The State of Our Union

I’m taking the day off today. I have 10 comp hours that will expire on Friday and it’s supposed to be sunny. But right now it’s cloudy, maybe it’ll just be warm… that will do. I’m going to walk to Natasha’s for a blind date with someone wearing jeans and a Harley jacket and has taken women’s studies and interpersonal communication from my old professor. She asked me the other night at Muscle Mania class if I was dating anyone… I told her I was just getting rid of a bad boyfriend. She told me she knew someone I might like to meet and I gave her my email address. Now I’m going to a lunch date with someone who is fifty and has three children and is semi-retired and going to college and broke off a relationship with a girlfriend last spring and recently lost weight on an Adkins diet. So, I know a bit. But, I don’t know if he is bald, or tiny, or too tall, or pock marked. I must rely on my friend to have used her better judgment with all that. The only concern she voiced was that he might be more conservative than me. I’d laughed at that and boasted, “most people are more conservative than me”.
“Well, he can’t be that conservative… he went to see the Vagina Monologues with me and Joy… and he seemed to enjoy that” she tried to correct her perception. I’ve never seen the Vagina Monologues so the only information I can glean from that is that he would go to a play and to anything with the word vagina in it and that he’s gone out with my married professor and her single friend. So, my first thought is, “why didn’t Joy like him?” Maybe he didn’t like Joy.
I should be thinking about what I’m going to wear… contacts and running shoes. The truth is I don’t care. It would take a miracle for me to care about this man. I’m still deep in the murky waters off the shore of Scott-land.

He called on Monday night. At first I didn’t want to pick up the phone. I still didn’t know what I wanted to say to him. Hadn’t I already said everything that needed to be said in my eloquent one-page letter? Apparently not because we talked for over an hour with a brief five-minute recess when I told him, “I’m going to hang up on you now”. We talked about our relationship; how he wanted it to be just about sex with “no strings attached”… his favorite phrase of the night. Early in the conversation he’d referred to what he wanted from the relationship as “boundaries”. I’d laughed and told him, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I have absolutely no boundaries”. He’d laughed, too and said, “Yeah, I guess I have noticed that.”

The conversation was filled with flirtation and seduction, and both of us admitting our weaknesses, and me trying to sell my vision of our relationship to him. He didn’t buy it. Two or three times he came close to coming over; once he even invited me to his house. When I said I was coming he quickly withdrew his offer. That’s when I hung up.

I went and ran a bath and poured in sea salts. I was angry and it felt good. I brought the phone in with me so I could call Sweet Pea and tell her every nuance of the conversation and have her help me decipher his incomprehensible behavior. He called back before the tub was filled. I told him I couldn’t hear him because my bath water was running… and within minutes we were flirting again. He tried one more time to see if he could come over with “no strings attached” and then admitted that we weren’t going to come to a compromise. I told him I thought this was a good place to end our conversation. For the most part it had been amicable and unresolved. I love the way he looks, talks, dances, kisses, thinks, hugs, smells, laughs, sings, smiles, jokes and tastes and although I’m fairly certain I couldn’t stand to live with him, I want to spend more time with him. He doesn’t love me but enjoys getting drunk, he calls it intoxicated, and having sex with me. He wants to have fun with no drama, and absolute freedom to come and go as he likes.
There is no compromise.

Forgive me, Blessed Mother

Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005

Dear Mary,

Forgive me. Last night I fell from grace. I called him. I’d gone to the dance, made myself go; against the protests of all my girlfriends…”Don’t go back to that dance” they'd scolded me. “Look what you find there…find someplace else to go where you’ll meet men like you”. So I went to Fourth Friday at the Art League. Most of the men seemed gay. No one for me, but still I’d gone out and the art was good.

I’d been listening to NPR on the way home from work. An Ojibwa Indian was talking about the student massacre at the reservation high school. He said they were going to have a ceremony so that everyone could grieve and let the grandmother spirits visit and comfort them. “You have to let the pain out” he said to the announcer. “You can’t hold grief in or it will come out in other strange ways”. I wanted to let my grief out.

When I got home I put on my running clothes and took a long fast run up and around the arboretum. As I walked back in the front door I pulled off my headphones. Eva Cassidy was playing on the CD “Deep and dark are my true love's eyes”. I stand staring at the floor thinking of his deep dark eyes. I lean against the threshold and weep.

On the way to the art league I stare up at the huge yellow moon and think of all the other moon visions I’ve had by myself. I can't remember ever seeing the moon when I was with him, but I can remember looking at it and wanting him to be there. I go home and unblock his number. I fall asleep easily and I’m not surprised when I wake up the next morning that he hasn’t called. I get up and start cleaning. I want everything to look beautiful for NotDog’s birthday. He’s bringing his new girlfriend home to meet the family. I wash all the rugs and mop the floors. At five I go out for a run and then come home and watch Garden State. It’s about how love can save you. I weep at the end.

I decide to go to the dance even though I’m utterly tired and every time I look at myself in the mirror I think, “Jesus, I look wretched”. I tell myself it will be dark at the dance and I haven’t talked to a real live human being all day. I talked to Sweet Pea and Pantherina on the phone but that’s not the same as watching words come out of a human face. I tell myself I’m not going to see him. He’s probably gone home to see his parents for Easter and besides I’m going to go early and come home early. He never gets there before midnight. I start to feel better in the shower and by the time I’ve got my makeup on I feel like I look pretty good.

There are always a handful of men at the dance who circle around me like wolves around a lone doe. I don’t mind. It’s better than standing alone and I get to dance a lot. The bartender pours me a plastic cup filled with straight bourbon. I give him a $2 tip and start sipping. By the time my drink is gone I’m feeling borderline safe to drive but it’s only a few blocks and I’m glad to be leaving before he shows up. I walk in the door and congratulate myself for going to the dance and having a good time and for getting home safely. Then for some unexplainable reason I walk over and pick up the phone and dial his number.

I didn’t know what I was going to say and when his message came on I hung up. I knew that he would know I’d called and that’s all I wanted him to know. I went to bed enjoying the light dizzy sensation I was feeling. I’d only been asleep a half hour when the phone rang. “Did you make a mistake?” he asked.
“Not yet.” I answered only half joking, still not knowing what I was going to say. “Where are you?’ he asked.
“I’m in bed.” I told him, feeling a surge of memories. I was usually in this same sleepy drunk trance when he’d call. Only tonight I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. “I went to the dance tonight” I tell him.
“Oh that explains it. I’ll call you in the morning. Did you take some Tylenol?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned with the possibility of me having a hangover. “Not yet” I tell him, feeling pleased that he’d called back so quickly and hypnotized by the sound of his voice. “Where are you?” I ask.
“I’m out of town”. He answered, typically vague and shrouded in useless mystery.
“I want you.” I blurt out…throwing all caution to the wind… just wanting to be
real and honest with him for a change. “I’ll call you tomorrow”. He repeats. I wonder if he really will or if he’s just saying this to get me off the phone. “Don’t you want me?” I ask incredulous that he might not. “I want you.” He says as if that should be obvious, “but I’m not in town.”
“I know” I tell him.
“I’ll call you tomorrow” he tells me again. “Take some Tylenol and drink some water, OK?”
“OK” I tell him.
“Goodnight then” He says.
“Goodnight” I tell him. I hang up the phone and let it drop to the floor. I roll over on my pillow and cry hysterically for several minutes until I’m afraid the neighbors will hear me. I lie awake for hours trying to get comfortable. At 4:30 I tell myself “You’re doing it again. You’ve ruined another night’s sleep over him. You’ll be tired all day tomorrow while your kids are here and you’ll spend the day waiting for him to call. And, what are you going to say when he does? What do you want? What do you think has changed?”

But something has changed. I feel some sense of peace… maybe it’s just part of the grieving process to have reached out one more time. Maybe, I’ve gained some comfort knowing that he did care enough to call back, knowing that he could still admit that he wanted me. Maybe it just feels less painful to have let some of the grief out.

California Easter Family 1974 

Saint Anthony's Prayer

Dear Saint Anthony,

Thank you very much for helping me find my birth certificate. It came in the mail last week. It made me feel sad when I learned my mother had only been 19 when she had her second child. It had surpized me to learn her middle name. I didn’t know what it was. Couldn’t answer that question when the registrar asked. I had to give him the Bull’s middle name instead. But when I read “Mother's Name: Lily Ann Weaver”, I stopped. Why had she given me exactly the same name as hers? It seemed strange considering she wants nothing to do with me now, never has as far as I can remember.

I thought I'd put it away somewhere safe. Last night I started looking for it so I could go get my passport. I looked through all the drawers and cubbies in my desk, and all the manila envelopes in the Sierra Nevada box, all around my computer station, and in my studio, in the den, in both bathrooms, in all my coat pockets and twice through my back pack. I think it was then I decided not to roll the Curbie out for the garbagemen.

This morning I thought maybe I brought it to work yesterday and left it there. I put on a bright blue shirt and make-up for my passport picture. At work, I cleaned off my desk and started to worry that I wasn't going to find it. Tonight, when I finished putting my groceries away, I told myself that after supper I was going through the garbage. The idea of digging through the wet coffee grounds and discarded egg yolks was so revolting that I went through all the same paperwork I’d already been through the night before. I told myself that this was truly one of those times when I wished I didn’t live alone so that I would have someone else to blame.

In desperation I repeated the St. Anthony’s prayer that Indigo taught me: “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, Please look around. I’ve lost something which must be found.” I made myself get down on the floor with an industrial sized garbage bag which I blessed myself, forgive me St. Anthony, for having on hand. Then I cut the old one open and gently dissected the layers like an environmental archeologist or a jealous lover. Only I felt more like a pathetic child, whimpering as I admitted it wasn’t there. It was raining outside, of course. So I put on my hooded sweatshirt and remembered when I used to be afraid to be home alone.

I remembered the first time Woody left me alone with the three little kids on the farm in Bradfordsville. He’d driven up to Louisville early in the morning for a load of lumber and I’d expected him home before dark. I remember little Trueman going outside to pee before bed and running back in the house screaming with terror, “FFO… FFO…I saw an FFO”. We all ran out expecting to see a UFO and saw it was an airplane. We’d laughed and explained what it was to Trueman. Then we all sat out on the porch for awhile looking up at the sky and down the road, waiting and hoping for Woody to come home.

After he left there were a few times I felt afraid but I got over that fast. I don’t think I’ve felt afraid since the time the thieves broke the lock off my back door while I was at work. Bigboy told me to put a chair under it and he’d fix it the next morning. I loaded the shotgun and slept with it under my bed. Now, I can walk out to the shed in the dark and think I look bad in my hooded sweatshirt.

I had to tip the Curbie over to get the lone bag of garbage then brought it back into the kitchen and laid it down on the plastic and slit it open. “This is why you can’t lose any weight”, I scolded myself as I lifted the boxes of melba and Popsicles and felt a surge of hope as I spied the pile of catalogs. There it was in its unremarkable envelope. “Praise God and Alleluia” I shouted. “I’m going to Costa Rica”.

Iris called and said she was packing for Montana and asked me to bring back her warm fuzzy pullover. I told her how I’d found my birth certificate and bragged that being really smart meant being smart enough to know how dumb you could be. She said it meant being smart enough to set up safety nets for your stupidity.

Monkey Drive

Lord make me an instrument of your peace. I feel overwhelmed with sadness and gratitude for all the beautiful things in this world...in my world...grateful for all I have and ashamed of my longing, fearful that I will spend the rest of my life preparing for a trip. But, what trip is that?

The one to Costa Rica that awaits my birth certificate arriving in time, the one to Italy to see my beloved gods? Or the last one, where people gather in your rooms and wonder why you kept this.I spent the weekend in my room, sifting through precious bits of paper and plastic. None of it would mean anything to anyone but me; the little cardboard Monkey Drive firecracker I found in the UK parking lot. I sat it on the dashboard of my old Honda where it rolled back and forth, reminding me to slow down by flying into the seat when I took a corner to quickly. I finally took it inside the house, convinced that it would not help my image were I to be stopped by the police.

Sometimes I think I will go mad with longing, but it passes quickly. What surprises me is that the intensity increases. It seems like it should decrease as it does in other forms of addiction. I find myself wondering if this dalliance with desire will finish me off...leave me empty and deflated, never to rise again. I have symptoms of exhaustion and I'm isolating myself so that I can organize compulsively. As if being able to make sense of my paper closet will makeup for the confusion of how something that felt so beautiful to me could be so meaningless to him.

the king of wands 

The Peregrine

Saturday, January 8, 2005

Hi Dick and Jane...

Thanks for sharing the info about our reunion date. I'm going to have to do some serious math to be able to do everything I want to do this year. My son and his girlfriend are spending a year in Costa Rica and I want to visit them. And my flamboyant girlfriend has rented a villa in Florence Italy for her 50th birthday in November... I'm sure I can figure out how to do it all.

Thanks also for your encouragement Jane. I haven't mentioned my "lover" much for many reasons... He's always told me that he didn't want to have a relationship with me... and then he'd start kissing me. I could never persuade him that we actually already were relating, which in my vocabulary means we're having a "relationship." I tried to explain to him that one has many relationships... with your dentist, your colleagues, your neighbors and children...etc... I knew that what he was trying to tell me is he didn't want me to be his girlfriend.

I decided long ago that I would just cruise along and see where this little boat was going. In fact I never know where we're going but strangely enough, I'm still enjoying the ride... and judging from the regularity of his visits, so is he. He acts almost like he's married, but I'm certain that he's not. It has only been recently that I've come to realize that he is an alcoholic, and to believe that his unwillingness to share his life might be because he is trying to hide the extent of his alcoholism from me.

He tells me all the time that I should find someone else who can give me what I want. To which I explain that I have no idea "what" I want. I do know "who" I want and that is him... I've wanted him since the first time we touched. It made my heart race. I know that's not so rare... I've met a few men in the last few years who made my heart race once or twice and then I'd discover they were rude or mean or dull or they'd just ignore me until that little fluttering heart thing went away... until I met him.

The more he came around me the more I liked him...everything about him. Not just his beautiful smile, but the way he talked to me and about me and that he wasn't afraid to sing with me or dance with me... and when we'd do those things together I felt in perfect union with him... and I felt like he was feeling the same thing. We spent months just flirting and months giving each other massages... and months just making out...not wanting to "get into a relationship".

When we finally did spend the night together we spent hours and hours hugging and kissing and sighing. We've been sleeping together about once a week for a little over a year. Our relationship really hasn't moved forward in any way except that I can pretty much predict that he will call me every weekend and he will be drunk... Sometimes he's just tipsy and sometimes he's obviously impaired. Sometimes he calls during the week.

On those nights he's often sober. We usually have a drink or two together and listen to music and talk. Sometimes we watch momentous events on the television like the Red Sox winning the World Series or the Olympic opening ceremony. I prefer those nights even though we usually get to sleep very late and we both have to get up early and spend the next day at work, totally sleep deprived.

I still feel my heart race every time I hear his voice or see his face. I've slept with several men in my life and recognize that he is not a skilled lover but we have a magnetic body language that astounds both of us. Sometimes I wonder if this will be the night that it doesn't happen, but it always happens.

I have often felt that he was a gift, an angel sent to restore my broken heart. In the beginning his enforced detachment felt like agony. Slowly I realized that I was making myself feel that agony, he wasn't. I was also making myself feel that love... he was contributing to it but ultimately I was responsible for the obsession I felt for him. I've got my obsession for him under control now. So, perhaps that has been a movement forward.

I think his alcoholism has also progressed. Early in our relationship he mentioned something about if I ever came to his house I would see how sparsely it was decorated. I'd already spent the night and an hour or two of the morning at his house. I couldn't believe that he'd forgotten about the entire evening and even the morning spent sitting on his deck and eating blueberries? He hadn't seemed "that" drunk. When I questioned him he acted confused and said... "oh, yes now I remember”. I asked him, "Do you have a little blackout drunk problem?" He looked like I'd just punched him in the stomach and said, "I didn't think I did. But, maybe I do."

I never mentioned it again. Last February he fell asleep waiting at a train crossing and went to jail for two weekends and couldn't drive for 60 days. He went to DUI classes and paid big fines. Throughout the entire experience he took it like a man... saying he deserved it and had learned his lesson and would never drive drunk again. So instead of driving over to my house drunk, he'd call me and I'd pick him up.

One night I ran into a woman that I really respected and told her about my "boyfriend situation". I didn't even mention his drinking just his evasive behavior and she asked if he drank. She'd been in a relationship with an alcoholic for 20 years and had been out of it for about 2 years. Without me telling her a thing she described him: " sweet, funny, loving" and his behavior: "won't commit to doing anything, if he does he'll break the date, won't tell you where he's been or what he's doing". She then told me his drinking would destroy him if he didn't get help, which made me want to weep. She also told me I was enabling him by giving him rides. That's when my own self-deception started... I'm sure you must have had moments in your own life when you want to put the truth back in the box and pretend like you never saw it...

I'm still wrestling with that demon. Every week I tell myself I have to find a way out of this quagmire. Last week he drove himself over. At first I wasn't sure how much he'd had to drink. After a while I decided he was probably too drunk to pass a breathalyzer. I told him that I didn't usually give advice but I was going to make an exception, then told him he had no business driving, that he was going to get caught and the consequences would really be severe this time. He agreed and thanked me for my concern. I asked him if he would like me to remind him again when he was sober. He said, "No...but thank you for asking."

I tell myself that he is not my child and even if he were I could not control him. You are right; his alcoholism is a demon and he can save himself. As to your suggestion that he ask God for help, it would be right up his aisle. He was raised in a devout Southern Methodist home and often refers to his belief. I'm just not sure how, or when, or if, or why, I should be the person to point all of this out to him when I'm quite sure he already knows... and is in deep denial... and probably hears it from time to time from his family and friends. He actually may be able to hide the extent of his drinking from his family who live far away, and he may even be able to hide it from disapproving friends. I don't know anything about his personal life... he's never shared it with me... and I've always given him this freedom to do whatever he wanted to do.

I'm sure this sounds absolutely insane to you. It sounds pretty insane to me. I guess all I can say in my defense is I move slowly until I know what I'm going to do and then I'm unstopable. I'm glad you are praying for him and for me. I need to pray for him, too and for wisdom and strength to know what to do. Thanks for inspiring me to go on and on.

I came home from work early today because I have to work extra hours later this week. It was cold and rainy and I had hours to kill before I met my oldest daughter at the gym. I haven't been writing lately and whenever I quit I scold myself incessantly. I wanted to write and I wanted to answer your letter and thank you for your advice and concern. I'll try to keep in touch but please don't worry if I don't write often. I just have a very busy life and usually when I'm not busy I'm just uninspired... sitting on the couch eating popcorn and watching other people live... Your life sounds very lovely and sweet. I'm happy for you and I look forward to seeing you in October. I will be there, even if it means skipping Costa Rica or Italy.
Love to you both,
Lily

the mission of Saint Dorothy 

tryingtoprofileinlessthan600characters

Your Interests:

It depends on the day. Some days I'm not interested in anything...just going through the motions...coffee, shower, work, work-out, eat, sit on the couch and watch tv until I'm sufficiently tired to fall asleep and stay that way for at least a few hours... other days I love my life.

If I'm inside my beautiful house, it might be the way the sun shines through the red vase. If I'm outside it might be the way the stars look in a winter sky or the way the wind is blowing the clouds into long thin ribbons, it might be the carving on the eaves of an old house, or an old Asian woman who smiles at me sweetly. Sometimes it's algebra, working feverishly to remember the irrefutably logical steps so that I don't lose my comprehension, or pausing in a book to look up "lugubrious". Sometimes it's whether I look sexier in my high-heel boots or my pointy-toed kittens.

Sometimes it’s my beautiful adults who were once my children: Monkey, Notdog and Trueman, Bigboy and Bella and their new baby girls. When I’m with any of them I’m fascinated, when I’m with all of them I feel awed. It’s only when I’m away from them that I allow myself to ponder on the fact that I produced them, nursed them and tried to teach them what they would need to know to survive…and they have and now they are producing and nurturing the most beautiful new generation. What a gift. How could I have known while I was hitchhiking around San Francisco with the fat little Bigboy on my hip that I would know this kind of joy when at last my job was done…and it is. Even though they all want me to continue to mother them, I don’t. I feel like I have no more to teach them. Now I let them teach me.


About Me:
I was a child of the sixties...a victim of the Summer of Love, a welfare mother living in the Haight-Ashbury. I believed in the Johns (Kennedy and Lennon). I believed Jimmy Carter when he said the reason we had to line up for gasoline was that we were running out of fossil fuel... It had never occurred to me...but I believed.

So I took my three babies and left California; drove with my husband to a 70-acre farm in Kentucky and learned how to drive a mule and wash diapers in a bucket of cold water. I learned that cows really do have to be milked and outhouses really do fill up and fucking really does result in more babies. I gave birth two more times in the same bed I'd conceived them in. I learned that work is infinite and later, much later I learned that play is precious.

Later, after the children had all wandered off to find their own lives and the husband had wandered off to find his, I learned that there was still so much to learn...I was amazed at how much information was accumulated at the university. I felt like I was living my young fantasy, walking across a sunny fall campus on my way to the library to find out what made Aung San Suu Kyi a heroine. I learned how to run. I learned that it was all a matter of believing in yourself...and I do. But sometimes it's others I can't believe in.

I cannot stop the war. I cannot stop horrible violence perpetrated on the most innocent beings imaginable. I wonder if I will ever meet my "soul mate". I meet souls all the time who I share a connection with: Jasmine who taught me to run and helped me understand why the peregrine was flirting with me...although she finally came to admit she also had no idea, my friend Pixie at the Museum who is a ball of fire and takes me out on a Wednesday night to see the Mosquitoes at the Dame, or the young man I met in the woods who helped me find my way back to the parking lot and shared his water-tube and told me he too loved eagles. Sometimes life feels ripe with promise and sometimes it feels old and worn.

it wouldn't be the same

I dreamt about the peregrine last night. I was trying to tie an extremely difficult knot. I had a tool-kit; three small sticks or maybe they were bones or antlers. They were roughly carved and progressed from a straight stubby little tool to one with an el-shape. I was using all of them at once to help create this difficult knot, holding one in each hand and one in my mouth.

He appeared in my dream and I wanted to smile but I was afraid of dropping my tool. He walked behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder. It felt wonderful; it felt like love. I woke up and tried to remember how his skin felt. I put my lips against the inside of my arm, but it’s not the same.

I think about whether he still wants me when he’s drunk on Friday nights. I wonder what he would do if I called him at twelve-thirty tonight. I think he would come, but it wouldn’t be the same.