Category Archive

Three years ago, I would have written a very different post on this day. The symbolic gesture could not have been coincidental: why else would he have chosen that day to move out?

Independence had a somewhat different meaning for me then. Before then, I had felt free, only realized I was not when I started to stray beyond the expected, with results not unlike those offered by an electric fence.

At first it was about small things: being able to make my own choices, playing music I liked, walking through my own house and my own life without fear…

Writing.

The last three years have demonstrated that freedom is a concept that I had never fully appreciated before I lost it; otherwise I would have done more to protect it. At the same time, this end of tyranny was not an altogether independent action. I owe it to so many people who came into my life. I did not, do not feel that I ever could not need anyone. Far from it.

I cherish my freedom to be who I am, but I am no island. I cherish interdependence, as we depend on one another in this world. Today I celebrate life. I celebrate liberty. And yes, I celebrate that pursuit of happiness, that maslovian step up, that thing that pushes us toward greater things, and to holding fast to those principles that protect and define us.

Pig is ready with the enchiladas.

Enchiladas are served.

And now, the hnt part:

Enchiladas are gone.

enchilar “1. to season with chiles; 2. (Mexico) to annoy; 3. to sting, burn.

A simple meal in the final execution, the preparation of enchiladas in my house was a labor of love. On a busy evening, it could be quick: a jar of sauce, pre-grated cheese, onion, whatever else was left to throw in, roll them up, stick them in the oven, and they were done. Sometimes, though, I made the sauce myself, boiling and scraping out the chiles, shredding the chicken (roasted–perhaps not traditional, but certainly tasty), softening the onions, nearly caramelized (again, maybe not traditional), before adding them to the cheese and chicken mixture, the mild peppers.

It was a meal that I had loved for a long time, and perfected during the Colorado years, in a land of hedonism and endless meal choices. It was there, watching Mexicans, many nearly invisible in the kitchens of a town many could barely afford to live in, that I was inspired to find the secrets. It was there, in the only affordable living space, a cheap deal in the land of plenty: the trailer court, that I first made enchiladas.

The trailer court was not my first choice for a home, snob that I was (well… not snob, to be honest: I was actually afraid of the trailer court). The trailer option did allow us to stay in town, and after a bit of arm-twisting, my then-husband convinced me that it did not have to be the place of tornadoes and dysfunction that I had grown up experiencing it to be. No, this was the West, not the Midwest, and things were different.

And different they seemed in those early days. I frolicked in the kitsch, put a clichéd pink flamingo out front, and started cooking. I became pregnant, blurred my doctoral dreams, nodded gazedly to the sudden move across the country. Boston. I was in hub heaven. I could still finish my work there, and made arrangements. My advisor said a class at Harvard could help me through the classical language requirement. Harvard! Imagine that.

The enchilada ingredients were harder to find, at least then, at least within walking distance of our house.

Fast forward several months. The baby was pushing to come out. Someone was asking me to sign something. A purchase and sale agreement was Fed-Exed to northern Vermont. “Why there?” you ask. Hell if I knew. I cannot even remember when I stopped asking those questions. The town we landed in was one of so many places where we picked up real estate brochures: Charlotte, Cheyenne, Guthrie, Belfast–at least this one was not a ranch. We could have landed anywhere, back in those days that any vacation could become the next home sweet home. Vermont seemed nice enough, though a bit lonely as the summer faded. I loved being in Boston. My then-husband enjoyed those pre-child moments, too, took long walks, played drums with a friend, went to car races with his brother on Saturday nights, tried to forget the doctorate he quit. No teaching work in Boston, he said, said we could not afford to stay, said we had to move. No job in Vermont, either, not for a long time. The house was a dream, a true beauty, the village isolated, dotted with dairy farms and cross country ski trails. Hard not to love, but to stay there? Babies came, many babies. I loved them well, loved them as if they were all I had. And maybe then, they were.

I was making enchiladas, my gloved hands dipping the tortillas into the sauce, then filling them with the chicken, cheese. Gloved hands—I had learned my lesson years earlier not to mess with chiles without some defense.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I was making dinner. I was cooking his favorite dinner, our favorite dinner, kids waiting, watching, wanting me to finish quickly. The oven was preheated, the side dishes were cooking, a salad waited on the table already.

“Those are gloves for cleaning toilets!”

I had two pair. The yellow ones for cooking, the blue for cleaning. Both were beneath the sink, on separate sides. Two pair: these were the yellow gloves.

“You are an unfit mother.”

He grabbed the dish from me and dumped the enchiladas into the trash. My older son yelled “NO!” while the others cried. I watched in horror as my husband, ‘till death do us part, ripped open hot dogs, baked beans, told the kids not to move. No one did. I saw the look in his eyes. I thought how I had bought the hot dogs the day before, at a grocery store seventeen miles away, thought how he was lucky there was something else to eat. My son said he wanted enchiladas, and I feared for the kid. He saw the look, too, bit into a hot dog, tears streaming down his face. I sat in the stairwell and sobbed, curled up as tight as I could, looking for a safe place, and there was none.

“If no one is going to eat, it’s bedtime.”

It was 6:30 pm. The kids did not argue, the four of them in the bath together. I went into their room, trying to put our life back together, convinced like so many other times, that it never really happened.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

My husband pushed me into our bedroom. I wanted to say goodnight to the kids. I heard myself protesting as he shut the door on me. I know I was yelling please. The key turned and locked.

“You are not safe to be around children,” he told me.

I thought maybe he was right about everything he said until then. I had told people I needed more help, found help. Four kids under six, one noticeably disabled. A woman came from the school, said we were a family, and had to work together. I cried. He was busy, I told her, had to leave early in the morning, and was tired at night. I was trying. She said I was a great mom. How could I believe what she said, if what he said was true? I begged for help. He told me I was telling everyone our business. I found help, strong women who helped me, who glanced knowing looks first at one another–then at me. He hated the invasion of privacy. I thanked God for the help. He said I was lazy, an unfit mother. I had tried to be better, but trying was never enough, never would be. I stopped making enchiladas, and the love in my heart seemed gone forever.

We moved once more–my choice this time. He gave me one present that last year we spent together. It was a pig.

The pig was a baking dish, made in Chile. It was shown in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue with enchiladas in it, he said. He asked me why I never made them anymore. Until I started the process I once loved, I had forgotten why myself. I never did find those gloves.

Last week, though, I did find the pig on top of my kitchen shelves, never used. I went to the grocery store yesterday, and bought the tortillas, the cheese, chiles. I have it all, watched the kids devour something similar at a Mexican restaurant not so long ago. They are ready for this kind of meal, and at last, so am I. Tonight I am making enchiladas.

On Thanksgiving 2006, it poured rain. By two weeks before the holiday, I had no friends able to take me in or to come to my house for a nice dinner, and my kids were gone that year. Family was too far away, too expensive. I tried to volunteer to serve dinners, but I found at the three places I where I tried that it was impossible without their own CORI check (I had had three done that year for various schools and assignments), and that paperwork had to be completed before November 7. So, I planned a hike. Sprinkles would have been fine, but torrential downpours made it all impossible. I drove, and found myself at a Dunkin’ Donuts somewhere in the Berkshires, waiting for the rain to ease up so I could just go home, lonelier than before.

I resolved at that time to make more time for better friends, to meet new people, and yes… to start dating. And I did. I have made some friends, heard many stories, glimpsed into some wonderful and beautiful lives, been honored by the experiences. Here I find myself, wiser, a year and a half later.

I have also found heartbreak.

I did not realize until recently just how much it had hurt. Of course, my reactions at times must have revealed my true feelings to some people, but I myself thought I was doing just fine.

He was a do-gooder, handsome in an ebullient sort of way, charming, funny. We corresponded for a while, and I was stunned by the overlaps in our lives. We met, and I fell hard. He was also a busy—doing good, I thought, or attending to the need of two boys for whom he was the primary caregiver. His ex-wife was not involved in the parenting, he said. It was a familiar and understandable situation to me.

For the first time in a long time, I had met someone who was not only not disturbed by the size of my family and the extra demands of my two sons beyond the girls’, my own busy life, but who embraced that life and the gifts it brings. In fact, he even advocated for the rights of families like mine to live accessible lives, better lives. For all the hardships, the joys are even greater… and he seemed to understand this. I liked him.

He liked me.

Well, I thought he did. It was months after I pondered his abrupt disappearance just before Thanksgiving that I found out the truth. I was so caught up in another sort of heartbreak this past Thanksgiving, I barely noticed the warning signs.

Erratic calls, availability only at certain times, evenings cut short. Sure, it should have been obvious, but I did not want it to be. I believed him. My own denial may have caused someone else to be hurt, which haunts me.

I was surely not the first or the last in his series of conquests. Somewhere, another must still be hypnotized by that illusion of love and freedom, devotion and honesty, when in fact his real life betrays him. And oh! how his real life must cry.

Up to realizing my misguided infatuation, dating had been fun, promising. Since then, I have found myself less willing to take chances, discerning, and much more aware of what I want and what I do not want. All that is probably for the better.

But at least for now, I have not been finding what I need. Far from it. In fact, the efforts I made after licking my wounds may have hurt worse than the original wound itself. Short periods of dating have proved to me that I want a glimmer that I could be right for someone else, right for a complete life, and not just snippets of it. I miss sharing time, the rhythm of knowing another person, and I want for it all to be true. It would be glorious to grow a love from a smile that promises more. But there has to be a starting point.

I realize now that healing takes some time. And maybe love another day.

Mr. Bunny is going to be disappointed… or more likely, my kids are going to be sad not to see Mr. Bunny hopping around our backyard jungle. Why?

The jungle is gone. Anticipating today’s heat wave and the mosquitoes that normally come with it, I woke up early to pull the lawn mower out of the garage for the first time this year.

I realize it’s a little late, but if you saw my yard, you would understand how I have gotten away with not cutting the grass all spring. There is practically no grass. The yard itself is small, but not tiny, and it should have grass. Instead, it is a mixture of sand, rocks, mulched leaves, pine needles, and weeds. Oh…. and legos. Lately, though, the weeds have gotten a little high, providing nourishment for the rabbits, but a big, buggy mess for me. The time to cut had come.

Over the past several years, I have developed a thing for power tools. They come in handy for projects, and there is something almost cathartic about cutting things down, or blowing them away, making holes in them, sanding them smooth. I am a year older and wiser now, and I have started buying my own peonies again, and have more or less given up on the idea of finding true love. So, in the spirit of do-it-yourselfness, I find myself enjoying these little moments of accomplishment more than I resent them, much to the disbelief of my mom and brother. It is true that they were the ones watching This Old House while I headed out the door on whatever night that show was on, but I did absorb a few things. Or at least, I have Google.

I didn’t need Google or This Old House just to mow the lawn. For one thing, I never recall a discussion of lawn mowing, or the importance of removing legos from the yard before mowing. Amazing how big a bruise those little plastic bricks can make! I finished, and swept up (could not justify getting out the leaf blower). I scraped more paint off the front porch (which is almost ready for the new coat). A shovel (or the leaf blower) may have been a more appropriate tool than a broom in my daughters’ room. Nonetheless, the past-due book (Roald Dahl’s The Twits, if you are curious) has been recovered, and no one will be hiding in the school bathroom during library this week.

It is after 10:00 on a warm Saturday night, and I find myself self-sufficient, happy to have a fresh-cut yard, a few loads of laundry folded, a shoveled-out room, groceries in the kitchen. I am happy, but also a little… Well, words escape me. I love my house, love my kids, love life.

But really, is this all there is? I do cherish the bunnies that hop into my yard, the delicious feeling of heat that overwhelms me, makes me feel lazy, and then invigorated when the cool shower water hits my face. I love the haze after rain lets loose unexpectedly, and the evening that becomes balmy.

Yes, I do love all these things, but somehow today I find myself noticing the absence of a smile returned, or a gesture offered. I miss kisses, words, laughter. I miss breaths, heartbeats, steps. I miss things I have never had, and maybe I miss things that do not exist. In all the busy days that run together with no time left for anything at all outside of the bare necessities of life, I find it hard to stop—there is always more to do—and I wonder again, is this really all there is?

I love this life, this beautiful, imperfect life.. if only to know it, to wallow in it… but yes, I need more than power tools and a never-ending list of things to do. Passion, trust, fun… I want these things, too. I need them. And resignation never got me more than … resigned. Well, I am not quite ready to give in to cynicism.

Tomorrow is a new week.

(It seems so long ago now, like a dream, as it perhaps was…)

For you are my crimson love,
your face scorched landscape,
your lips honeyed wine on mine,
your hands precise instruments.
Touch me red heal me
my blood pulses your tempo allegro.
Kiss me.
I intoxicate myself in each ruby breath,
in your voice your resonant song.
I hum.
Set fire to me tonight,
kindle burn crackle
break me to my softness,
to my breath.
Find me.
I recall tomorrow,
anticipating always
you
your blazing skin
your scarlet sweet tick tock.

Against my own resolutions, I bought myself peonies. They are hot pink, and not yet open, full of the promises of the coming year.

It is a new year, a new number, full of the hope and empowerment that do-it-yourself projects like window repairs can bring. I see through a clear pane of glass now, a bit more protected, and no longer avoiding the jagged edges that I had simply covered with a board. I can see, and the window can be broken again without the helplessness I felt before. Repair is possible. Only… would I want to do that again?

At the end of 2007, I said I would not buy myself flowers. With a new sense of self-sufficiency, I wonder if I should amend my previous thoughts. Peonies are in bloom now, as they always are right about now, and I need them. I need the beauty, and I want the things I wanted when I wanted flowers to be given to me. Only… those things are not in my control. It would be much nicer not to want. Or would it?

It has been a year of heartbreak and hereafters. Perhaps I have worn my heart on my sleeve too much, allowing myself to be an open target for criticism or misuse. I have indeed been criticized, but praised sometimes, too. As for the misuse… well, that was a bit harder to bear.

Still, I have met special people in the past year, and learned many things about myself, about the world. There are still so many wonderful souls wandering, and a world still left to find. Love remains, in children, but also in hopes. And perhaps once, there will be some safe place, visible in the distance, so I can take my sails down, coast in, throw an anchor. It is no island I seek, but a protected harbor on the edge of life, a warm harbor full of lights and sounds and spices and splendor. A good place.

But for now, I’ll enjoy my peonies, and the new summer sun. I will navigate through the waves and wind, and also through still waters, quiet moments left just to watch the stars.

I want. I wish. Not “I need”—that’s justifiable.

Desire puts it all on the line, makes the moment, opens the door for another to walk in… or walk away.

I regret the words the moment they jump from my mouth, escape onto the page. I want them back in my head where they cannot jinx me, or hurt me, or subject me to the criticisms or objections that I do not want to face. Safe.

But no.. I would say them again.

The thoughts in our heads die without expression. Maybe some of them should do just that. But others… oh, others are life itself. And yes, I do want…

Sun shines, moments reflected in a pond and shimmering. More peaceful than silence, the birds and breeze sing in some forgotten paradise, far from the madness of the everyday, but still right around the corner.

Night comes, and the city enchants, throwing lights, lamplights, stars, glistening high into the air somewhere near a sliver of moon suspended between buildings.

I don’t often feel such confusion, wondering what nights like this are supposed to mean, if they are more than simply splendid nights. An opening door, warm air from a kitchen, bread, cheese, interrupts the cool air, and then to wander into something wonderful, something I am afraid I could come to depend on… We walk, then later, an accordion, voices, the froth on top. A kiss. Can wonderful be ordinary? I try to find a context for words, for hair brushed behind my ear, for feelings that seems so distinct from the life I lead on Monday. I stop myself before my reality becomes too distorted.

Tomorrow, at my desk, I will think of other things, like the correct answer to polite questions, and what time I need to leave for a meeting. “How was your weekend?” Does anyone expect the truth, if truth seems outside of the mundane, and yet not cause for official celebration? Can we believe that time away can be magic, or that life still holds its wonder even now, beyond a paycheck, a house to clean, appointments, errands? Maybe bliss should not be only time off. Maybe I should yield to that warmth. Maybe there is a new context I never even considered, one where joy is not held separate and only available on weekends. Can I weave that joy into the everyday and still make sense of it? Will it disappear, or fade, or will it infuse the days with softness?

Or is this all an illusion, just the dance of two lonely souls?

“That night we moved closer to the border, and clear across the prairie, at the very edge of the horizon. We could make out the gas fires of the refinery at Missoula, while to the south we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I’d ever seen.

I felt all kind of things looking at the lights of Cheyenne, but most important, I made up my mind to never again tag around with a hell-bent type, no matter how in love with him I was” (Sissy Spacek as Holly, in the movie Badlands, 1973).

I recently had a moment of fond reminiscence of dangerous days, the thrill and passion of grasping tight while the wind and the world hit me head-on. Then I woke up.

There are all sorts of reasons that taking off in pursuit of adventure may seem like a fine thing to do, but in the end, most of them seem to involve running away from, rather than to something. The vague idea of adventure was a dream I inherited, a place I guarded in the back of my mind as an option whenever I was faced with too much unhappiness in too short a time.

Until I was in my late 20s, I never did much more than ponder that option. A few times, I felt myself drawn to the flame, flittering perilously close to entanglements that would break my heart, and did—but not irretrievably so. I jumped a few times, but felt that elastic pull back, bungeeing me back into a predictable existence to idle on the lookout for my own truth.

I wonder sometimes if it is a part of growing up, or if it is a part of growing up unhappy that leads a person find truth in sublimation. Sometimes I find that truth in words, my own words, a world on a page, or in a heartbeat, a smile, a carefully placed step and a song, a moment of pure grace. This is a sort of joy.

Try as I might, though, I never found joy on the back of a motorcycle, holding on tight while someone else drove through the unknown vistas and back roads. I did venture once, untethered at last, straddled the back seat of an adventure and never went home again. But where I ended up after that, I expected to stay.

I guess I should have known this was not a ride meant for settling, for bonding, or for discovering ourselves. The never-ending voyages tugged, threatening roots that grew ever deeper. “Why leave? Why not stay and see the flowers, the fruits, this life we created?” I wondered. Garden with me.

“Come alongside me,” he said, and I followed, while I still could. The urge to flee returned tirelessly, a malignant tumor, seeking still more—but what?—some indefinable thing that could ravage me in the process. One day, farther from joy that I ever imagined, I stayed behind; he left. But he could come home, to walk among it, to reclaim this life, this beautiful, imperfect life that had grown, with the weeds and thorns to disparage. He could come home, if only to pick the best fruits from among them, to look at love and believe it would always wait.

I wonder, what hidden parts of ourselves only find expression in actions that seem to defy what life passes to us, even what we choose? I wonder what makes us feel more alive when we speed through space, feeling the vibrations through our skin, into our minds, testing the very limits of our physical life, and abandoning in those sublime moments all that has meaning here on Earth.

And then… what makes us feel justified to return, perhaps unscathed, perhaps damaged irreparably, always hoping to be cared for and loved by the ones we left behind…. or at least, not forgotten?

I wonder what the seeker seeks, if he even knows, or is it the search that he lives for, the never-ending journey? What comfort does the road bring? Perhaps it is the moving skylines, the exchangeable faces, the well-polished security of the new and unblemished. Perhaps the road brings an illusion of perfection, and the safety of never truly being known.

I won something!

After the woman read my number, she directed me to an assortment of beautiful glass, blown by the woman’s son. It was all exquisite: pendants and several small vases. But one caught my eye. It has been sitting on the shelf above my writing desk ever since. I look at it often, the way it catches the light.

I wanted to show you, and tried several more normal photos, like this:

and this:

This is a vase.

I do not have flowers in my prize, but find myself more gazing at it, letting my mind wander. Words come more easily to me than images. I pick up my small treasure, and gaze down inside, the smoke and haze and sweetness seducing me into my favorite color.

That’s better. Yes, just like that…

“Heavenly shades of night are falling,” indeed.

I am shivering, holding onto a cup of hot tea on my back step, spoiled after the summer like conditions that woke up the trees this week.

It is quiet here, a different house without movement or voices, but nice for one evening.

Just before I took this picture, the neighborhood was cast in dramatic shadows, as the sun peeked out from behind clouds that have now disappeared. The sun has gone now, too, and this light is all that remains of the day. The leaves of the Japanese maple opened just a little today, promising more.

More. More spring, more warmth, more quiet, more voices, more love, more “rendezvous beneath the blue,” more you, whoever you are, wherever you are, more.

Spring. Yes, it is here, really here, in full bloom, literally, making me wonder if. If ever.

It is supposed to be just talking, just talking, and then, it is not. We are no longer talking, the room is warm, warmer than before, too warm—and yet, just right—and I know he is going to, think he is going to, want him to, am not sure (can anyone ever be really sure?) that I would want this to stop.

And yes, it would be wondrid and splenderful, and would it be too much like a teenager to say I would never wash again? Yes, of course it would, but it never hurts to think it.

It must be spring.

It was early enough for Target not to be too busy, I found a good parking spot (well, the handicapped placard does help), and all five of us were in a great mood. We were buying some promised new toys for the yard, charcoal, marshmallows, and a few other necessities for the first really warm weekend, the beginning to April vacation.

My son was walking as we entered the store, but we had brought the stroller, just in case, as I always do now in any place that is big and has fluorescent lighting. He strutted in, looked around, then looked back at me and climbed in the chair. We went on our way.

It really was a good day, with everyone in a fantastic frame of mind. Then, something happened. It was not a mean thing, or even a thoughtlessly cruel thing. It even surprises me that I am still thinking about it. Still…

We were in the outdoor toy section when a man (maybe around my age) and his son (probably around five years old) came down the aisle. I saw the boy look at my eleven-year-old son in the stroller, just about to ask the inevitable question, and his dad took his hand and guided him quickly away from us.

Later, looking for marshmallows, we saw them again. By then, my son was bouncing in the chair, laughing, as he often does when he is either excited or overstimulated (and big box stores nearly always do it). He was all right, though, but I could see the boy’s concern. The boy tugged on his dad’s jacket. His dad kept shooshing him, as he quickly navigated his son and himself out of our path.

I noticed, as we made our way to the cash registers, that the dad was staring back at us from a farther line.

Was it that bad?

Well, I sometimes wonder. It was still a glorious day, the type you know was good when night finally comes, and the kids are whispering in the dark, then are suddenly quiet because they are too tired to stay awake longer; when you, adult, fall into bed at night all sore and smiling and snuggling into a bathrobe, warm and exhausted, too, after the kids have fallen asleep; when the laundry basket is full of clothes that are absolutely, positively, filthy and smoky, and covered in grass stains. We had that kind of a day. We went home from Target, turned the music up, laughed, blew bubbles in the yard and played giant Frisbee games. Actually, it was my older son who was having the tougher day, trying to figure out where he could find enough wheels, wood, and a motor to build a go-kart—and frustrated when I was less than encouraging about that particular plan. It was a fine day, a good day, a typical day for nearly all the families around us. And still, that father’s stare stuck with me.

I wonder, sometimes, does it really seem that bad, this life? When other people see an eleven-year-old boy retreating to a stroller (didn’t know they made them his size?) to make it through a store, but unable to tell anyone about it because he can’t talk… when they see the meltdowns, or actually hear of the difficulties, does it really seem that bad? Do the non-staring people feel that way, too?

Sometimes, it’s been the opposite that has stuck with me: the overly helpful people, the ones who are trying, who still don’t know what to do. But they do try; they don’t run away. There are the complete opposite, the ones who look for that moment for their own advantage—a Kodak moment, a charitable act, a momentary kindness that makes a statement but is not so kind—those who seek the shunned, emphasize the difference in some hope of making themselves seem better. I don’t mean people who really help, who really care—only those who think that they seem like good people if they pretend to. That is perhaps the worst.

I realize the difficulties in knowing how to act around a kid with disabilities, much like moving to a new country. What are the customs? What did they say, and did that gesture mean something? Are these people nice? It’s a learning experience, emotional, not always quite right. It’s not within the comfort zone, and yet, it does not have the same thrills of living life that is conventionally adventurous… at least, at first.

I have told the tales of trying to meet these kids’ needs, of being frustrated through various agencies’ incapacities to do the right things, or to be funded enough to do them. I have told of the heartbreaks when tough decisions have to be made, when things fall apart. But somewhere in there, I hope I have conveyed the many joys. If I have failed to express those enough, maybe I should try harder. I fear I have frightened too many people.

Challenging, yes, it is. But isn’t life that way for us all? Not unhappy, not bad, though! The joy of yesterday—that simple day—warms my heart, thrills me. It is difficult to explain why. When things are so wonderful, do we ever think to wonder why?

We were happy, and I suppose that is why the father’s stare stuck with me. The stare, I believe, was one of confusion, one of fear, one of pity. I have indeed seen the look before, even heard the words that tend to go with it. And yet, I rarely have the right response to it, or even know how to deliver that response if I have it.

I sometimes wish for a more forgiving world, for one that didn’t mind difference, for a world where the richness of life accepts the difficult parts, where we can acknowledge that the best things are never simple, and where the fear of facing my family did not prevent people from wanting to get to know any one of us individually.

My family really is like any other. It’s just not so obvious.

An online dating site offers its searchers options for goals in prospective relationships. Among these are “long-term dating,” “short-term dating,” “casual encounters (sex partners),”–yes, they clarify that one– “activity partners,” “new friends,” and “long-distance penpals.” Most seem pretty clear-cut, except one.

What is “short-term dating”? The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. My first thought is it is someone you date, and it doesn’t work out to turn into either a relationship or a friendship. But that is hardly something I can imagine looking for. So, is it just a “casual encounter” or an “activity partner” you meet several times? Is it dating on the side until you get caught? Or was the dating site expecting large numbers of exchange students to use that category?

I want the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow! strings like spider webs, interconnecting. Maybe I’m incredibly naive.

—————-
Now playing: Sinéad Lohan - Whatever It Takes
via FoxyTunes

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Trader Joe’s to replenish our supply of milk, cereal, and honey-roasted peanuts, when I saw them peeking out between the bouquets of holly and pine branches, white roses, ivy, mistletoe, and poinsettias: peonies!—pale pink, tightly closed, and remarkably out of season.

I looked at the price, nine dollars, picked out the nicest bunch, and put them in my basket. It was a little splurge, just for me, something to brighten my home, which would be quiet for several days. I looked again at the bouquet. A few of the outer leaves were already brown and curled on the edges. The leaves were pretty tired looking.

I put the flowers back, and walked across the aisle to grab a box of Joe’s Os.

The New Year is upon us, and as we are all wont to do as December ends, I am pondering my existence and what I can do to make it—me—better. Many articles are published on this subject every year about this time, right next to the lists of famous people who have died, and the countdowns of top songs.

It must also be a big time for self-help book sales. You know those books you see—especially if you are a woman—that tell you about taking care of yourself and doing nice things just for you, because you are so overwhelmed by taking care of everyone else and really deserve to have a week in a spa, a personal shopper and a nice meal cooked by someone else?… Oprah often reminds us that self-pampering is nice, and one particular bit of advice I have tried taking from her from time to time is to stop waiting for a man to send me flowers and just buy them myself.

Well, after years of buying my own flowers, I have to say that this advice is crap.

Now, that is not the only reason that I put back the peonies at Trader Joe’s. In fact, I do love peonies, and I’ve grown them when I’ve had gardens. When I’m lucky, they bloom around my birthday, and then, I do buy them for myself. The screen in my bedroom has them all over, off-white, pink, even yellow, and most beautiful, deep red ones, signs of prosperity and good luck, love, healing. Some fairly convincing fake peonies sit stylishly in a long rectangular vase on the floor in my hall. Open my front door. There, at the bottom of the stairs—those are peonies, too. Sure, I would love to have real ones, and this time of year—what a treat that would be! But not like this.

Rarity does not equal beauty. And just because the supply goes down doesn’t mean my demand goes up. It just means that I wait for the right time, unless they are something truly special. Now, it may be true that these particular flowers would have released their perfume and charm when they opened, but it just didn’t seem likely. In fact, what I saw when I looked at them just made me sad: supermarket flowers to feed the commercial interests that mark the season. Not even a Chinese empress could force these flowers to bloom in winter. Why should I?

To every thing there is a season…

And then, there is the other factor… the part about Oprah’s questionable advice.

I do believe that waiting around for someone else to make your life for you is a really bad idea. Live, live for yourself, just live! Yes, I do believe that. I do, and I fill it with the things that mean a lot to me, and I do want to be better, and do more. But buying my own peonies?

Really, all those times I went ahead and filled my vases with beautiful flowers I bought for myself, I really did wish that I had someone to thank them for, someone, someone who knew me well enough to know the thing about the peonies, someone who cared enough to waste the money on something beautiful that is already dying, something fleeting, something frivolous, something totally and utterly impractical… for absolutely no reason at all. Buying peonies for myself just makes me wish I had not been the one to buy them, and wishing that does not make me feel pampered.

So, a garden I may grow, but I will no longer buy my own flowers. That is my resolution for this year. Telling myself that the flowers themselves are all I ever wanted… that just cannot be all there is to hope for. But dreams are not so bad, and I will not stop dreaming. That is my other resolution.

Ah, it is the end of this year, the beginning of new days, new dreams, new songs. To all of you, both the dreamers and you more practical and level-headed sorts, I wish you all the beautiful gifts of the year that follows.

“I’d jump the Mississippi deep and wide…
If you was a waitin’ on the other side…”

I had the George Jones and Melba Montgomery CD playing in the car stereo today as I contemplated the nature of online dating.

First off, I don’t know if the melodrama of country music is the best thing to listen to in moments of loneliness and despair. Second, I was not actually in a moment of loneliness or despair before I pulled out the George Jones. There are real tragedies in the world that beat out momentary melancholy and self-indulgent pity.

I really have nothing to say right now, which for me is itself a statement. I saw a couple of friends, thought, spread out some artwork I am doing on the dining room table, went to a teaching workshop… The weekend was in all ways ordinary, and that in itself was enough to make me a little regretful this weekend. What more could I have done? Was there not one thing I did to make someone else’s life a little lighter? It really bothers me when there is not.

Maybe it was the cool nights and the long shadows that made me feel that way.

Of course, my fleeting sadness could have been much worse. I could have continued on to Hank Williams, maybe a little Leonard Cohen, and the keys to a new John Deere.

Then again, no. My yard hardly needs a weed eater, much less a riding mower. And I have better means of transportation. It’s got to be pretty hard to get a six-pack home on a bicycle, and after the endorphins of a hard ride kick in, there is really no use for it anyway.