I Carry His Heart

October 24, 2017October 24, 2017 / Erica Herd / 7 Comments

Halloween was Lorin’s favorite holiday. He loved getting dressed up and greeting the neighborhood kids.

If Halloween fell on a weekend, we would get more inventive with our costumes since we weren’t getting home late from work.

On one such Halloween, Lorin dressed up as a hillbilly zombie or was it a “redneck” zombie? He was excellent with makeup from his years studying and working in the theater. He wore a torn flannel shirt, suspenders, old pants, hiking boots and carried a mixing bowl with blood (red food dye colored water) and eyeballs (fake, of course). He stirred the bowl with a wooden spoon while sitting on the stoop. He scared some kids, but one actually asked for an eyeball, much to his mother’s chagrin.

I dressed up as the “joker’s wife” (Heath Ledger’s Joker) in a housedress, torn knee-high stockings, big slippers, matted hair in a hairnet with rubber spiders in it, and white face paint with a jagged red smile.

We were quite the pair.

A neighbor took a photo of us, but I can’t find it.

I will miss Lorin at Halloween, as I do every holiday, and every day.

This poem is dedicated to him. I almost had my best friend read it at his memorial service, but I changed my mind. I would have preferred to have read it myself, but I wasn’t fit to do so.

i carry your heart with me

(by e.e. cummings)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Square Pegs Can Win

June 17, 2016June 17, 2016 / Erica Herd / 1 Comment

(google)

Ever feel like this?

Me too.

But, as my husband says, “Square pegs can win!”

We are both making a concerted effort to break out of the round holes and be our true selves, wherever that may lead. It’s never too late.

Those are my kernels of wisdom for the day.

Happy Friday, all!

The Tyranny of Gratitude

January 6, 2016 / Erica Herd / 17 Comments

ma's had these rubber floor mats for as long as I have a memory

(photo by Michael W. May)

I agree that gratitude is good. But the Happiness Pushers aren’t necessarily doing everyone a service. Some people are going through terrible hardships: the loss of a loved one, the incarceration of a loved one, a serious illness in the family, divorce. The list goes on and on. We can’t always be happy and “on” with bells jangling, lights beaming. So the Happiness Pushers become unwanted enforcers of levity, not merely optimists and cheerleaders.

With people suffering from depression or other mental disorders who don’t feel that sparkly all the time (myself included), the enforced happiness / gratitude attitude can simply wear us down, make us feel deficient and shamed–not at all a positive.

There is a time and place for everything, to everything a season. Your happiness can be my sadness, and conversely, your sadness, my happiness. I agree (most of the time) with the “fake it till you make it” mantra and other positive self-talk. I subscribe. But if I’m not beaming with joy all the time, please don’t try to make me feel bad about it. Ah, I almost caught myself saying “don’t make me feel bad about it” which would also make me co-dependent. Heaven forbid! Just trying to be real here.

And by the way, Happy New Year!

Paris is the City of Lights

July 12, 2015 / Erica Herd / 6 Comments

Towards the end of an episode of “The War,” a Ken Burns documentary on PBS, Mom said, “Paris is the city of lights,” with a gleam in her eye.

The men and women interviewed for this film were relating their experiences during WWII, when Mom was a young girl.

“Was Paris your favorite city?” I said.

“One of them.”

“Which other ones did you like?” I said.

“Vienna.” She had a dreamy look in her eyes.

“What about Haworth?”

“What?”

“Brontë country.”

“Yes, of course.”

Always a fan of books by the Brontë sisters, particularly Wuthering Heights, I assumed her favorite place in Europe would have been Yorkshire, England. She brought back a sprig of heather from the moors which she placed under the glass top of our antique coffee table, which is now in my house. She and my Dad traveled to Europe in 1972; it would be her only trip abroad. She kept a journal during that trip, jotting down her impressions. She used a delicate sprig of heather as a bookmark.

Her illustrated volume of Wuthering Heights from the 1940s was among the possessions that got ruined during Hurricane Irene. Most of her belongings were stored in our basement when we got flooded. She doesn’t know this, nor does she need to.

None of this matters anymore.

What matters is this moment, that she is happy recalling her time in Paris and Vienna, no matter how fleeting.

It makes me happy too.