BELTANE

Chris lingered around me all day Friday. If my brain wasn’t flashing back to memories of the two of us, it was thinking about the weeks that followed his death and the number of times I’d find myself crumpled into a sobbing mess. Then I’d start to wonder what he was thinking about the recent movies I’ve seen. How did he feel about the Bride!? What did he think about Project Hail Mary? What are his thoughts and notes on all the Star Wars things that have come out since his passing? I was fine as long as I was engaged in a task, but the minute I had brain space for myself, Chris was in it.

Maybe it had something to do with a full moon and Beltane.

I was supposed to attend a Beltane party at Jenn’s Friday evening, but once I was home I kind of deflated. Michael and the Cabbage were leaving to go to his school drama club lock-in. This meant I’d have the whole house to myself for the first time in ages. I could watch something on TV without someone interrupting to voice every thought that enters a brain. So I bailed on making a flower crown and dancing around a bonfire to be alone with my dog and the TV. The next day was spent all to myself too because there was no sleep at the lock-in. I cleaned the house and then ate some pot, spending the rest of the day lounging around. When Michael finally got up, he plopped back down on the couch and started playing Star Wars: A New Hope which felt weird. His usual TV noise is either the murder channel or baseball. This was Chris’s goto TV noise. But I sat there and watched, occasionally saying the lines along with the cast.

The next day, I decided to play an old Sting album I hadn’t listened to in ages. CBS Sunday Morning had just aired an interview with Sting and I sat there and remembered the years I spent crushing on that man. I owned all of the Police albums and all of Sting’s solo albums. I went to the Police reunion concert twice. When Mercury Falling came out, Chris and I drove up to Kansas to see him in concert. Tracy Chapman was the opener. I can’t truly remember when I set Sting aside and moved on to other artists. It might have been around the time he came out with that lute CD. Watching the interview on Sunday made me want to revisit Sting’s music. When Fields of Gold started playing, I almost told Alexa to skip that song. Michael was in the kitchen making his lunches for the week and I knew that he would ask me why I’d skip that song. I didn’t want to explain how that song, that whole album, was playing when I lost my virginity. I didn’t want to say how that song puts me right back into Chris’s dorm room with the two of us on his twin sized bed, the lights turned down low. Some times that song can even bring back the old musty smell of that room.

Finally it’s Monday, but it’s May the 4th. It’s basically a nerd pride holiday and of course I am wearing a Star Wars t-shirt. Except I don’t know if I put it on knowing the date or if it is just a shirt I grabbed from the drawer. I don’t know if I put it on because I was being nudged. Any way. It’s been weird around here.