I took a picture of the "shrine" I've erected on top of the bookcase. The center piece is the box holding Don's ashes. The other objects around it are representations of his life and our life together.
On top the the box that Rémy decorated are his reading glasses, a Buddha's head, and the snake pendant he liked to wear. I often think of that snake pendant as a representation of his sexuality. I think he said he liked to wear it to the Steamworks.
To the left of the box and behind it are the official death certificates. The background is printed in a rainbow of colors. I got several because some agencies insist on originals and some will accept photocopies.
The brown vase on the left is a wedding present. Leaning against it is a photo taken of Don and me at the Silicon Valley Gay Men's Chorus retreat last fall. Don is smiling into the camera, looking very happy, and I am smiling at him. I have just finished reading three of his poems to the Chorus and they are applauding and cheering his words.
In front of the picture are two colorful stones that Don kept on his alter in Bolinas and a three-metal ring I got for Don at the Afribean Festival a month ago.
In front of the box of ashes is a tiny wooden case with a gold-leaf embossed figure of Ganesha. Inside the box is a tiny lump of aromatic resin - I think it's myrrh. In front of the box is one of two small brass bowls that belonged to Don. I have filled it with a handful of pebbles from Pebble Beach near Pescadero. I will return the pebbles some day, I think, perhaps when my mourning is less in need of ceremonial and symbolic support.
On the right side of the box is a photo of Don and me taken the in June, 1998, before I began my Grand Adventure. We were just about certain that we were a couple and we were spending the weekend in the Russian River area with Curtis and Kirk at their friend Scott's house. The picture was taken at Armstrong Woods. It's the same picture I kept on my desk all during Don's illness. I made sure a similar photo stayed by Don's bedside in Santa Rosa and Kentfield, despite various attempts by persons unknown to remove it. If front of the photo are two more of the stones Don kept on his altar.
To the right of the box of ashes is a tall purple vase, the same one we bought on our shopping trip before my last birthday. Leaning against it is a photo (in a paper frame that Rémy made) of Don on a beach in the Florida Keys. The picture was taken by Lalitananda in November, 1998, less than a month before Don's hemorrhage. He had just successfully presented a paper at a conference in Dayton, Ohio, and it looked like his professional career was about to take off. It is this feeling of immanent success is what I think he was referring to when, lying in Kentfield, surrounded by the Contraption, and amid great suffering and distress, he said, "Pride goeth before a fall." Somehow, he thought his hemorrhage was a punishment for being - or for being about to be - successful. But here in this photo he is simply gleeful and free.
In front of the photo is "Don's brain," the rubber squeeze toy I got for him at the Linux conference. He was able to use that brain to express many states of mind that otherwise had difficulty squeezing through his "flattened affect": surprise, enthusiasm, doubt, worry, and affection. He often "kissed" me (and our car, the Beast) with it after being apart for the day.
These small things, these meaningful things.
A Shrine of Sorts
My 50th birthday is coming up. I had always thought it would be a time of peace and security for me, a cause for celebrating a life that was in its fullness. But I did not feel like celebrating. I felt introspective instead. I felt a need to re-ground myself.
In the past, when I've felt this way I've taken a weekend off and gone camping or on retreat somewhere, most often the Camaldolese monastery south of Big Sur. It was a little less than a year ago that Don suggested I go there for a weekend when I mentioned I was stressed out. I decided to go there again, and with the help of my friend Marc René, I got lodgings in one of the cells in the cloister.