Lost should mean "able to be found". But not always.

We lost Elaine today. She was expecting a child, so the loss was exceptionally difficult for most of us to conceive. Each soul still surviving in these days is a blessing, and a new birth is cherished above all else. To lose any is a devastating truth none of us wishes to accept.

A fever had swept in overnight and put three to bed in hours. Our medical focus was, for obvious reasons, on the children first. Peter suggested we make a separate camp for the weakest members of our group; it was the first "quarantine" since we left our "lives" behind, months ago.

Because two of the children are mine, I was asked to help at the quarantine camp with others. Peter stayed at the main camp to attend the sick, of course. Elaine and child were the only ones lost in the end, helped by Peter's quick thinking to isolate low immune systems from exposure immediately.

The void of Elaine's presence lingers still, almost a fortnight since her passing. Quieter evenings, less laughter, but I witness hints of healing grow in number with each rising sun. And we have grown more aware again of the risk we face with disease, in this new world of without many of the pills we once took for granted to save the day.

At least we have Peter, a former physician's assistant. He has blessed our wandering community with his decent mind for diagnosis, knowledge of many prescriptions and some surgical experience. I do not think so many of us would have survived without him.

He has truly stepped into a leader, a role he seems to only begrudgingly accept. But I believe those who wish it least tend to achieve much. Yet I wonder, do we make him our leader because he is so essential to us as our doctor, or because he is actually the wisest choice to lead. Does one guarantee the other? Are they even related?

Perhaps we put in him our hopes for a future, to survive and one day flourish in this new world we are discovering. For without him, such hopes darken in fear. With him, destiny's chance to manifest can yet again be a dream.

I suppose it is, as anything, a mix of many such reasons. His skill, his demeanor, his strength, and belief that a doctor's purpose is to "fix", that feed our confidence in him. Footsteps I have grown to have faith in following.

And often, as is Peter's way, to create my own directly beside.

scents & stews

I often wonder what the others are thinking. Distant thoughts of what "should have been" or "could have come"; flashback nostalgia as so often I have had? Set into swing by subtle smell or melodic muse?

I reminisce of the days when my daughter was very young. Mists of music from her bedtime CD flicker past my present. I hum as I walk. I am anything but alone in this habit now, but memory makes me question just how common such practice was, before.

There are smells I miss the most. Billowing clouds drenched in laundry tides, folding up into cold air from a dorm or apartment building basement. The smell of bubble bath seeped in hot steam, trapped within the borders of bathroom porcelain and tile. Most of us would give just about anything for a hot bath these days, well, except perhaps the cherished and now rare cup of coffee. I doubt THAT smell will ever disappear from most human's desires, at least in my lifetime.

But here we reside, in this new life of ours, be it what it may. Discovering new scents and stews, planting new seeds of memory, regardless of our former selves or stories. Desperately trying to believe survival to be a blessing, regardless of all that's been, and of all that we each know is still yet to be.

But, without work, hands are idle; without strife, struggle no purpose. Without memory, no comparison grown for joy, for pride to achieve.

And I still have my daughter, though as young as in my memories she'll never again feign to be. For more reasons than years on earth, bittersweet to admit. Yet I can still sing to her the lullabies of that long lost bedtime CD, and somehow, even now, it can be of comfort to us both.

They never told me just what to write, only to "keep track". I often wonder if to some that meant keeping only dates of births and deaths, of landmarks, successes and failures along the road, like the cover of a Bible on a shelf. To others, I imagine it meant to record the minutes as if in a corporate meeting, so that all moments be not lost, all conversations searchable later, and nothing forgotten.

I myself "keep track" simply by this, committing my inner thoughts and observations to paper, for so long as such parchment survives in this world.

I write with no expectation that my words should last "forever", though I believe some I travel with assume falsely that they will. Has this lesson in our smallness, our insignificance, gone unlearned to many even still? That nothing we as "humans" do will ever remain for eternity, except perhaps our own inner evolutions, as that is probably the only thing we can truly pass down through our generations of procreation, an evolution of creation.

Perhaps we now move on so slowly, so consistently, so sorrowfully yet hopefully onward, to a new creation. Perhaps these words really could survive at least long enough to remind us, once in our new home somewhere, how far we have come, what we have fought and defeated, and how even just a few of us remaining continues our whole species to continue to survive. Perhaps our evolution could not continue in the situation we had put ourselves in for so very long. Has history not taught that one must die to be reborn? And that this 'death' is not always the impending fearful end of our lives that we may think it is?

We have all died now. In one way or another. The death of 'normalcy'. The death of all we knew to be true for so very long. The death of our way of life, until recently. The death of loved ones, of routine, of government, of security, of stability. The death of what were our homes, up there in the now snow-covered north. Even the death of the weather and nature's patterns we thought we could so easily predict with our 'science'. Probably the same 'science' that messed it all up.

Now we walk and walk and walk. Like corpses suffering through the trials of the underworld, we walk. Onward, to our rebirths.

They asked me to be the one to keep a record, once the reality of "home' no longer being behind us, but somewhere ahead still, finally sank in.

I think they asked me to write it, as the only true baggage I carried out of our pasts were journals & newspapers that could one day remind us where we started, or where we ended, or both in one. No one ever asked me to read a word from my luggage, as if remembering so soon would still cut too deeply. But someday they will.

And we all seemed to agree that a record of our present journey ought be kept, though our reasons for such opinions surely did not.

in the beginning, there were but pieces...

The problem was water, so rare to find any safe enough to drink. So we kept moving, kept hoping the next place would be the spot. A place we could find all we need, to settle, safely. Hoping just maybe this time.

Walking for long periods of time can often lead to reflection. So for vast portions of time we walked in silence. Pairs and singles, carts and creatures, dogs, horses, even an alpaca.

There were children with us, of course, who, for the most part, kept together during the days, as children do.

The nights held singing; and now and then, should new love or new life be born, even dancing.

No matter how hard things seemed, or how tempting the idea of giving up became, suddenly the river of children would mob by in laughter, or rainbows after raging storms might fill the sky, and somehow tired bones lightened, heavy hearts lifted, just that little bit more to keep sore feet walking. Ever on. To water. To a new home.

in the habit of creeping
keeping
all my dreams
hidden in drawers
a pocketful of sores
that just won't be ignored
barely consciously endured
still i do.

were you planning on peeking
seeking
all my dreams
yet to unfurl
shower promises, shower pearls
but i'm not that kind of girl
yes it's known throughout the world
and you do.

in the everyday dancing
trancing
all my dreams
lie here in this
your tragic sacred kiss
fading softly into mist
how could lovers not exist
in such subtle sweet remiss
as we do.

the best idea
seems to appear
as yet to run
in such as some
with hearts as ours.

his subtle flowers
no longer empowered
to moralize
what's deepest prized
yet so despised
by hearts like ours.

in tomorrow's turns
we'll find what burns
in tethered lies
and sweet goodbye's
while forever tied
to hearts devoured
yes those hearts,
hearts
such as ours.

to nmh