Final reflection at Clifton Hill 

Me and Jim with silly tree frog 

From the top of Clifton Hill 

Crazy Clifton Hill in NFalls, Canada 

American Falls, view from Canada.There's even the hint of a rainbow at night.  

Then off to Niagara Falls, Canada. Here's the view of both falls as we walked across the Rainbow bridge. Canada on right, US on left.  

Oh I forgot the requisite reflection shot before the lake 

Crooked Lake Erie 

Me at the lake...with the messy hair... 

Then we walked down by Lake Erie for a spell... 

Best photo of the day..reflection in leaded glass 

Outside the brewery 

My friend Jim (sorry, but I just had to post this) and me eating dinner at the Pearl Street Grill on the patio. He's being sent to Iraq with the National Guard a week from today.  

I like the peacefulness of this photo. It reminds me of my childhood in some ways. 

I am feeling low...

Since Ellie died, it's been difficult to write, to think clearly, to sleep, to eat. I am oversensitive to the touch, easy to anger, and weepy. This is me, but to the tenth power. That's what grief does to you.

However, there is someone who hasn't known me very long, who doesn't know who I am, what I am really like, who has never had the opportunity to see the best part of me. And now I've overreacted, again. I wanted this man to be different, but it seems, I have ruined things with my oversensitivity. It just adds to the grief, to the feeling now of really being alone.

I never realized just how much I relied on Ellie for companionship, until now. I always said it would be horrible when she died, but I didn't think I would be so depressed.

Anyway, I haven't felt much like writing, though the ideas are there, it's been too hard to make myself write. And now this man I've alienated...I feel like a failure...

So I'll post this poem I wrote for Y maybe 9 months ago...it says things pretty well, about me...just feeling low...

I Am Difficult

There is usually someone else besides me,
always at least two of us. This time
it is me on one side of the earth; she on your side.

More than that, I am difficult
to love, hard to get along with
I am so open I scare people
they cannot bear to be, or must be,
in the room with me, they cannot
turn away or they must,
there is no in between, as I am not easy.

My relationships either end bitterly
or go on forever, changing, but infinite,
this is how I am, either you can deal
with my spirit and its insistence on integrity
or you cannot. I don’t know which
this time will be, but I know
that I am always in the end alone

and today it occurs to me that of course
you have chosen her, flesh and blood
reality, over me, more than that,
I see that she is perfect, accepting,
what you have needed, wanted,
how she fits in perfectly with your family,
I imagine her smart, pretty, patient
steadfast, kind and real.

I however cannot settle on the earth for too long
cannot attend to too many daily tasks
I need space, time, reflection, movement.
I am the bird singing outside your door
in the morning, flown on to higher trees
by noon, resting in a hidden nest at night.

I can see into your soul, find the brightest
part of you to love, but demand this part
so often, so much, that I am difficult.
I am not the easy one to love, though worth it
open expanding dreaming hopeful encouraging
coaxing the light to shine from those I love.

My home is with people, from all over the earth,
my children I will strap to my back and take them
wherever I go, my true love will fly with me
where the atmosphere is so thin that light
bends no more, where there are no shadows,
and where the sun and the moon,
exist in the sky together, at all times.

sad me... 

Here she is... 

Me and Ellie...I drew this little cartoon about four or five days before she got really sick. Funny how we know without knowing...