That's how many CD's I found around the house. 395 that constitute Mike's collection.  That's an ironic number.  We almost decided to get divorced one time, and then we changed our minds.  This was back in 2000.  And one of his requests for me, in getting us back together, was that I limit the number of books in my book collection to 400.

When I tell people that story, they kind of gasp, politely.  Knowing how much I love books, they're probably thinking that the request probably pissed me off, but it didn't.  I could see the logic of it.  It was just a matter of how much crap we have room for.  And really, I can get along with that many books.  I gave the rest away, and it was fun in the way that giving is fun.  So anyway, there he is with his 395 CD's.  Right in the ballpark.  Fair is fair, I guess.   He used to read a lot, but diabetes robbed his beautiful eyes, and he couldn't curl up in bed and read anymore for several years.  Wow.  If that happened to me, I don't know what I'd do.  To be honest, I'd probably order a Kindle from Amazon and crank that baby up to size 42 font, and TRY to read, because, you know, it's reading!  For goodness sake!  I was going to get him a Kindle for his birthday, maybe.  He loved gadgets. 

So, in reality, that's 395 times that I picked up a CD, read the title and artist, assigned a genre and found a date, so I could enter this info on a Excel spreadsheet, because I'm giving most of them away, because about 90% of them aren't my musical cuppa tea, and that means 395 times I thought something like, "Oh, I remember that.  Oh."  And this yearning of the heart that things are now as they were then, but they will not be.  Not that things were always so good back then, but because those things were part of his life, and I wish he were still here to live it. 

...we roll over over over over maybe goin' downhill (shit) or uphill (who needs the workout?) or just, you know, sittn' there, and we're sayin' "What's up, guys?"  And every day is like that.  There's all these wonderful things,                     sometimes totally overwhelming, but who cares? 

The water has to come from some place.  If we're lucky, it's this big, awesome river, but sometimes it's the garden tap.  Sometimes it's fucking nowhere and we die of thirst, and find ourselves in God's hands sipping the purest stream water of the Alps.

we gotta roll or crawl or run to that spigot.  As long as we can find one, we're here.  

The miracle, I suppose is to find the reason to drink. 

Today we said the word "goodbye," and left his ashes here.   This is where he asked to be, when it would become necessary to part our ways. 

is so sweet.  We share a day together.  How much can we love each other and all of Life today?  I feel so deeply grateful for the opportunity of today.  Thank you for sharing this breath, this heart beat of Earth, this longing, this great affection growing through each leaf and each root, today.

occur when we just naturally grow, and as created stuff gets bigger and pushes forward, life gets really complex.  One thing encounters another.  Which way will you go?  This way or that?  Will we touch?  Or remain nearby? 

Why judge it all.  Some branches thrive, some don't.  

It came to me so clearly today.

Our feelings, emotions, thoughts, fantasies, even worries
occuring at and via our own level of consciousness
can be made concrete
through our actions that are based
on our perceptions through our consciousness.

since the movie was made. 

Finally, Max says to me, "Mom, have you ever seen Apocolypse Now?"

And I said, "No, it's one of those that I haven't seen."

I missed a lot of shit in the middle there.  Of life.  Somehow.  Partly because of working, and partly because of having my face in books, and partly because of being somewhat submersed in other cultures, more or less.  Etc.

Now I'm thinking that most of us just stumble through life like that.  It would work out ok, but there are some folks who are highly motivated to go after power over others.  Why?

"Do you want to see it?"

"Sure!"

So we watched it together.  It took two days, basically.

Boy, ya know, I've really never been so depressed about the world.  The movie really makes a point.  Honestly, I wish I'd seen it before Bush the 2nd's Iraq war.  But knowing what I know now, with everything that's happened, well... 

Still, I see hope for us in our hearts, somehow.  I don't know how, but somehow. 

When I was a kid, all required gratitude could fit on to a pretty little paper like that.  Even if I didn't feel gratitude, the drill was to write about it.

Dear Aunt Prissy,

Thank you for the pretty socks.  They will look nice with my shoes.  Thank you very much.

Love,
Martha

And this would take HOURS. 

Making my kids do something similar was even worse.  I really sympathized with them when they cried about it.  Why not just let them say "thank you" over the phone?  So I did.  Feeling guilty about it, I did that.  I felt I was breaking a longstanding rule with some moral significance.  But since I couldn't determine what that moral significance was, I changed the play book.

But I went back to the little squares of paper (although they don't like quite like the one above) to express thanks to those who helped our family during our recent hard times.  I suppose it's a case of stress, necessity, and the path of least resistance.  It was necessary for me to put gratitude into writing.  I'm glad there is a socially accepted form for doing this, because if there weren't, I'd have to invent one.  And what will my children do?  I'll have to let them figure that out.