too. It's fruits come and go, but when they come, they come in bounties. We are also growing lilikoi which require patience. I stare at those green globes all the time, and a month later am still waiting for them to turn yellow so that I can harvest and devour. Gardening makes me feel more connected not only to you, but my Grandma, my mom and Jelly as well. I thank you for your influence in that way as well.

I have yet to inhabit your Tawny specific free spirit. You were always so good at being 100% you. As for me, I'm not. So much of what I do is tempered by how it may be perceived by others. Insecurity is like an iron rod within me, often times making me stiffer than I want to be. I work at being polite and gracious, but I think sometimes I just come off as insincere in my efforts to be more sincere. I was secretly hoping that would be what I would embrace most during this year of striving to grow with your name as my leader, but that is a lesson that I anticipate taking many years to even begin to grasp. I love and envy how naturally it came to you. It makes me adore you so much and miss you all the more. 

I have to tell you, the thing that has been most evident within this year, is LOSS. I feel my loss for you strongly and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not aware of it. Also within the course of a year, I have also managed to lose other friendships. Not through someone dying; but there is a type of death that lies within the brokeness of these relationships. In moments it feels like too much to bear, and I talk with you about it in my head all the time. When I do, I'm always transported back to a memory I have of the two of us sitting on the bed talking and you telling me "I'm not one of those people that need to have a lot of friends, I only need you guys." It was a truth and a non truth at the same time, because I know you grew close with other friends that lived on Maui and I don't for a minute doubt their importance in your life or the depth of your love for them. But there is something about that statement that comforts me. It reminds me that I don't need anyone more than who I have. But of course, that reminder lasts for a milisecond, before I'm back in the angst of feeling losses again.

Acceptance is not a strong point for me. I used to think it was, but in losing you, especially, I have learned that it's not. I keep wanting to revisit the past. Go back. Make what's lost be present again, and it's just not going to happen. I think a part of choosing you as my word, has been about choosing acceptance about your situation, and in turn other situations of loss-- where I feel like the world has robbed me of something that was mine. This has been the hardest lesson of the year, and one I'm still struggling to get through, but at least I am trusting the struggle-- or trying my best to trust it.


I love you. Always.

xoxo

Hi there

Hi Tawny,

God, I miss you. It's been over a year now, but I just don't stop missing you. I've decided, I'm not going to let this death thing get in the way of you and me. I'm just going to write to you... and keep on writing.

I've also decided that I want to appoint you as my spirit guide. You're going to be who I consult with on such matters that require spirit wisdom.Guide me well Tawnster.

Anyways, right now I'm remembering Christmas, 2011. You were so helpful. I was in a tangle with my emotions -- insecure, vulnerable and in a weird place and you were the person that felt the most comforting and easy to be next to. We rode down to Granny's together (I call it "Tawny's beach" now, btw), and talked about our words for the new year. We were both deciding on ours, and I was telling you about feeling off and weird. Wondering if it had to do with work and all the stories I absorb.You told me about a book on souls and what you had learned from it. It was really helpful and helped me to shake my moodiness and realign, (I really need to find that book and read it), any ways when you were telling me about it, something clicked into place and I knew "soul" as my word for 2012. You later chose "clarity." And right now, as I write that, I wonder if you had a moment of clarity before you died.

There is a certain morbid curiosity I feel toward your death. I want to know what it was like for you. Were you aware of what was happening? Did you know? I hope you weren't scared. For some reason, I don't imagine you so. I imagine you making that face you would make when sliding down the face of a big wave. Eyes closed, half smile, pure connection with the moment. I think you're the kind of person who once feeling or seeing the light,would embrace it. Which kind of bothers me, because I wish you just rejected it completely and stayed here, but that is not the case, is it? So I do like to imagine you as embracing and feeling warmth, no fear, and love. Lots and lots and lots of love.

Anyways, after I chose "soul" as my word, I made a blog with the same title, which just so happens to be exact blog, but I've deleted the posts and changed the title. I thought you might like the connection.

Btw, this year my word was you. "Tawny." I'll explain it more later, in another letter.

I love you.

xo, me