ONE IN ALL AND ALL RETRIEVED

Some synchronicities let years go by before they prod us to notice them, imperceptibly at first then more emphatic each time till finally we retrieve them as parts of a whole: delightful morsels to be cherished when looking back at them through time.

One learning experience when out-of-body in the inner realm had me looking up at the horizon from where syllables and words came flashing down towards me and the idea was to make associations with them and between them. It was a challenge. I had always wondered about the origin of language and though this experience not only didn’t answer my questions but added many more it served to make me more aware. Words are worlds, I thought.

Take the word ‘retrieve’ and ‘Labre’, for instance. ears ago in Queens we talked about getting a dog. A golden retriever, maybe? Though that was our first choice we fell in love with a combination black Labrador retriever and German shepherd and took him home. Sometime in 1999 my friend Basha and I came back from feeding the ducks. I got out of the car on the passenger side and a big golden retriever led on a leash by a passerby jumped up at me, joyfully licking my face, a long lost friend who did not want to let me go. I was overwhelmed by this exuberant welcome, and the dog’s owner had to tug on his leash to get him away from me. That same evening my daughter brought me a stuffed animal, a golden retriever with knapsack from Old Navy. “He was so cute I just had to bring him to you,” she said. When I told her about my experience a little earlier in the day she couldn’t believe it. “He had the same face,” I told her. “It also was a golden retriever, but a big one.”

On April 22, 2002 I received a postcard from MRL: “Dear Ute, thanks for the new revised ‘O’s oh Holy! Sheep is filling up good now. Baa Bye, Love Madelon.” The card shows a photograph of an adorable golden retriever puppy just like the stuffed animal my daughter brought me three years before. As I’m looking at the card hear my husband’s gentle litany of Ute, Ute, Ute, Ute… and find myself answering him as I always do, “I’m right here, Haigaz,” or “I’ll be right there”. After some mini-strokes he’s bedridden for more than a year now. There he goes again, “Ute, Ute, Ute…” That’s when it hits me. I check my diary for the date. Here it is: On July 26, 2002 my daughter called me at 10:00 o’clock at night. “Mom, you know I’m finally reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, right?”

“Yeah, I know, why?””Well, listen to this:” And she proceeds to read from….. “Wow, really? Eight times? And it’s a retriever?”When my dear Haigaz passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday July 12, 2002 he was 98; I’m 71. Both ages sum to eight, which is also the sum of the 44 years we would have been married three days later on July 15. On the death certificate the prominent date is not the date of his death but the date of issue. Right on top it says boldly: July 15, 2002, which would have been our 44^th wedding anniversary. Wow!Now where have I heard the word retrieve before? I’d written it myself when I wrote my poem Land of What.