Fog

 Yesterday evening a thick, cold heavy fog rolled in.  It muffled the silence of the dark, increasing the chill the rains had brought and distorted familiar images.  I remembered fogs that we had seen on our many visits to San Francisco.  The city would wear a  coat of grey and you could watch the fog roll across the bay, coming to envelop everything in its path.  There was an odd scary beauty in the somber monotones that crept toward the city.  Soon, even the bay would disappear into the shadows.

I think I have lived in a fog since July 16, the day Rick died...I am always cold, I shiver in the bed at night and during the day I wrap in layers, even  when the sun shines.  Life has been distorted, nothing familiar has been the same.  I have tried wearing color to brighten, to heal, but the colors seem so gaudy and cheap.  Yes, I am the woman who studied the psychology of color in college so many years ago, but those lessons don't apply for now.  I know the physics of fog, I know that it is not a constant that it does lift.

I am waiting for that lift.  I have seen flashes of it, moments when there is a stream of light, bits of joy like the tiny bits of lint that birds put in their nests.  Rick came to  me in my dreams a few nights ago, he was standing in a field of snow,  there was fog, but I could see dozens of deer there with him.

He laughed and said, these are my friends, look how beautiful they are, see how beautiful this place is!

And then I woke.  He loved deer, and taking pictures in the fog and snow. Maybe this fog I feel, that I am wrapped in, is his way of offering comfort .  

I do know this, fog is beautiful and scary.   But fog makes you slow down, makes you more aware of your surroundings, and when it lifts and the sun comes out...well the beauty of all that is right in front of you is sharper, more exact and reminds you it was there all along.

This is the weekend we always went to the tree farm and got our tree.  I just couldn't do it alone.  For the second time in 46 years there will be a fake tree.  The first one was a few years ago, during the drought, no trees could be dug, so we bought a small fake one and after that used it with our Christmas pig and chicken outside.   This one will probably go outside next year, but for now, it's all I could manage, though it is still in the box.    Sometime between now and Christmas I will set it up and decorate.

The fog has morphed into a mist this morning.  There are days, my personal fog does the same.  I'm painting Christmas cards and sending them out.  It is strange to write just Jilda on them.  It would have been so easy not to paint them, but he loved my cards.  And honestly, since I have been painting these last few days,  the fog is not so heavy.  I hear his voice telling me how much he loves them, how much he loves me.  

There are probably many of you who feel the heaviness of a cold fog today.  Covid is raging, the holidays are here, so many varieties of fog.  I know in my heart all this will lift some day, we can find our way, breathe, move slowly, hold someone's hand and know the beauty is still there, it's just not visible right now.  I just stepped out back, the fog has become a mist.  There is hope.