For No One

It’s been a long summer, and I am tired.  I can’t believe I can even use that word, “tired.”  It took on a whole new definition during the years we owned the restaurant.  Can it really describe what I am now experiencing—a relatively mild weariness of body and soul that is actually a hill compared to the depths of the chasm of exhaustion I lived in continually for five years?  But still…I’m tired.

The husband and I have been spending much of what might have been our free time, out and about with Café de la Rue…trying to get ourselves back to some sense of economic equilibrium.  I was preparing to reward us with a big, fat pat on the back, as we seemed to be not just getting along, not just tolerating each other, but actually becoming friends again.  And then August happened.

Lots of running around, lots to do, lots of “fun” to cram in between the responsibilities, producing the slightest nudge of stress on our tenuous connections…and they frayed apart.  They were not strong enough, yet, to withstand any sort of test.  And with that episode came the sure conviction that our relationship will never be “healed.”  It will never be what it once was—whatever that was.  I actually didn’t even know that was what I was hoping for.  I should have known better.  At any rate, when it became obvious that was not happening, it laid me pretty low for a couple of days.

It’s hard when you know, you KNOW, that you have come far from the awful place you had got to…and you see it has really made no difference to the people you hurt, caused no healing to the relationships you damaged, when you were in that awful place.  I think I get, now, why so many people just go on through life without looking back, without taking responsibility, without apologizing for their mistakes.  Because, in the end, it doesn’t make any difference.  It doesn’t heal any wounds.  It doesn’t change any minds.  It doesn’t polish your tarnished image.  It doesn’t bring back any lost love.

It just gives you false hope.

Still, I came to realize…I had to do it.  I had to heal, had to change.  I couldn’t not, if only for my own sake.  I had to take responsibility for the hurt I had caused, and apologize for it.  I know that I can get pretty oblivious…become so wrapped up in my own issues and my own pain that I don’t pay any heed to how my behavior may be affecting the people around me.  But I DO get it, eventually.  And I do let it convict me, and I do try to go back and do some damage control.  My fatal flaw, I guess.  Better to remain mindful and not do the damage in the first place.  But apparently, that is a lesson I have never learned.  And my life has been defined by that.  I leave a trail of destruction behind me…and then I have the bad fortune to look back and regret it. 

How does one go forward, now, with this knowledge?  My first reaction was to just…give up.  Why should I try…why should I work on undoing the damage I’ve wrought, why should I put out any emotional effort at all, when in the end, it makes no difference to anyone?  It changes nothing.  I wanted to sharpen up my porcupine spines, roll up in a ball and DARE anybody to touch me.  And maybe I would even pluck out some of those sharp spines and throw them at people once in a while, just for the pleasure of sharing my pain with them. 

But that wouldn’t do, would it?  I’ve worked hard for four and a half years to put that angry, lonely, stressed and hopeless person back in her box and keep a lid on her.  Nobody liked that person.  I didn’t like that person.  I don’t want to be her again.  It makes no sense to let her back out just because I’ve discovered that the people I love are never going to forgive me for letting her out in the first place.

Even if nobody else cares who I am any more…I care.  And if nobody else forgives me, it’s that much more important that I forgive myself.  Because how can you keep going forward—and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that life is a forward journey—if you don’t?

So forward I will go.  With no expectations of changing anyone but myself.  Which is a lesson well learned, I think.    

Forty Years In

Well, now I know.

"Love"--who even knows what it means, in the context of two people attempting a lifelong journey in it--isn't constant, or dependable, or stable, or never-changing.

And not, sadly, everlasting.

Once it goes away, it does not come back.  At least, not in the form it was in when it left.

Forty-year love is more glue than magnetism...   The irresistible attraction that came over us at the beginning of the journey has changed over time to steel  fibers of shared history, rendering us inseparable.  The romance is gone...the interdependency is everything.

After 40 years of everything that the lives of two people can throw at it--even two "normal", boring, traditional and unadventurous people like my husband and me--the thing that binds us bears little resemblance to the awesome power that drew us together in the first place.    

And I have found that forgiveness does not seem to be a part of this old love.

I thought it could be.  Who doesn't want to believe that love, once chased away, can be brought back, good as new?  Who doesn't think that if you've angered or disappointed the one you love, all it will take is a little change here, a little backtracking there, to make it all better and get back to the love (you thought) you always had?

But, no...  That's not what happens.  There is, apparently, no going back. 

There are only moments of clarity--shocking moments, heart-wrenching moments--when you look at this misshapen, stained, worn and tattered thing that you have between you, that was once new and bright and fierce...and you see it for what it is. 

And you either fold it up, put it back in your heart and keep going...

...or you decide it's not enough to keep you going anymore. 

For now...

It's enough.   

I Can't Make You Love Me

...Or Not

Looks, after all, like I am not "home."  And looking more and more like I never will be.

I think...

...I give up. 

On Reaching the End of Another Decade #2

Sunsets are part of the addiction for those of us who love our Oregon coast.  Sometimes, like Thursday night, the sun merely disappears unremarkably into the gray swirl of offshore mist.  Other times, when the sinking molten orb strikes the right combination with clouds floating above the western horizon, the results are breathtaking...magical.

Last night was such a night.  I grabbed my camera and ran outside.  But it soon became obvious that my location--far from the sea and east of a wide expanse of golf course--was not going to produce anything remarkable in the way of sunset pictures (of which I have a jillion.). So I wandered back into the kitchen and set my camera down, prepared to turn my attention to the next vacation activity.

But something made me stop short, turn around and head back out the door.  I didn't want to be inside...not yet.  I wanted to watch the sunset, not necessarily take pictures of it. I am an incorrigible photographer, and sometimes the camera gets between me and the experience I'm trying to record.  So I crept back outside, away from the general vacation hubbub, found a cozy seat on the front porch steps, where the concrete was still warm from the eight-hour onslaught of afternoon sun, sat down, and just...watched.  

And in the back of my mind grew a thought...that on this, my milestone birthday weekend, perhaps the Creator had something to show me this evening in the darkening night sky.  Surely I could even boldly ask for a message...a sign.  Perhaps in the form of one of the bird spirits upon whom I have come to depend.  My mind formed the request, though not in actual words, not like a prayer.  It was communication much deeper than words.  More like an inner nod, acknowledging that I had requested and the Creator would answer.

Time seemed to slow as the kaleidoscope that was the sunset sky turned, the colors simultaneously deepening and brightening.  Gold to glowing peach to scarlet to deep red to pink, each color, each change never seeming to begin or end, and yet the changes came and went.  It was a long, drawn out show, so lovely and so surprising in its variation and length.  From time to time I would sneak a peek above my head to see if the Creator had yet sent the message I had requested.   After a time, I lost patience (surprise) and complained petulantly, "You haven"t sent me that sign I asked for...!"

To which the Universe replied, "What about this magnificent sunset?  Isn't that enough for you?"

Chastened, I returned my attention to the light show on the western horizon. 

By and by, the message that the Creator had for me dawned as the last light of the sun faded from the sky, on what I had convinced myself was the last day before the beginning of my own personal sunset.

"Sunsets are beautiful.  They can surprise, and they can enchant.  As they reach their finish, they wring every last bit of loveliness from every last ray of sun before it disappears below the horizon.  And that can take a surprisingly long time.

"And then...

"...the stars come out."

On Reaching the End of Another Decade #1

So here I am, sitting on a cheap plastic adirondack chair, on the crumbling pad of concrete that serves as a patio in the back yard of a vacation cottage in one of the tonier areas of the Oregon coast. Apparently the owners would like renters to imagine that the shabbiness of the place elevates it to the level of "kitsch."  The little one level, lap-sided house squats on its lot along a block otherwise populated by shingled cottages with steep shake roofs, colonnaded verandas and gabled attics...like a toadstool in a forest of stately pines.  But it has no wish to fade into the background and be unnoticed, here in its old age.  In this row of younger, shapelier homes clad in trendy, weather-worn shingles of the upscale coastal resort, our little cottage is painted unabashedly...orange.

Sitting here writing this, I am of course struck by what a metaphor this little house is for ME...my life and the realities thereof, on the eve of my 60th birthday.  I have to admit, I admire the pluck of this little place.  I wish I could apply some of it to my own appearance issues--the sagging face, the turkey neck, the work-worn hands, the slouching posture.  My hair has become such a disaster that I have seriously considered shaving my head and having my scalp tattooed with intricate, colorful paisleys and flowers.  

I've never been pretty...on my best days, pleasant-looking has been the highest standard to which I could aspire.  And I have been okay with that, and with enhancing my appearance with a certain flair for the dramatic that has kept me distinct from the wallflowerish background into which I would have otherwise been destined to fade.  But over the past decade or so, I've struggled to keep up with the physical changes of my aging body.  Presentable on my best days has begun inexorably sliding into cronishness.  I never minded not being beautiful...never gave it much thought, actually.  And yet, I seem to be having a rough time accepting ugliness.   Why can I not celebrate it, wear it like a badge of honor, like this dumpy little mid-century cottage in which I'll sleep the last few nights before my big 6-0, proudly sporting its peeling orange paint and crumbling concrete?

I'm pretty sure I have at least a couple more posts on this subject swimmimg around, bound to come out in the next couple of hours/days...

Proud

The Fourth of July is creeping up on us again.  It’s always an uncomfortable time for me, because I am so allergic to the concepts of patriotism, nationalism, flag-worship and glorification of the military that move to the front and center of our national consciousness on that day.  In recent years…oh, since the onset of the Bush Administration, I’d say…I have taken particular exception to crows of “I’m PROUD to be an American!!!”, and their accompanying  tacit accusations that you are a Communist, Socialist, Nazi, traitor, heathen or demon if you disagree.

Why should I be any more proud to be an American than I am of having brown hair, brown eyes, long legs or pleasant features?  I may be fortunate to be beautiful, or white, or of European heritage, or American-born. But these are happy accidents of birth.  How can I be proud of things I did nothing to achieve?  Naturalized American citizens may be proud to be Americans.  They wanted it.  They worked for it.  They achieved it.  But those of us who were born here?  Not so much. 

So the whole idea of being “proud to be an American” is, to me, semantically erroneous.   The correct statement might be:  “I’m proud of America.”  Which I would be happy to declare from the highest rooftop.

If it were true.

That being more the source of my peevishness at the concept than my grammatical objection to the way it’s expressed.

For weeks, my mind has been grumbling over the seeds of an Independence Day rant, one that enumerated all of the very obvious reasons why I am NOT, currently, proud of my home country; and why no one else should be, either.  A Do-Nothing Congress.  The 2016 GOP Presidential Clown Show.  Shamelessly expanding income inequality.  Ferguson.  Baltimore.  Open-carry fanatics toting AR15’s around on the streets.  A black child shot to death for possession of a toy gun.  A neo-Nazi white kid treated to Burger King after his arrest for murdering nine black people in cold blood. 

Should we be proud of all that?  Good god, it’s all I can do not to pack my bags and leave.  But what country would have us?  Who wants to start taking in streams of disgusted, disappointed, disaffected refugees from the American moral wasteland?  We must be something akin to human toxic waste.  Nope.  We’re stuck here, god have mercy on our souls.

So there’s that…but I hadn’t quite got round to articulating all that when last week happened.

When news out of the current Supreme Court session began blowing across this wasted land like a fresh breeze.

When the highest court in the land proved its mettle and rose up to the sacred duty entrusted to it by the framers of the Constitution--that document of which so many in this country are so woefully ignorant; that sacred manual for democracy which the charlatans would cherry-pick like the bible, billboarding the parts that serve their purposes, sweeping under the carpet the parts that do not.

It’s times like this that we get a sense of the great, scholarly wisdom of our Founding Fathers; that we understand the genius of the three branches of government, of the concept of checks and balances, of the delicate tightrope walk of ensuring that no one division of the federal government has more power than the other two.  What a monumental task, for these men to erect the framework of a government the like of which the world had never seen.  What insight they had to call upon, what comprehension of the strengths and the weaknesses of human nature.  What understanding they possessed of the lure and danger of political power, and yet, of the capacity for human cooperation and accomplishment.

This group of learned 18^th-century political zealots hammered together a government that still works, in spite of all the ways we have tried to sabotage it over the years.  This time around, the Supreme Court came to the rescue, reinforcing the lines that an out-of-control political movement may not cross.  We may not protect bigotry and moral decay under the mantle of “states rights.”  We may not deny civil rights to any group just because we don’t like them, or we don’t agree with them, or they are not like us.  It was not okay back in 1954 under Brown v Board of Education.  And it is not okay now. 

In this upside down, contentious country, this heaving mass of conflicting theories, where right is wrong and lies are truth, and we are all daily invited to choose our own realities, and where the hapless Legislative Branch of our federal government has exploited every human foible and dragged us to the brink of economic and moral ruin, the Supreme Court stood up among the chaos and quietly reaffirmed that upon which our country was founded:  That all Americans are created equal, and the blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were established for all Americans. 

Should we be proud of all that?

You’re damned right we should.   

     

Vive la Difference? Not a Chance...

For the last thirty days, the "liberal" side of American media have been preaching the "Caitlyn Jenner" gospel--that all good folks of progressive and/or liberal persuasion embrace and admire Jenner for her very public transition. That Jenner identified as female and finally took steps to transition to that reality was to be looked upon as normal, even brave, and not to be criticized in any way. I personally was nearly kicked out of the club because I dared articulate my dislike for the name Jenner chose.

Now, we are all being admonished to vilify Rachel Dolezal. How dare she identify as something other than how she was born, and take steps to live in that reality? What right did she have to actually become a political activist among the people with whom she chose to identify? What kind of flaming nutcase would disrespect the uncrossable lines we've drawn  in our society and think she could actually get away with "passing" for something she wasn't? Seriously...a white woman passing for black? She must be crazy, evil, or at the very least, calculating and opportunistic.

The polar opposite presentations of the two stories--Jenner's and Dolezal's--are a perfect demonstration of how far, indeed, we have NOT progressed as a species. We have a long, long way to go when it comes to breaking down barriers erected by a society with an irresistible tendency toward creating and maintaining divisions between people based upon gender, race, economic status, religion, ethnicity, and any other trait that might make us different from one another. 

Progressive?  Not so much...

Keeping It To Yourself...Just a Thought

I just watched a video posted by a breast cancer patient, in which a good 30% of the time was spent mentioning the things that breast cancer patients do not want to hear. 

The longer I travel on this earth, the more people I meet who have had some kind of tragedy or trauma or catastrophe beset them on their own journeys.  Let’s face it…life is full of those things.  Illness.  Death.  Disaster.  Accidents.  Most of us who have reached a certain age have had fires to walk through. 

But it seems to be a current fad, this getting angry at people for saying the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing, or stepping outside the bounds of what any given individual believes are the “correct” ways for others to express condolence or support. 

Maybe it’s just a new way for the aggrieved to express the first stage of grief:  Anger.  There is this anger, and nowhere to go with it.   The popular choice these days seems to be to inflict that anger on “outsiders…”—the folks who may have been part of one’s immediate circle before the tragedy, but now find themselves hopelessly separated from the person in pain by the very fact that the tragedy has not happened to them. 

But, it occurred to me, it doesn’t seem like my parents’ generation carried all this angst around about the bad things that happened to them.  And I think it was because certain things were just…private.  One did not speak of inconsolable grief.  They gritted their teeth and kept going (most of the time) because that is what their society expected.  And I don’t think I’m out of line by saying it’s likely our parents suffered a lot more than we do now—losses and illnesses and tragedies that we think of as extinct. 

Somewhere along the line, our generation decided it was “not healthy” not to express grief.  That, basically, we should feel free…no, not even “free,” more like obligated, to cry and wail and gnash our teeth as publicly as possible.  And that’s fine, I guess…to a point. 

But we seem to have forgotten that if we express something in public, we need to expect a reaction.  And we can’t necessarily dictate what that reaction will be.  So, maybe the reason our parents were private with their suffering was twofold:  Maybe they didn’t want to burden their friends and acquaintances; maybe they wanted to spare them the uncomfortable task of attempting to console the inconsolable. 

And maybe they didn’t want to burden themselves with the act of filtering the comments of their poor, bumbling, well-meaning friends.  Better not to have things coming at you that you would need to let bounce off, when you barely have the strength to get up in the morning, much less field well-meaning mis-speech. 

So maybe…maybe the answer, in our say-everything, do-anything 21^st century culture is to just…

Not. 

Sometimes, silence is enough.

Seasons

Spring and its rowdy successor, Summer, are threatening to catch and overtake me again.  At this stage of my life, I can’t relate to all the bursting forth, all the fecundity, all the “here-today-gone-tomorrow-ness” of the seasons of light and life.  By the time I’m thinking about strawberries, the apples are ripening.  As I begin to lose myself in the beauty of irises, they brown and fade in favor of daylilies, which then disappear before I have turned my eyes fully in their direction.  The sweet scent of the honeysuckle vine tickles my nose for a few seconds and fades, long before I’ve had my fill of it.  Things simply move too fast this time of year, and with each passing year I find myself less able to keep up.

And so I have begun to resent Spring, as I would resent a friend who has moved on and left me behind.  I have no love, these days, for people and things that move too fast, and can’t wait for me to catch up.  An amazing admission from one who has characteristically lived out her life a half-step ahead of, and so, out of sync with, everyone else.  Not a place where I ever thought to be…but so it is.

The lengthening of the days and the leafing of the trees only cause me to pine for the slanting light of Fall, its smoky air and blazing colors.   And then the dignified stillness of Winter…which is not still at all, but is itself bursting with life…but life that is not hidden from me behind heavy veils of green leaves and long grasses, not to mention crowds of fair-weather-loving human beings.

Winter is a season that waits for me.   If I miss something, it gives me multiple opportunities to experience it again.  It pauses long enough for me to see, and watch, and absorb.  It is the friend of my old age. 

But, today…I’ll strive not to give in to my homesickness for Winter, so that I don’t completely miss the joy of Spring and Summer—even if that joy be more a memory of seasons past than of the warm green that slides too quickly through my crooked, work-worn fingers.