I remember distinctly riding in my aunt's RV. It was only a few years back. She had just come off a stunning blow -- the revelation of a husband's infidelity. They were embroiled in a contentious divorce. One of the items at the center of their disagreement? Said RV. She'd captured it, taken it hostage. Perhaps as an effort to take back what was stolen from her -- her life. I can't blame her.
Riding in that RV felt Thelma and Louise-ish. The recreational vehicle is such an amalgam of competing interests -- rest and relaxation in a body made for mobility; safety in size, yet revolving front seats with seat belts that seem truly optional; the sense of gypsy life with enough room to bring your entire home life along for the travels. It's a cluster f*%@ if ever there was one.
My aunt was giddy being at the helm. I was delighted at her humor. As we tooled along, I remarked about the beautiful purple flowers on the side of the road. "Loose Strife," she responded. "Invasive, aggressive, a true pest." Really? It seems so innocuous, so pleasing. "It's carried on tires, mostly long haul truckers. It's spreading all over the country. Like disease."
How prophetic.
Loose. Strife. Love these words. Loose -- not fastened, not contained, unrestrained. Strife -- discord, violent dissension, rivalry. Or more randomly, strife -- earnest endeavor.
As far as I knew, at that time, I'd never seen Loose Strife in my own neck of the woods. But Loose Strife is like that, isn't it? You can't necessarily see it coming. One day things are fine, the next, not so much.
Over the course of the last month, I've noticed something. On one of my favorite loops, just after I cross the fence that prohibits trespassing (it's not a great run unless at least one law is broken), I'm suddenly struck breathless. My mind takes a few seconds to catch on. It takes me by surprise each time it happens. Then I look around, same spot every time, and lo and behold, I'm in a sea of Loose Strife. Unrestrained Discord can take your breath away.
And I'm transported to that day in the RV, and I'm again witness to a woman coming to terms with the life that was versus the life she wanted. I understand.
My life feels like I'm at the top of the roller coaster right now. I know what's coming next -- that sudden, stomach-jarring drop. And I know it's unavoidable -- there's only one way down and it's through the fright. And I know it was my own great ideas that got me to the top of the roller coaster in the first place -- I'm the one that stepped foot on the ride.
I feel unprepared. I'd rather not proceed. But life isn't like that. Life isn't pick and choose. It's a go forward type of endeavor -- an Earnest Endeavor, if you will.
Which brings us back to the real topics of conversation: Loose Strife. From Unrestrained Discord, life as I want it, to Unrestrained Earnest Endeavor, life as it is. And more importantly, loose teeth.
My littlest has his first loose tooth. His baby teeth are making their exit. And with them, goes this phase of my life. I'm reluctant. Recalcitrant. Resistant. I long to hold his small sweetness for eternity, and yet he's small no longer. Bigger everyday.
I watched him wake the other morning, his finger making its way to his tooth before his eyes even opened. I'm sure he was feeling to see if it was still there, if it had become looser overnight. He's like me, frightened and excited all at the same time. He's on his own roller coaster.
One of my favorite passages comes from youth fiction. It's one of those passages that requires you to keep reading, even if up to that point, you hadn't much liked the book.
Six is a bad time too 'cause that's when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth.
You wake up one morning and it seems like your tongue is the first one to notice that something strange is going on, 'cause as soon as you get up there it is pushing and rubbing up against one of your front teeth and I'll be doggoned if that tooth isn't the littlest bit wiggly...
You tell some adult about what's happening but all they do is say it's normal. You can't be too sure, though, 'cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling off of you.
Unless you're stupid as a lamppost you've got to wonder what's coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck? Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren't as stuck on as good as they used to be.
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Loose Strife. Things not stuck on quite as they should be, not like you thought they were, not as you hoped they'd be. Bits become untethered, unfastened, unbound. The parts of your life you thought you could count on become wobbly or maybe even disappear. And the aftermath is only to be dealt with. The hole in the mouth, the missing spouse, the absence of babies.
Loose Strife. The great divide between how I imagined life to be versus how it actually is...it's as simple as shifting from Unrestrained Discord to Unrestrained Earnest Endeavor.
Finished. Thrift store run done. Appointment at the consignment store made. Housecleaner came and worked her magic. Papers in their place.
And it's Valentine's Day. And it shouldn't be difficult, but it is.
Missing is my least favorite emotion. Of all of them. I'd take depression, sadness, anger -- I'd take ANYTHING rather than missing. But in the scheme of things, my missing is really minor and I'm aware of that. There are people who are really missing, and here's my story of just that.
My son and I always run a race together at Valentine's Day. This year, his Other Commitments got in the way. And although he was clear that he would rather race than fulfill his Other Commitments, the mommy-follow-through-guilt got the better of me, and we didn't run together. When I went to pick him up from his Other Commitments, he was clear -- he would have MUCH RATHER RACED. Me, too. There's a whole life of Other Commitments waiting at the door. There's only so many do-it-together races to be had.
So on the way home, we stop at the Farmer's Market, both feeling a little verklempt. I park the car and look across the street at all the stalls and people bustling about. This woman emerges from the crowd carrying two large bunches of flowers -- yellows, rusts, reds, oranges. She was probably in her 60s. Short. Stout. She looked absolutely stunning. It quite shocked me to see here there. She was just picture perfect.
I pointed her out to my son. "Look at her with those flowers. She looks beautiful." I think I heard his eyes roll.
We got out of our car and grabbed our bags. Started to head to the market. When I looked up, she was just there, walking toward her car parked next to ours. She couldn't have been more than five-feet tall. Dyed strawberry blonde hair. Sunglasses. Pants that she could have worn on a cruise.
I said, "You look so beautiful with your flowers. Just beautiful."
She turned and looked at me. "Thank you so much for saying that," she said. Her mouth turned down and tears sprouted. She went on, "Because I am SO SAD. I just lost my husband and he was always the one who told me I looked beautiful. No one has said that since he's..." and she cried.
I then sprouted my own tears, walked over to this perfect stranger, took her in my arms and rocked her. And she cried and I cried.
And I think my 13-year old sat in the background in wonder and perhaps pubescent embarrassment.
After a second we let go, and she told me her husband's name and where I could find the bench dedicated to him in the Village Green and she invited me to sit there one day if I wanted.
And I stood there at that minute and knew. I'm sure they had their troubles. I'm sure they are flawed just like the rest of us. But for whatever reason, that woman let me know in that brief interlude that their love was pure. It was extensive.
As we turned to leave, she said to my son, "Thank you for watching." And I knew what she meant. Thank you for witnessing my missing. Thank you for witnessing my pain. Thank you for being present while I was being human.
So, Nameless Lady, Happy Valentine's Day to you. I'm sure no one has told you yet today, so let me be the first. You look beautiful today.
I made the plunge. My good friend L always used to tell me, "Awareness is curative." When I was 20. I'm not sure what she thought I was capable of then. Now...I get it.
Life's processes follow a predictable order. The cycle of conception, growth and development, outgrowing your space, birth, more growth and development, outgrowing that space, rebirth....on and on and on.
And in there, the 'outgrowing your space,' to me, is predictable as well. There is the life being lived; the recognition (awareness) of things not quite right; the rationalization and justification that 'as is' is okay; the growing discomfort; the increased internal rearrangement ensuring the status quo; the ever-growing chorus of internal voices on high, banding together to make their point known -- things are not quite right; and then the cataclysm...the body leaving, the relationship ending, the emotional car wreck unseen to all, but felt inside.
The cataclysm can take any of a million forms. I guess that's why I still never know what to be on the lookout for so I can avoid it. But that absolute destruction leaves behind fertile ground for this girl. And so I plant my garden again.
But that first glint of awareness, recognition, internal conversation -- that's the one that begins to set me free. Once I experience it, it's only time until the secrets I keep from myself are revealed and the lies I tell myself come undone.
There's comfort in the process, although the process is far from comfortable.
So for me the cataclysm this time is in the form of paperwork. The paperwork of two lives being lived together is onerous. Making the two lives back into one singular seems completely overwhelming. And so for two years now I've avoided the paperwork. I've filed and tried to keep things neat-ish. But there are a whole host of papery decisions to be made -- things to be gone through and kept or discarded -- that have weighed heavy on my soul.
And then one day, last week, I told on myself. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the next great frontier on this internal odyssey is to sort my life, my paper life, my former paper life.
I had to call in reinforcements. I had to tell on myself to a few people, so I wouldn't chicken out. I had to make a time limit and just go for it. I'm in the middle now. It's exhausting work. Old Valentine's Day cards, family pictures, journals. Financial papers, insurance papers, attorney papers. I feel like I need a life preserver, like the current could wash me out to sea, like I could very well disappear under the silky smooth surface of still waters.
And I press on, forward, another trip to the recycle, trash, thrift store pile. The feeling of overwhelm is just a feeling. The reality is I'm fine. The reality is I'm one step closer on my path to freedom. The reality is there is sure knowing inside me that calls me along this path.
When that awareness is born inside of me, I rarely want to see or take care of it. I make sport of disregarding it and avoiding it. But today, awareness and I are joining forces. One paper at a time.
Today is, technically, my 16th wedding anniversary. I am, unfortunately, in the middle of a protracted and often icky divorce. Honestly, today passed without sadness or even much thought or reminiscing. What's to say? It happened. It's over. Move on.
I did get one sincere wish for a Happy 16th from someone who, I think, was serious, even though she knows my situation. And after that, I finally said something to a close friend about the reality of today, the date anyway.
My friend's response? What's the proper 16th wedding anniversary present? Who the freak knows that? So, of course, I look it up. Silver. And hollowware. Whatever that is.
So, of course, I look it up. Anything that's not flatware (duh) and suitable to go on the table, such as creamer, sugar bowl, butter dish, etc. A vessel. Empty. A container for other goods.
Makes. Perfect. Sense.
My non-sadness at the day is the years' long realization that the value of this union is not in its content, but in its structure. The value of this marriage, this union, this undone relationship is the empty. That empty brought forth children, a grown woman, a suitable life. That empty brought out personhood, triumph, small, wordless joys.
As the Tao states, being is borne out of non-being. This is the blessing of this day, this history, this undoneness, this limitlessness that is mine. I'm forever thankful. In ways I'm only beginning to understand.
