Baby, You’re Just a Click Away

Nancy and her camera

It’s been two, baby
Two years since
You went away…

Yet it feels just like yesterday. And I still miss you like it was yesterday. But I’m getting better everyday. Now, I have to say, I still find myself shedding tears (tears that will be around forever, I’m thinking) but the deep intense bone and soul searing emotional pain that wore on me for so many months has faded away. I’m learning to be at ease with my sweet and precious memories of you, giving way to the poetry in the imagery that comes to me, like a click from your camera, to play on your photography.

Like this very moment, a moment in which I’m about as horny as a 73 year old man can be (so what else is new, sez you), I’m visualizing you on the first day we played tennis, in those cut off levi jeans. Lord, have mercy, girl, you looked so fine I wanted to scream then you started serving blinding aces and you found corners and lines and suddenly two driven competitors are in a dogfight having a good time and I was in a state of ecstasy and I’ve never recovered from that day in our history.

I see you weaving your magic with those children at the school, packing them in your van like sardines, like the clown car act in a circus routine, off to the tide pools or to a woody park or to the snow, showing them a world that was good to know. Ummm, a woman with as much soul as sex appeal. If you were here I’d cop a feel. You-were-the- real-deal.

And now, the camera clicks away: I can barely make you out swimming in the distance at the Cove or the Shores or the Bay; from leftover scraps scavenged from the fridge you’re creating a gourmet delight that we swallow with a nice bottle of wine on a “Date Night,” always a delightful night; we’re walking down a busy noisy street, wondering why all eyes are on us and then we realize we’re in the Disneyland Parade with Mickey Mouse looking like he wanted to call security – was that not the weekend of a lifetime; we’re lying in bed for an extra hour in the morning because our girls, not yet a year old, are entertaining themselves in their cribs in the other room, speaking in “twin tongues” and laughing like people at a Richard Pryor Concert and we’re cracking up just digging it all, another beautiful day getting underway, one of many in the three years we took off from our careers; Carlos tells us to take the training wheels off his bike after riding to the corner and back. And then he rides to the corner again like he had ridden a bike in a prior life and then comes back to the house with his feet on the handlebars talking about: “Look, mom! Look, dad! No hands!” And I was thinking: “Should I hide the car keys.”

Click: You with a camera in front of your eye, framing visions that make one sigh, on land or on the sea, divining what can only be defined as natural beauty with a touch of artistry; the camera an extension of your very self, a source of your well being.

I could go on and on with such reveries as we had a rich life, baby, so many good times, so many laughs. But I mainly just wanted to express that I’m on a nice path to healing, so pleased with the reality that out of all my misery, there has emerged a new day, that I’m free to embrace you in any way I can, realizing that although you’re gone, delightful remembrances of you are just a click away. That soothes my heart and soul today.