stronger than the wind in the willow tree

so today is maia's second anniversary, well anniversary, what does that mean? part of me wants to say birthday, i mean i guess technically it is a birthday but it is a death day too. some people say her second birthday in heaven, i am not so sure about that. sometimes when things like this happen people start believing more in the idea of heaven and sometimes i wish that was me. but mostly i don't. mostly i only see it for that which it is and not that which it could be. but i guess that is me.

there is something weird about days like today, this expectation or anxiety or something darker. i felt like i should do something important, something significant enough to give the day meaning. fill balloons with messages and release them out over the forest, put my thoughts in a bottle and toss it off a cliff into the strait, bake a cake and spend hours decorating it, making it just right. but the thing about all of this is that although in my head it seems profound i know that in the moment it would only seem empty. because there is nothing that would do the trick, no word, no action, no single moment that could properly represent such an important thing. the process is ongoing, today is just one more day in the line of days it took to get here. but still there had to be something, staying home didn't seem right either.

last night we were up late, me because i was feeling sick, marko because he always is. i woke at 2am with a stomach ache and so the two of us sat up in the dark drinking blackberry tea, looking at pictures on photo.net and talking with the fish. it was closer to six when we finally fell back asleep and when we woke up at noon, groggy but happy to see the blue sky and sun shining in our window, we were still unsure of what we wanted to do.

as it turns out we decided sometime around 3 to go rent a car and head out to steveston to take some pictures, spend the time together outside. we ended up eating fish and chips on the dock with the sun on our faces, wind at our back. looking at all the old fishing boats and talking back to the seagulls as we worked our way along the pier. cohen liked the sun and kicked at it reminding us of all the things we have to look forward to. i am beginning to think he is getting anxious to get out.

as part of our tradition we picked up a cake on the way home and in a bit i will make some coffee. we will probably spend the night on the couch watching koyaanisqatsi and then we will sleep and tomorrow we will wake up and it will be another day and we will still remember.

so happy birthday maia, although i am not sure you are in a place called heaven i do know that you will always be here with us.