Halloween 2006

It's a perfect fall day. I am picturing you sitting in your garden, reading and napping. I wish I were with you.

I love you. W

What is this woman looking at?
Dear Susie,
I don't even know who took this photograph, but it is one of my favorites of you, and of our relationship. You look very happy, and I am sure that if it had been taken from the opposite angle you would see the same adoring and loving look on my face.
I love you.
Wray

Appointment at Ashley

When I went into Johns Hopkins for cancer surgery almost a year ago, I took along only one book, to read in my couple days of hospital recuperation. It was John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra. I didn't know anything about the book, and had never before read an O'Hara novel. I can't even recall why I picked that book to read at that time.

I didn't read Appointment in Samarra in the hospital. I was way too drugged up, on both painkillers and Librium and Ativan. I was also too confused and upset, because my surgeon had just confronted me with my alcoholism and I knew the game was up and I was going directly into rehab at Father Martin's. When I checked into Ashley, they confiscated the O'Hara book, which pissed me off. I hated that invasion of my privacy. I hadn't learned yet that there was not much privacy at Ashley.

After a few days, I noticed that people were reading books, but only books related to addiction recovery and spiritual growth. I had no interest in those, but I was interested in the turquoise-covered book that a dozen or so people were reading, called A Million Little Pieces. I tried to get the PSAs to get me a copy in town, but they said no. They were not confiscating the copies already there, they explained, but they were not allowing anyone else to bring a copy in. The book, a memoir of alcohol recovery at Hazelden, was very anti-AA, and therefore considered borderline contraband.

I decided to smuggle in a copy for myself. I was making periodic trips back to Hopkins for medical followup. I rode in the van and was always under the watchful eye of an Ashley driver, but on the next trip, while he was parking the van, I ran to the hospital store and bought a copy of A Million Little Pieces. I tucked it in my pants, snuck it into Ashley, and read it, then passed it on to another recovering alcoholic. Although we all learned later that the memoir was largely fabricated, I still found it inspirational, and think about it even today. It was an important milestone in my recovery.

That's the only book I read at Ashley. When I checked out they returned my belongings, including a (now empty) flask and my copy of Appointment in Samarra. I didn't read the novel right away, but about a month later (I was unemployed and had plenty of time on my hands) I picked it up and read it through. I was surprised to find that it is about a seriously decomposed alcoholic, who basically drinks himself to death in the final chapter. I doubt that the PSAs at Ashley even knew this when they seized the book.

The prelude to Appointment in Samarra is a brief anecdote by W. Somerset Maugham, which reads (I'm paraphrasing):

A wealthy merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market to buy food. While there, he was jostled in the crowd by a woman, and he returned home pale and shaken. He told his master, I encountered Death in the marketplace, and she threatend me. Please give me your fastest horse so I might ride to Samarra tonight and escape Death. So the merchant gave his servant a fast horse, and he rode off. The merchant himself went to the marketplace the next day, where he confronted the woman: Why did you threaten my servant? he demanded. She seemed taken aback and replied, I did not threaten him, I was just surprised and confused to see him in the Baghdad marketplace yesterday, since I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Dear Susie,

Thank you for knowing to drive in the right direction.

Do it again soon and often please.

Love, W

Meandering along the C&O Canal

Dear Susie,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here when Ian and I got home, for providing wonderful comfort food, for walking along the canal, for pouring olive oil in a Courvoisier glass, for finding me at three in the morning, for a serene Sunday afternoon nap . . .

I love you.

Wray

So, my right hand, your left?

Megan and Travis's Wedding Day, October 13, 2006

Our first Herbert gathering, our first wedding, our first hotel room, our first dance . . . .

PICK ME.



CHOOSE ME.


LOVE ME.

The Song in My Head
October 5, 2005

The other night, dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear
I was mistaken
And I held my head and I cried.

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.

This song has been in my head since you sang it to me last night, and I can hear my mother sing it. This was also one of the songs we had on 78rpm records, along with Frank Sinatra's Same Old Saturday Night and Pat Boone's Love Letters in the Sand.

You are my sunshine. Thank you. XOW

"May I share your hooks?"

Dover Beach*

"The sea is calm tonight. . . . The cliffs of England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window! . . .

"Ah, love, let us be true to one another! . . . we are here as on a darkling plain, Swept with the confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignornat armies clash by night."

*This reminds me of reading to one another on Friday, one of my favorite memories of yet another blissful weekend with you.

SHELTER

Thunder
Don't go under the sheets
Lightning
Under a tree
In the rain and snow
I'll be your fireside

Come running to me
When things get out of hand
Running to me
When it's more than you can stand

I said I'm strong
Straight
Willing
To be a shelter
In a storm
Your willow
Oh willow
When the sun is out
--Joan Armatrading



I'd live in a tent with you.
--Susie Miosi