My time here in Vermont is coming to an end. In planning this part, I had grand ideas about how the peaceful environment and plentiful vegetables and lots of rest was going to be really healing for me, how I was going to soak in all the lake activities and replenish myself back to a more whole human being. It really illuminates how much wishful thinking there is in my mind still (despite not being able to come up with ANY birthday wishes when a birthday cake is put in front of me) about what this year is going to bring.
A little sidebar: Noah really liked dark, messed-up murder shows. I would sometimes watch them with him, but usually he just went ahead and binged a show by himself. I think it’s really reasonable for a couple to have a range of cultural input preferences, and sometimes they overlap and it’s cool, and sometimes it’s okay for one person to watch Great British Bake Off over and over and the other person to watch every serial killer TV show known to man. He did hype up True Detective season 1 so much that he ended up rewatching it with me. One of the iconic phrases Matthew McConaughey’s character says in the show is “Time is a flat circle.” Which I think many people quote, and again it’s okay to have basic inside jokes that many other people also have with their loved ones. When Rudy Gobert and Mikel Arteta both got COVID early in 2022, we said “Time is a flat circle.” (To the folks who don’t know these people, they’re a NBA player and Arsenal’s manager who also both got COVID early in 2020.) We must have said “Time is a flat circle” about lots of things that I can’t remember, like if we took different visitors to the same restaurant or if we saw the lady with the intense visor walking her dog in a stroller multiple days in a row. We use it like saying, what a coincidence that the same thing has happened again.
My grief is extremely “Time is a flat circle.” It’s been more than a year since Noah died, and I thought I would be able to read over things I wrote in the summer/fall after he died with some perspective. I even brought up a notebook from that time thinking I’ll find some tidbits from that time that I can reflect on. I am finding it really difficult actually, because I still feel kind of the same, fundamentally. I still wish I could be in the parallel universe where Noah is alive and well, thriving as an illustrator in New York and complaining about the L not being fixed. I can imagine our life pretty clearly, who we’d hang out with, what we’d be eating, what our apartment might look like. I still don’t like anyone nearly as much as I like Noah, despite many folks being extremely kind and generous and loving to me in the last year. I’m napping a lot, in Vermont, sitting on the dock in the sun, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain through the screens, looking for herons and loons and butterflies.
Despite the mindboggling beauty and the priviledge of having a place as nice as this to stay in, I’m feeling very unhappy that Noah isn’t here. It seems unnatural to me to be in a place where basically all of my memories of are tied to being with Noah. Noah introducing me to his extended family for the first time. Noah bringing me to a hike where we saw vultures flying around a cliff. Noah teaching me how to paddle properly on a canoe. Time is a flat circle except for the dead, even though we keep involving them in our observations and memories. When I see the light reflecting off the lake an hour or two before sunset and hitting the wild carrot flowers or the mist receding from the lake early in the morning, it doesn’t just remind me of last summer, but also all the summers Noah and I came up here to visit. And I think those scenes were happening in his childhood summers, and his mom’s childhood summers, and so on. Everyone still wants to eat as much corn as possible. Everyone still likes going on a “boat cruise” and swimming in the middle of the lake. Everyone still talks about walking around the lake and say “Good for you” if you do it.
I’ve been frustrated by Andy on Headspace for a while, because he keeps telling me to let go of the past, and that’s nuts to ask of someone in grief. Sometimes my wishful thinking takes over, and all I can think is I want Noah back and I want my life back. Sometimes I am really grateful, full of love for everyone and everything. Either way, there hasn’t really been a clear way for me. Its hasn’t felt “healing” in a way that you see in fictionalized versions of people’s lives. Time is a flat circle, in fun ways and agonizing ways.
To offset this unsatisfying feeling, please enjoy one of Noah’s funny tweets. I’m trying to save his feed because I’m worried that all of it is going to disappear one day (maybe soon?). Please let me know if you’ve successfully downloaded a whole feed!
Classic, also used in this sweet interview video of a man who’s been a mascot (Gunnersaurus) for 27 years, which obviously made me cry.
That’s all for now, Hitomi