Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Scratch 'em

The humidity has abated and the pale blue sky is tinged fiery orange and peach.  A lone cicada shrilly sings its singular song, yearning for a return.  The tomatoes are mostly green on the vine and the watermelon plant is fringed with yellow blossoms.  It is summer in Virginia.

With the heat, summer showers and the cloak of mosquitoes, has settled a veil of ennui.  The children chirp in the living room and my husband sails through the study signing some ridiculous song.  I am thwarted.  Writing in a happy household is anything but.

It is not the heat or the swelter that deters me from what I want to write.  Could it be happiness?  Is it really a joyful noise which interrupts, disturbs me?  My own dissatisfaction, my inability to love, live in abandon?

"Scratch him means they took him out of the lineup", I hear my husband explain to my eight year old about Stephen Strasbourg.  Ah.  Of course.  The pressure.  I get it.

Late at night, as the moon silvers our bedroom and the cats settle into the folds of our covers, I lie looking at the ceiling.  I count not only blessings, but accidents and curses, mistakes and misfortunes.  I take a tally. It is not always favorable but more times than not it is.

I am a lucky woman.  I have known pain and joy and love and loss and the am old enough to know that I need to experience all of these to really experience any of them.

So tonight I am taciturn.  Tonight I yearn for a solitary space where I can write without wondering how people will react to what they are reading.  Instead, I write labored with concern.  Is it lyric, does it flow, does it make any sense?

They happily buzz in the room adjacent to mine.  A mindless hive alight with chatter.  I sit surly in the study.  Yet without their bright banter, would there be anything to say?

The sun has not yet dropped beyond the horizon; it hangs, suspended in its golden glory, casting a honey glow to the late July evening.  What was it I meant to write about?

Monday, July 26, 2010

Reflections

I remember blue eyes, pale as sky, almost lashless, piercing and unsearchable.

Empty promises.  Weak-limbed hugs.

When our mother met him in Woodstock, half way between D.C. and Lexington, he would buy a six pack for the drive home.  We three in the backseat, huddled like spinster sisters, like refugees.

Donoughts, Sweet Sixteens, from the 7-11.  Either steaks or jarred pasta sauce for dinner.

And I never told him, how much I hated every minute, how stifled I felt, how much of my life was passing me by back at home... because God knows I wasn't living any kind of life in Alexandria one weekend a month.  Movies, ballet recitals, soccer games, sock hops, sleepovers...  in the grand scheme of things, were they anything?  They were everything, in comparison.

And I don't feel callous.  I waited.  Sweet Jesus, I waited to feel the guilt, the sorrow, the pain.  After he's gone, I thought, it will all come down and I will fall beneath the weight.  Yet, I still mourn only my lost time with friends, weekends surrendered...

What is it with we the survivors?  We bite our lips and bide our time... waiting... waiting for the reckoning. Am I sorry that he died?  Do I miss him?  I miss what never transpired.

My father was an impossible man.  His death has been incomprehensible.

I only think of him when I make mistakes.  I worry that my parenting is sub par.  I worry that I do not possess enough humility.  I worry that I drink too much.  My legacy.  It is such.

Thin skin, big ears, thick thighs, short temper, quick judgement... I am not without parts of him.

It is the part of him that he never gave anyone that I am missing.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The continuing education

The older I get the more I realize the less I know.

Guess what?  I wasn't really smarter than my parents when I was 17.

Surprise; I didn't end up marrying my high school sweetheart.

Hhhhhmmm, a classics major really doesn't translate well in the working world.

I really do feel better if I go to bed around 9 PM.

Sure, I've had these epiphanies.  What I have also come to understand is my own insignificance and that I  am the only one who can change that.

I never really "got" physics or logics for that matter.  I still have trouble calculating square footage.  I can cook, but baking?  Forget it, that's a science.  I'm still not sure what I want to do when I grow up.

I'm still no closer to "understanding" God than I was 25 years ago.  I also still make wishes on eyelashes and shooting stars and pennies thrown into a fountain.

Here is what I do know.... putting a plate of food in front of a hungry person is a form of love, writing thank you notes is still the right thing to do, taking care of an animal instills responsibility and compassion, my mother was right more than she was wrong, saying your sorry may not completely heal the wound but it is still the best balm, love exists in a multi-hued world; there is no black or white, yes- your metabolism really does slow down, sometimes a grilled cheese tastes better than pan seared scallops and foie gras, and forgiving yourself will be your hardest task.

I hope to pick up more along the way.  Right now, I'm just grateful that I have somehow managed to glean as much as I have.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Tight wire under the sun

There is a pale shimmer on the horizon.  Please let it be the sun.  The ceiling of the sky hangs low and grey over us.  It is hard to maintain a happy outlook when the sun hidden from view.  After all, I am in Florida, damn it.

Sanibel.  An endless stretch of shelly sand, clear water the temperature of a warm bath, palm trees lining the shore.  I love this place.  I came to it reluctantly... not wishing to intrude on my in-laws vacation; they have the use of a 3 bedroom condo for a month during the summer.  As they have 4 children, each child is invited to visit for a week.  Tim and I did not take them up on this offer until 4 years ago.  Now this place is in my blood.  It is not quite what New Orleans means to me but it is close.  There are no high rises, no bustling big hotels, no McDonalds or even a Starbucks.  What they do have is beyond my description... dolphin cruises and white sand, exotic shells and bicycles for rent, nature preserves and  Quack Quack Shrimp (although techinically that can be found on Captiva, at the Mucky Duck). 

I read, collect shells, eat at fabulous restaurants and sunbathe.  This year we played tennis until we had hit all the balls into the marsh and were reluctant to retrieve them as we had spotted an alligator sunbathing the day before. 

Yet, with all of this subdued atmosphere, I am not totally at ease.  We share this generous condo with Tim's parents, who are beneficent beyond reproach.  However, I am constantly reminded that I am not a true Gray.  Don't ask me why or how, it is just how I feel.

It is curious... marrying into a family.  You spend so much time and effort in courtship but the relationship with in-laws can be difficult to cultivate.  You have entered a family in the most intimate of fashions... how to you endear yourself to a family that might perceive that you have stolen something? 

My mother-in-law and I are different creatures.  Politically, relgiously, morally, educationally, sentimentally... we are at odds.  Polar ends.  Maybe... maybe we are too close to being similar.  I haven't figured it all out.  I do know that we vy for Tin's soul.  Sons and mothers, boys and lovers.  It's all so difficult to figure out. 

Tim is adopted.  This of course makes absolutely no difference at all to Tim or his parents. 

Tim is also married, a husband, father and provider.  He is no longer a boy, no longer under a thumb. 

Love is, as Pat Benatar so eloquently put it, a battlefield.  We wage war with ourselves, our dreams and hopes, our fantasies and our realities.  The best we can hope for is coming out scarred but smarter.

The waves ebb and flow.  The sun sinks low and taints the sky an impossible fiery peach.  My in-laws are out for the evening.  We order pizza in and gorge ourselves. 

In the end, a man cleaves to his wife.  It is not an easy reckoning.  Apron strings are hard to sever. 

The beach is fraught for me.  The idyllic setting, the intensely personal battle. 

Yet, I cannot fathom a year without Sanibel... without the leisurely walks, the shelling, the sun...

I guess what it all comes down to is temperance.  Know your strengths, work on your weaknesses, love without bounds, think within reason.... Love is the tightest wire we will walk. 

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Lucky number 13

It is approaching thirteen years... should I be wary?  July 3rd, 1997 was the day I met Tim, rather it was an evening.  A hot sultry evening in a cramped apartment in a section of town known mostly for catering to homosexuals.  I had just had cocktails with several girlfriends and confided that I was going to focus on my career, men be damned.  Going to a Independence celebration in DuPont Circle didn't bode well for romance anyway.

The apartment was dark except for the kitchen with its glaring overhead.  The space seemed to pulse, with music and bodies and the thick summer air.  Tim was standing at the back of the kitchen, clutching his beer like a steadying hand.  He was wearing khakis, a tee shirt and running shoes.  He had a slight comeover and an affable grin.  He looked as bored as I thought I would be.  I walked right up to him and asked him if the party was as bad as it looked and he conceded that it was worse.  We launched into non stop banter... snide repartee, politics and beer.  He didn't look scholarly or wordly, yet he appeared intelligent, well studied.  He had a deep sonorous voice and was tall.  We proceeded to make fun of most of the people at the party.

There was no drama, no longing or painful self evaluation.  Falling in love with Tim was effortless, a sky without clouds.  After six weeks, we talked of marriage.  Over Thanksgiving, he spent the holiday with my extended family, including Gran, whose opinion was of the utmost importance.  By February, on the 15th to be exact, my grandparents anniversary, he proposed.

All my days spent with others, agonizing over a future with this boyfriend or that... it was all a different lifetime.  I had never known that love could be comfort.  I had known passion and desire and jealousy but comfort was new.  Meeting Tim was a homecoming.

The engagement was managed by my mother.  Tim and I planned the honeymoon and the actual ceremony.  I picked out my dress but that was the limit of our involvement.  The day of the wedding the florist called me in tears because the bridesmaids freesia bouquets were dead.  I laughed.  "Buster, I'm getting married today.  I don't care about flowers".  (His name really was Buster, by the way).

Later though, as my new husband fell into a languid sleep, I curled my legs into my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees.  What had I done?

I stole glances at his profile, the set of his jaw, the droop of his shoulders.  Had I never noticed he stooped?

He drank to excess one night on our honeymoon in Key West.  I sent him unceremoniously back to the B&B and stayed downtown with a salty old sailor to watch the local Christmas parade.  I asked my new friend if he had ever married.  He knocked back a tequila and squinted at me.  Marriage is a swan song, he said and left me while the middle school band warbled through Jingle Bells.

I sat there in the bar, streetside with the parade ringing in my ears and the bar's smoke encircling my head... a swan song.  A last desperate aria before dying?

I thought of my parents and their sham of a marriage, 16 years too many.  Infidelity and secrets and pain.    I thought of the divorce rate and the friends from high school I knew who had already ended their marriages.

Befuddled, I trudged back to the room.  I could hear Tim snoring before I even reached our room.  What other wonders awaited me, I thought.

That night the wind whipped the palm trees above us and the rain lashed the windows.  I stared wide eyed at the ceiling while Tim slept.

Tim awoke refreshed.  My eyes were swollen and I had cotton mouth.  I swung my legs off the bed and watched him dress.  I've made a mistake, I thought.  How do I tell him that I was wrong, that I was overwhelmed by emotion, caught up, mistaken.

He turned and smiled at me.  He walked towards me and kissed my head, "Time for breakfast".

I watched as he inhaled his eggs and french toast.  I cautiously sipped my coffee.  I scalded my tongue.  A tailless cat brushed against my legs underneath the table and I absentmindedly stroked his fur.

I excused myself and went back to the room.  I called Gran.  I couldn't bring myself to tell her my horrible secret but she softly spoke over the phone about commitment and fidelity, loyalty and love.  I hung up and shed my clothes, hoping a hot shower would resuscitate me.

And with the water pouring over me, I realized... I was without a compass, a map, a guide... I had wandered into uncharted territory and I was terrified.  This had almost nothing to do with Tim; almost subconsciously I had made the right decision, but now, in a full waking state, I was scared of the repercussions.  Sickness?  Health?  Had I committed to a life of wealth or a life of poverty?  Was I really willing to take that chance?  I had met Tim in health and wealth... could I really put up with anything else?

When I came out of the shower, Tim was sitting on the bed waiting for me.  I'm scared, I said.  I know, said he.  You've never seen me sick, suicidal, manic, said I.  I might, he said.  I don't know if I can do this.  You can.  What if I fail?  You won't.  How do you know?  I don't, you just have to trust me.  What if I can't?  I'm willing to wait.

The truth is, you never stop being scared.  The truth is marriage is a free fall.  I chose the right partner to jump with.  Sometimes I am the one shoring him up, other times it is he who carries the weight.  And there are times when we are in tandem.

Maybe it was blind luck.  Maybe it was karma or fate.  Somehow, almost unwittingly, I walked into this marriage.  I've heard your first impression is usually right.  Solid, I thought, when I first saw Tim Gray.  And so are we.