Useless Landscape

So it's been a pretty miserable few weeks here, for both beautiful k and myself. There's lots to get past and I don't want to bother anyone with details, but this has been a painful thing. I keep telling myself that I'm a lucky person, that I live in a time and place of great luxury, that I'm not a Rwandan refugee, I'm not an Appalachian coalminer whose tour of duty in Iraq was just extended again. Life could be so much worse.

So while the landscape around me is bleaker than it used to be, I've got a landscape and I can still walk through it. k and I still talk a little nearly every day, and we are involved in each other's lives as good friends are. This is how things will be for the foreseeable future, learning to live with smaller dreams.

Our time as a couple was the most intense and glorious and transcendent of my life. I learned more about myself, grew into a better human being, connected with the rest of the world in a deeper and more meaningful way. As the song says, "they can't take that away from me."

I wish neither of us were hurting so much, but that's just a fact of life right now. I wanted to add my thanks to all of you readers over the past 16 months - this blog has been a place of great beauty and excitement, and I treasure all the connections we've made with a great bunch of readers and fellow writers. It's been a joy. Lovely k or I may post here from time to time, but it will likely be a sporadic thing.

Thank you all for coming along on the journey with us.