Intervention

It's Saturday night and I wanted to watch something so I chose Intervention, a movie written and directed by Clea Duvall where she actually gets to play a lesbian in an increasingly constricted relationship and chooses to tell her sister and her husband to stop hurting each other and get a divorce. Clea is not alone in her desire to set up the intervention; she has her brother Jack who has chucked everything to travel the country towing a trailer with a barely 20-something girl still dressing like a teenager hanging out for the summer between school years and Annie, who set up the intervention because she says she is tired of watching her best friend Ruby and husband Peter slashing at each other. Meanwhile Annie drinks her way through most of the movie while organizing the intervention because she is not ready to marry her fiance and knows she cannot postpone her wedding a 5th time.

Like all those movies where nearly 30-somethings are working out their issues during a wedding weekend, bachelor/ette party weekend, or intervention, it is clear from the outset that the relationships will end up on their ears and the happy ending will not include the instigators.

The thing about interventions, especially when they fail to involve people who really do need help and don't have court-ordered interventions, the point is that the couple in the crosshairs aren't really the ones who need help and everyone else is going to have to examine their navels closely. The fact is that people who set up couples' interventions, and the people who express their concerns at the outset and refuse to go along, are really the ones who need help. Their friends were either too polite or embarrassed to stage an intervention, or even talk to them about it, or weren't aware that was an option. In short, the movie is another chance to get together, get drunk, and air out the emotional linen among friends and family.

Isn't that always the way? Our thoughts are on someone else's problems while we avoid our own problems and issues entirely.  After all, they need help and we love them enough to help them. That's the thing about interventions and offering help to someone else, it's easier to focus on someone else's problems than to admit there are things we need to work on.

While watching these almost middle-aged couples sort out their lives, I was immediately reminded of Meathead and Gloria's disintegrating marriage. Meathead was predictably clueless and Gloria was needlessly dismissive and cruel. Gloria was bored, showing signs that if she had to spend one more minute in Mike's company she'd take his head off and castrate him with the rough and sharp side of her tongue. Luckily, Gloria had Edith Bunker to talk to.

Gloria asked her dingbat mother if she had ever gotten to the point where she just could not stand Archie -- and Edith said yes. She gave Gloria the best advice I'd ever heard.

There comes a time in marriage where even the sound of your spouse's breathing is enough to send you running to the kitchen to find the sharpest knife in the drawer to plunge into your once beloved spouse's throat. I would imagine the modern day parlance would be a throat punch. Your spouse's existence is beyond tolerance and you cannot stand it any more. This is the point where most marriages and relationships end up on the dump or out with the trash. You have fallen out of love with your spouse. You could, as most lawyers advise, get a divorce or you could wait to fall back in love with your soul mate. That is what Edith urged Gloria to do -- wait until you fall in love all over again.

As I watched Ruby and Peter I remembered that point in my own marriage when my ex-husband and I publicly cut each other to pieces over cards or during parties. On some level it was witty and funny, but on a personal level it was painful. I considered the knife, but now see I would have happily opted for a throat punch wearing brass knuckles if the choice had been offered. I hadn't seen the episode with Edith told Gloria what to do, and I'm not sure it would have mattered. We would still have divorced because I never actually wanted to be married to him after all. I got pregnant the night we got engaged and marriage seemed the best solution at the time. Mom told me the day we got married I didn't have to marry him and that we could work it all out. I'd have the baby and she and my father would adopt the child. Unlike Edith Bunker's calm dingbat wisdom, my mother could've said nothing that would have hurried me to the altar faster. The thought that she would raise my innocent child turned my blood to ice and all my protective instincts and hormones rushed to surround my unborn child. No child of mine would end up being raised by the woman who spent my entire formative years torturing me as she would undoubtedly torture and abuse my child, especially if it was a girl. I got married that day and have regretted it most of the rest of my life as I struggled with marriage, adulthood, and responsibility and longed for the life I had planned: going to college, getting a degree, and writing a breakthrough novel -- or becoming the first woman judge on the Supreme Court of the United States -- or the first woman driver to qualify for and win the Indianapolis 500. I was 18 and, though I felt I was ready for responsibility, I was nowhere close.

There was no one to do an intervention for me and I doubt I would have sat still for it. There was no Edith Bunker to help me over the hurdles and listening to my mother was akin to praying mantis courting rituals.

There is the fairy tale fantasy of happily ever after and the reality that comes with children and marriage and life as you know it ending while clinging to a past where you remember you thought you were happy and the future lay before you like a brand new Yellow Brick Road stretching along a glittering path where the Emerald City of Oz beckoned on the horizon. The Wicked Witch waited with fireballs and flying monkeys to bar the path, but you're wearing rose-colored glasses and only the good things are visible.

As I have said before, we are creatures who live mostly in the past where the grass was greener, children behaved, and people were civil and kind, socially duplicitous but at least everyone got along. Instead we live in a society populated by people ready and willing to trample your rights to speak while insisting that the only speech that matters is their own as they bully dissenters with libel and slander and name calling fit for a prison school yard and we have only ourselves to blame. While we gave out prizes to children showing up and soothed their hurt feelings by putting ourselves in their places, we forgot -- or failed to remember -- that helping a butterfly out of its cocoon denies the butterfly the struggle that gives it the strength and power to emerge and become a beautiful butterfly able to spread its wings and flit from flower to flower to feed itself and help pollinate the crops so there will be food and flowers for future generations.

Few people learn that it takes persistence and patience to get through the bored "I hate you" stage so you can fall in love again and remember what it was that brought you together. It could be the crooked quirky smile or the way he makes you laugh when you're in the midst of a pointless fight or it could be that her feet are cold on the hottest day of the year or how comforting his arms feel when he steals the covers so he can spoon you. The point is that sometimes you have to wait for the heart to catch up with the brain and few people take the time or feel they have the time to wait. There's always something more important than now and you and us. Sometimes patience is all you need but you have to wait and listen carefully for patience.

That is all. Disperse.

Put All Trash Here

I've an acquaintance online I've known for years and she is quite the business person and blogger. I don't know how she does it, but between Washington D.C. business, traveling all over the world for work and fun, and maintaining a home in D.C. and one in Florida, she is a success -- in everything but her relationship. That is a mixed bag.

I wonder what drew them together in the first place. They have their fun moments, and their fights and differences, but it seems most of it is good -- at least as far as is reported. Nothing is ever what it seems.

We look to the past and say that there were fewer divorces. That's true. There was the Catholic church to consider and ex-communication was not something too many people were willing to face if they divorced, providing the church allowed it, and there were lots of hoops to jump through (and money to be paid) to grease the wheels of ecclesiastical favor. There were also financial issues to be considered, as well as the destabilization of countries if marriages were annulled or the parties divorced. King Henry VIII comes to mind; he had to create his own religion as a result, despite being a devout Catholic, and Harry took it to the limit, marrying 6 times before he died, and producing 2 females that lived to rule. His only sons died young.

Marriages were more about benefits for financial reasons, lands, property, and power, and less about love and fidelity. That was relegated to the lower classes. They could afford to marry for love since they were unlikely to be able to marry for property and power. No wonder the divorce rate as so low. No one wants to give up land or money, and power even less.

Things today are simpler. Fall in love over Cosmopolitans, have the big fairy tale wedding that cost a few years' salary, and divorce before all the thank you cards have been written and sent. Disposable. The real reason was the fancy fairy tale wedding after all. An entire industry was created to service that particular excess of eccentricity and narcissism, which is strange to someone who put together a wedding in 2 weeks and paid for most of it from my savings.

I managed a nice ceremony with 5 attendants, 2 flower girls, a ring bearer, and 5 groomsmen (maids of honor need escorts), and a lovely and almost rowdy reception afterwards, followed by a honeymoon at the local fancy hotel in the honeymoon suite, which turned into a rush for clothes when Mom and a cop came knocking on the door. The cop was my cousin and Mom was carrying my overnight bag, which I had forgotten in the rush to get away from the people trying to overturn the car we were in because it wasn't the one they had decorated (and mined with exploding and embarrassing devices). That marriage ended, but not until after 3 boys, 7 years, and a load of grief from the typical mother-in-law and various and sundry infidelities from the male side of the relationship.

Not that I have a great track record, having been divorced twice, the 2nd time from an abusive spouse, but I do know what counts and what I want. One is not to go down the aisle again unless there are some pretty powerful benefits, none of which I've seen yet.

Every relationship is different. Some people marry young for love and stay together happily (mostly) for the rest of their long lives. They're the ones 75th anniversaries were created for. There are also those who get into marriage at the drop of a hat, usually worse for drink or other substances, and some actually stay together. There are still liaisons that come out of board rooms and social registers where the main focus is money, property, and/or power (usually all three), and there are the regular people who marry in haste and repent as soon as the divorce decree is signed a hot New York second after the ink is dry on the marriage license. Disposable and not recyclable, although sometimes the excuses and the people are as disposable as they are interchangeable.

Disposable is defined as a product designed for cheapness and short-term convenience rather than medium to long-term durability, with most products only intended for single use. The term is also sometimes used for products that may last several months (ex. disposable air filters) to distinguish from similar products that last indefinitely (ex. washable air filters).

Disposable is also defined as the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for. Disposable personal income is often monitored as one of the many key economic indicators used to gauge the overall state of the economy.

I think the last definition is the most apt here, disposable meaning what is left over after all the bills and income taxes have been taken out of the net income. In other words, what is available for saving after obligations have been met.

I don't think that children should be part of the equation, unless martyrdom is the main point, because children do not thrive or end up whole and undamaged being brought up in an abusive relationship that is little more than a war zone, but the needs of the children should be weighed in and out of the relationship against what is gained or possible to gain.

All these fancy words come down to one thing. Is the relationship/marriage worth saving? How many people stop to ask that question when they sober up or come down of the high of a fairy tale wedding and honeymoon while the 5+ carat rock is still shining on their finger and the glow of nonstop sex and excitement still glimmering in their eyes?

Marriages come from all sorts of reasons, but the usual reason for divorce is boredom. Marriage wasn't quite what they thought it would be. It's drudgery, staying up all night with newborns and sick children, emptying the dishwasher and arguing over who takes out the trash, cooks dinner, or does the laundry, paying the bills, repairs on house and vehicles, and the cost of living together. It's not always cheaper with two people, especially not in the current economic climate when 2 incomes are often not enough. Spouses/partners with no children have to deal with potential crashes between personal and business issues and which house to live in, whose friends are more important, and a thousand other details that end up being a tug-of-war over whose life and needs take precedence, and then there's the sex issue. I don't know why it is, but partners always seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum, one likes sex and the other doesn't, which is really code for I like sex but not so much with you. Soon, the relationship is on the rocks, which is where it began and remained beneath the haze of wedding festivities, alcohol, and vacation bliss before the real work began. 

Marriage and relationships are work because the people in them keep growing and change, or not growing or changing at all. The old saw about a woman seeing possibilities and what she can do with the raw material in front of her and the man believing the woman will stay exactly as she is, frozen in amber. The same goes for gay and transgender couples, too. One person wants stasis and the other sees potential.

Until marriages and relationships are seen as living things that grow and change and evolve, for better or worse, and until people realize that, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, the commitment is real, people will come together willy-nilly and separate just as haphazardly without realizing that the most important part of their life is finding a way to fit with another human being and work together.

I don't have all the answers. Life is too complex to boil down into a simple blog post that offers enlightenment. All I can do is shine a light into the murk and hope that someone gets it. The "it" is that people are not disposable. We are complex entities with flaws and potential and we need other people, not to make us whole, but to make things interesting -- and lasting. Future generations depend on us and, if all you ever do is bring children into the world or help raise children and teach them that people matter, you've done a good thing.

Second chances

Someone asked if I have ever given someone a second chance.

Yes, and it didn't turn out well. Some people refuse to change. Like my brother-in-law.

Beanie filed for divorce, again, after 26 years of marriage. She has been in an abusive marriage for 26 years and has left him several times. He doesn't beat her. What he does is worse. He abuses her mentally and emotionally and treats her like a possession most of the time and a piece of meat the rest of the time. Well, she filed for divorce and Mom and Hoity-Toity came down on Beanie's husband's side. Beanie had to move out of her house away from her children and animals and the home my father left for her to move in with our brother, the Mushroom (mushroom because he's always in the dark).

Meanwhile, BIL, the brother-in-law, was calling and talking to Hoity-Toity every day and Mom almost as often. Hoity-Toity told BIL who Beanie's attorney was and about all the private stuff Beanie didn't want BIL to know, sold her right down the river. Hoity-Toity has her own agenda, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, BIL called Beanie's attorney and said he was ready to sign the papers and he began working on Beanie.

He went to a psychiatrist and got on Celexa to show that he was trying to change. He bought a futon and moved into the living room, which was before Beanie eventually moved out. He whined and cried and begged and told her he was sorry -- again -- and that he would change. This is a familiar song and dance number he has used in the past, this time with the psychiatrist and medication twist to show that he is serious. In the past he has given up alcohol, promised to changed and managed the change long enough for Beanie to become convinced he really meant it this time, and even started going to church and talking to one of the parishioners and the minister about their problems. He does love to talk about what's wrong with Beanie, I mean, their problems. As soon as Beanie drops the divorce or moves back in and settles down, he goes back to being his abusive self and blaming her for all the trouble. This is known as the end of the honeymoon phase of the abuse cycle, which quickly follows the begging, pleading and apology phase of the cycle.

At any rate, taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist (he only went long enough to get the meds and has already canceled all future appointments), convinced Beanie that he meant it this time. She also missed her boys, 23 and 19, who still live at home and who BIL badgered until they agreed to move out with him when he was planning to move, and her animals, Dad's house and her things. She felt like she was being punished and losing everything while BIL was taking it all from her. She also hated being alone. Living with the Mushroom is still living alone because he's caught up in his own world on Second Life with Jess from London and doesn't pay attention to her. Beanie has never lived alone before.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Add pressure from Mom and Hoity-Toity and the belief that maybe this time BIL really meant to change and giving up everything to be alone, and Beanie caved. "We have had some good times," she told me when we talked on Monday. "It hasn't been all bad. After 26 years, I feel I owe it to him to give him one more chance. But this is the last time."

I've heard this 'last time' speech so many times I could write it in my sleep, and have. I'm still asleep now.

Beanie is co-dependent and she enables the abuse, so she is right in saying that this is partly her fault. Then again, it's not her fault because she is caught in a cycle of emotional abuse. Yes, there are good times because that is how the abuser keeps her off balance and sets her up for the abuse. There has to be a reward in order for it to work. It's not love, as BIL keeps claiming, but control. BIL doesn't like losing control and he will use, and has used, every trick in the book to further his agenda. He gets Mom on his side by appealing to her feelings about divorce being wrong no matter the reason. He appeals to Hoity-Toity's sense of greed by telling her that he'll talk Beanie into selling Dad's house so she can have the money, despite the fact that he and Beanie have a survivor's deed and have been living in the house and paying the mortgage for three years. There's a lot of equity built up in that house after Mom and Dad living there for nearly ten years and BIL and Beanie for another three, equity that Hoity-Toity can use to pay off her debts and cover up that she's been skimming money from Mom's accounts for the past year so she can buy two more houses (a condo and a house) in addition to the condo and house she already owns.

BIL tried appealing to the Mushroom, who went through a divorce a year ago, but the Mushroom wouldn't play. He told BIL, "You can cook, clean, shop for food and work. The only thing you won't have is a relationship. You need to let my sister go and give her whatever she wants."

He knows better than trying to appeal to me because I know him for the skeevy abuser he is and he tries to keep Beanie from talking to me and having anything to do with me. That's also part of the abuse -- isolating the person from family and friends -- and he has isolated Beanie for years. Emotional abuse is all about control. Read about abusive relationships and check out the graph near the bottom on the right.

Not everyone deserves a second chance. BIL certainly doesn't, but Beanie can't see it because she's caught in the cycle of abuse. Some people never get a second chance because they're dead or brain dead from being abused.

It's not just abusers who don't deserve a second chance, but anyone who has no intention of changing. Seldom do men and women who cheat on their spouses and lovers give up cheating. Once in a while, it's a one-time incident, but on average people who cheat once will cheat again, and they'll lie to cover up their activities.

Be careful about giving second chances. Weigh all the factors and pay attention to what has gone before. If you're in an abusive relationship and want to give your abuser one more chance, talk to a counselor or doctor. You may be co-dependent and/or an enabler and the best thing you can do is get out. You can always get more stuff and, if you're afraid of living alone, find a roommate. No one should have to live this way. The only way to deal with people like that is to starve them of their food source -- you.

Okay, that wasn't what I intended to write about, but sometimes I just go with it.

That is all. Disperse.

It's complicated

I was watching It's Complicated again, for the tenth time, and had one of those ah-ha moments. I never had the kind of relationship that Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin had as a married couple, not in either of my marriages. Both times I was caught in a bad situation and made the best of things by getting married.

One of the things I've learned by watching It's Complicated is about what brings people together. I've also learned to recognize love. I never had that with either of my husbands. I see that now. I saw it when I asked for a divorce and I knew it then because it was so easy for me to walk away. No tears. No emotional breakdowns. No psychic upheavals. When I found out both husbands were cheating on me I was relieved because I had a way out. They gave me a get out of jail free card and I used it. Divorce was cut and dried the first time and difficult the second time; Nick didn't want to lose his meal ticket (me) and getting rid of him, most of my friends and family heard me say, was like scraping gum off the bottom of my shoe on a hot August day. It took strategy and moving away with no forwarding address, and two years of waiting him out, to get my legal freedom.

There have been two men in my life I have loved. I walked away from the first one because I was tired of being disappointed, weary of him making promises he never kept, and waiting for him to make up his mind about what he was going to do. He wouldn't move ahead, so I moved away, and I cried for weeks.

The other man has kept me dangling for six years and I have decided I'm not waiting any longer for him either. I love him still, but he's never going to be the man I want or need. Fear keeps him from moving forward, fear of losing his stuff and fear of an uncertain future. I cannot offer him a guarantee that everything will work out. I don't know that. I only know that I love him and I'll do everything and anything to work things out. That only works if there are two people willing to work. I cannot do it alone and he's not going to help, so I'm done. I've waited long enough, listened to enough empty words and apologies. He's a coward, and I know about cowards. He won't change so I'm making the decision he won't. I've ended it.

Just as Meryl Streep knew there was no way back with Alec Baldwin, I know there is no way forward with him. I love him. He will always be a part of my life, but I have shed enough tears, nursed enough pain and waited silent and alone for long enough. We are done. I wish him well, but he won't be happy. He hasn't been happy all these years, but he's used to the fear and depression and his stuff. That will have to be enough for him. For me, there is an open door and an open road and I plan to explore them both.

That's what happens with really good movies. They mirror the truths of life and make you think while you laugh and cry and sigh in the darkness. I will watch It's Complicated again and again and yet again because it's a great movie with some wonderful poignant and funny moments (how could it not with Steve Martin as the romantic lead?), and because I find truth and honesty, not only in the actors' performances, but in the story. Someone knows whereof they speak, and they made me think and reassess my life. I don't want to go back, but I can move forward. That's the great thing about movies and life, there's always another good movie and another good day ahead.

That is all. Disperse.

The lure of money and social position

No, I'm not contemplating a marriage of convenience or a chance to power up. I'm pretty set in my my single ways. I wouldn't say no to an affair or a fling, but not for a while. I'm too busy with writing. However, the topic remains the same: what some women will do to get money and social position. The book is Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen. Haven't heard of that? Well, take a seat and join in.

Many people think that Jane Austen really had to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make it possible for Elinor and Edward to marry. Lucy Steele had been engaged to Edward for years, a secret engagement (Look, your future bride. Sorry, wrong story.) that cost Edward his inheritance which his mother settled irrevocably on his younger brother Robert who was a fop and a dandy. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. When Edward's sister discovered the truth from Lucy Steele she threw a hissy fit, that's modern American slang for had an attack of hysteria and the vapors. She threw Lucy out of the house, told on Edward and ruined the rest of his life. It was Fanny's fault because she made Lucy believe that Lucy could have any man of prominent social position even without a dowry; she had other attributes that made her an excellent choice -- just not for Edward.

Lucy and Robert had been thrown together while Edward was away on business and Lucy and Robert recognized in each other a soul mate, two people who were interested in social position and lots of money. Lucy engaged Edward's affections when he was relatively young and very inexperienced, but she knew what she was about. Edward stood to inherit a sizable fortune and a prominent social standing. That's all Lucy was interested in. Edward was too kind and honorable to break it off when he realized he was in love with Elinor, but I believe he would have if Elinor had given him any inkling of her affection and attachment to him.

Did Austen pull a rabbit out of the hat to make things come out right at the end? No. She had already foreshadowed the outcome with the fortuitous meetings between Lucy and Robert and their obvious common interests, and she made it abundantly clear that for Lucy the lure was not Edward's love and decency, but his fortune in her sights. When Edward's mother disinherited him, in spite of Lucy's attempt to get Elinor to have Sir John Middleton give Edward the rectory living on his estate, all Lucy was interested in was finding a way to be near people with money and social standing. If she couldn't have them for herself, she would make sure she was in close contact so she would be wined and dined frequently in the style to which she had become accustomed. It was always on Lucy's mind to throw Edward over at the first hint that she could have Robert, and that is what she did. Austen knew Lucy Steele's character better than Edward obviously did. So, no, there was no rabbit pulling, just characters acting true to their natures.

What do you think? Did she plot it carefully or did she stick the right ending on the wrong circumstances?

Where is love?

It seems there's a song title in there.

I've spent the past few days pondering love and great love for an anthology. I've had two great loves in my life and walked away from both of them for different reasons, timing mostly. The subject isn't quite as simple as it seems on the surface even though it's something I've written a great deal about, both fictionally and non-fictionally. It all comes down to a definitive definition of love, at least for me. Is a love great because the participants shout their vows to the skies or publicly display and celebrate their relationship or is it something more intimate that provides a less ostentatious show? How do you tell when people are in love? Is proof of love, as Elizabeth Bennett claims, general incivility or is it subtler and the bright thread of it through life stronger and less easily grasped?

Point out any number of couples and I can tell you very quickly whether or not they truly love each other. There's no real trick to it and they don't even have to speak. Sometimes open declarations of love are misleading, as are couples who shower each other with gifts. Love, as I have experienced and seen in others is clearer in small ways. Let's take two couples.

The female of one couple constantly calls her spouse her beloved, or uses some other form of adoration, and she constantly talks abut how good and kind and nice he is and how many other women missed the boat. He is a nice guy and he's creative and gentle and nice. He gave up his bachelorhood and a lot more to marry her. He is much quieter about his feelings as he's not a verbally or physically demonstrative guy, but he agrees that is a lucky man and loves his wife. He brings her flowers and chocolate, takes care of her when she's ill or feeling out of sorts. He supports her financially and emotionally in all her endeavors and she praises his work ethic and creativity. They never argue in public or loudly at home and say they never fight.

The other couple has been together for a very long time. You'll occasionally catch them holding hands or hear them heatedly arguing about some subject or other. He forgets their anniversary once in a while and doesn't spend a lot of money on gifts. She teases him when he is about to make a serious fashion mistake but she goes out with him no matter what he wears. Neither of them can be heard to say "I love you" out loud and they don't make a fuss over each other. They are private people and some would say they fight too much to be happy.

Now let's take a closer look.

The first couple, even though they've been married about two years, aren't happy. He spends more and more time at work and gets a look in his eye when he is informed the couple have commitments when he gets home. Despite their overt signs of affection, there is distance between then even when they kiss or hug each other. Tension crackles in the air and she frequently bites her lip when he talks, often cracking jokes about his little habits and social faux pas in front of friends and strangers. When she puts her hand on his so lovingly in public, her fingers are tight around his and her movements studied as though she is acting a part. She doesn't even seem to be aware of her actions or the wincing grimace that shadows his face from time to time when she interrupts or corrects him. After all, she says she does it out of love and from a sense of humor. Even though they smile and laugh, their smiles seem strained and their laughter a bit forced.

Even in the midst of a heated debate or outright argument, the second couple inhabit each others' space, not aggressively but naturally. When they pass each other he will lightly touch her lower back or brush shoulders and she often absently has her hand on his hand or his knee and the touch is light and familiar. They often finish each others' sentences or pick up the thread of conversation seamlessly where it was left off. Stories are told together as though well rehearsed, although the give and take is natural. When they sit together they lean slightly toward each other and when they look into each others' eyes it seems like time stops and some essential private message passes between them. They seem to be in silent communication. They argue, but the arguments seldom last long, like the last time he forgot their anniversary. He's always forgetting dates, but each day brings something new from him: a packet of seeds he saw at the hardware store he knew she'd been looking for, changing the oil in her car because she forgot it was due or tickets to a ballet for her and her best friend because he hates to go; he'll cook dinner that night so she can enjoy a hot bath he drew for her. She cooks his favorite meal because he's had a hard week or mend his favorite shirt, the one she can't get him to throw away because it's been mended so many times, and she'll pick up his socks for the millionth time when he leaves them on the floor, grumbling as she does and shaking her head with a small secret smile. She knows she can't change him, but she doesn't really want to because he picked up a packet of flower seeds she had been unable to find anywhere.

It's not the ostentatious shows of affection or loud declarations that prove a great love, but the little things: the way two people touch each other, the way they inhabit the same space, the subtle signals of body language even when their voices are raised in anger. Passion doesn't have to be loud; it is often silent and runs deep beneath the surface. A great love is most often characterized by a sense of oneness that does not diminish either and strengthens both without overwhelming either. In other words, great love is in the little details, the silent and not so silent signals and signs inherent in body language and the way people feel around them.

People who spend time with the first couple can't put a finger on what makes them feel so unsettled when it's obvious how much in love with each other they are. People walking in on a very vocal argument between the second couple may initially feel embarrassed but don't feel unwelcome or tense any more than they fear a summer storm that clears the air.

Great passion, like great love, often includes discord; the discord is momentary. People who are passionately in love are often also passionate in debate and disagreement. Like a violent spring thunderstorm, after it's over, a few leaves will be torn from the trees and dead branches will litter the lawn, but the sun breaks through the remaining clouds and shines brightly.

I've seen both kinds of relationship and it took me a while to put my finger on what was actually beneath the surface. One husband's jokes and humor masked a deep seated unhappiness and depression. A wife's closets bulging with the latest fashions and drawers full of jewelry couldn't fill the aching void of an empty marriage. Another wife who throws herself on her husband's cooling body and keens her despair and loss makes her cries of her pain and what she has lost seem fake when the people around her remember how she railed about how much she knew about pain when the morphine and radiation failed ameliorate the deep, gnawing, ache of bone cancer.

A young husband spends most of his time in his workshop or hiking in the forests and mountains to escape the silence that yawns from week to week when there are no domestic issues to discuss or items on his honey-do lists. They live in a world of silence punctuated by spurts of impersonal updates and family or local gossip, never touching, ever apart even in smiling family photographs, sealed in a bubble of separateness beneath masks that barely conceal their contempt and lack of respect. They celebrate romantic holidays and never miss giving each other cards for anniversaries and birthdays that are prominently displayed before being sealed away in boxes and scrap books, but they are strangers going through the motions.

I looked at my relationships and saw some of the same things, bits and pieces of barely contained contempt and calm familiarity. It was easy to see the great loves and the soul-sucking black hole relationships. The latter dominated. After going over them all, I know which relationship to write about. It's the one, despite the painful ending, where we were both emotionally naked and vulnerable and completely at ease with each other, the one that, when we were together, made people assume we were married even though we never got that far. It's the one with the sad ending and the rich, full and memorable days that still make me feel warm and incredibly blessed. It was the one great love of my life, the one I still miss.

Beyond the sidewalk

Cold darkness surrounded me all night and getting warm was an elusive dream. The furnace blew overhead and sucked all the moisture out of the air and my body until restlessness turned to counting breaths to fall asleep. Huddled in the meager covers that once were more than enough to cocoon warmth and comfort, sleep played tag with mind and body until the faint light of coming dawn heralded the end of the night. It was a rough night in some ways and not so rough in others with peek-a-boo glimpses of other worlds and lives, some of which were familiar.

Have you ever wandered in dreams and recognized places you returned to over and over? People are often the same and they grow and evolve with time, sometimes a safe haven and other times the pits of nightmare. I spent several years going to a university and graduating on a faraway world that existed as shadows and mirages away from the stone and marble edifices of learning. That's fancy for a misty, barely realized world away from the university buildings, a wash of colors like the shifting radiation of the Aurora Borealis next to the sidewalk. That's the thing about dreams that seem so real, there's always some unreality attached to it. It reminds me of parents who invested all their time, attention and resources into their children without ever realizing that one day the child would leave despite their best efforts and the relationship they ignored -- their marriage -- is suddenly all they have.

One friend and his wife handled the empty nest syndrome by having another child, a girl fast approaching the time when she will be off on her own. They're good people, but their daughter has been a buffer and an excuse for lack of intimacy. In three more years, she will be gone and there will no longer be a buffer or an excuse.

Another friend and his wife only had one child late in life and she has recently gained some freedom by getting her driver's license. She is gone as much as possible, intoxicated by being able to go where she wants almost whenever she wants. Her mother isn't handling it well at all. She lived for her daughter and now her daughter is fighting to get free of her, struggling to become independent. Mom insists that when the time comes for college, the daughter live at home and go to college locally. The daughter isn't having any of that. She can't wait to get away and nothing but shackling her to a stake in the front yard will keep her from bolting for the far horizons. Mom has suddenly been faced with hours of empty time that once were filled with shopping, visiting and watching television together with her daughter and all that's left is her husband who, for the past 17 years has been nothing more than the National Bank of Dad. He was left to his own devices and now he has a pal tagging along after him, following him to his workshop and home office, always wanting to know what he's doing. She invites him to watch TV and sit and talk to her and he's a bit nervous about it all. It's what he wanted, or at least what he said he wanted: having her pay attention to him, to see him. It's not quite what he thought it would be like. It's a bit creepy if truth be told and the glimpse of their life together after so many years of neglect and outright animosity is a bit frightening.

Picture a bear that hibernates a lot or concentrates on the cub until she wakes up and begins ripping into her mate with sharpened claws and a ravening hunger that sends everyone and everything fleeing before her suddenly without a cub and unable to bear more making nice with her favorite meal. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. That's where things stand for them now. Mama Bear is baby bearless and Papa Bear will have to do. Just think, the waning years filled with a needy and tetchy Mama Bear while baby bear goes to college and finds a life of her own.

That's the thing about empty nesters, they seldom realize until it's too late that building their lives and dreams around their children is a dead end, especially when they've spent little or no time nurturing the one relationship that will sustain them in the empty nest years -- their marriage. They began together, but somewhere along the way forgot who brought them to the party. In a way, it's funny to watch couples who have grown apart attempting to find some common ground, unaware that time and tide have worn away the connecting edges until there's no connection left.

Single people are a little more prepared because they know what it's like to be left alone. For them, it's a new lease on life and a chance to find someone with whom to spend their late afternoon and twilight years. Being single doesn't look so bad any more, not when couples that seemed solid from the outside turn out to be nothing more than shifting colors and light on a frigid night when sleep is elusive and hard to catch, and icy fingers steal the warmth from the body while the roaring furnace sucks the moisture from the air. It's like walking the halls and sidewalks near the university buildings so solid and sturdy on the marble foundations while the rest of the world exists as a dream beyond the sidewalks.

There can be only one?

I was asked this morning if I believe in monogamy.

monogamy
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French monogamie, from Late Latin monogamia, from Greek, from monogamos monogamous, from mon- + gamos marriage, from gamein to marry
Date:
1612
1archaic : the practice of marrying only once during a lifetime
2: the state or custom of being married to one person at a time
3: the condition or practice of having a single mate during a period of time

What's not to believe? Monogamy is keeping only to one person and it happens all the time. It is unfortunate, however, that philanderers get more space in conversations and in print than monogamists. Chalk it up to the public's addiction for excitement and dirty laundry, an addiction fed by sensational journalism and modern media from fact to fiction. People want to see heroes' bright armor tarnished and idols with cracked feet of clay.

I am a serial monogamist, giving my affections and attentions to one man at a time even if the man isn't monogamous. That's the way I'm wired. I can be courted and flattered, flirted with and cajoled, but once my attentions are firmly engaged on one man I don't stray, no matter what. I look, but I don't touch.

Some of my best friends are monogamists who have been with one man their whole adult lives and some of my best friends are philanderers who are trapped in bad relationships but feel they cannot or should not get out. The philanderers get their emotional needs met outside their primary relationship, but in a sense they too are monogamous because they no longer, or seldom, have sex with their primary partner.

Until Spencer Tracy met Katharine Hepburn, he was a married Catholic who cheated openly on his wife. As a Catholic, he didn't believe in divorce, and his wife wouldn't give him one anyway had he asked. She knew her standard of living would suffer and she'd only get half of Tracy's earnings instead of a free meal ticket the rest of her natural life if she agreed to a divorce. When Hepburn and Tracy met and fell in love, Tracy became monogamous. Hepburn and Tracy were married in their hearts but not in reality and it didn't matter to Hepburn that she was not Tracy's legitimate wife. She was his wife in spirit as his legal partner was wife in name only. Love transcends the bonds of matrimony, especially in a society where divorce is so costly and the problems (emotional and societal) so great.

Okay, I think I've answered this one.

That is all. Disperse.

That smile

Riding the subway or bus or train every day, life tends to fade into the background, just so much static and noise at the edge of awareness. Focusing on a book or a newspaper, knocking out a few more notes or closing the eyes and listening to whatever's on the iPod helps maintain the fiction that there is actually a cushion of space, insulation against the press of working humanity. That's all you need, a little bit of space. One face blends into another and another until you are immersed in a sea of blank faces all trying to preserve a little bit of personal space, a cushion of protection that separates you from the press. You've learned to ride the bumping and swaying like a surfer on a wave, a boxer rolling with the punches, a stunt man absorbing the energy of a fall and turning it into a roll that brings you to your feet to be ready for the next sway, the next bump, the next shock of contact.

In Jean Auel's first prehistoric novel, Ayla, a very curious little girl, ugly and gangly, all legs and arms and eyes, is adopted into the tribe by the Mogur, the shaman, and his sister, the wise woman and healer. It is hard for her to avert her eyes, keep from invading the huddled figures around the other campfires. It's all so new to her, these people who shelter in caves. She has yet to learn that to stare at the other family groups is disrespectful and rude. She's curious. She wants to know what the strange short, dark, gnarled people are like. She is a child, an intelligent and curious child. She wants to know, but she is reproved and cautioned against invading the others' privacy repeatedly until she finally learns to tune them out, until their lives lived in such close proximity is little more than a blur of images and sounds that no longer penetrate her awareness. It is the only way to live in such close quarters and maintain a little privacy, a little distance, a little personal space.

When does personal space become isolation?

Craig's List has a section for missed connections. A face in the crowd that coalesces from the static and touches something inside still not numb from the constant barrage of noise and bodies. Out of the greyness, the cacophony of humanity, comes a glimmer of color, a whiff of something that triggers a memory or a feeling, a glimpse of possibility. At that moment, the isolation is broken and you are infected. The disease is relentless. You must get closer. You want to reach out, to touch, to connect, to assure yourself that they are real. You miss the connection, but the infection has taken hold and fever sets in. You can't rest until you connect again. And so you send out a carrier pigeon, a paper bullet in hopes that they noticed you, too.

Red Line, 4:30 p.m., that smile.

You reach out and wait for an answer, some sign this isn't a one-way connection. You're alive again. You feel. You want. You need. You can't stop smiling. You're not alone.

How often in the busy day do the minutes and hours blur into an unrecognizable collage of what should be done and what must be done? Chores, bills, work, responsibilities, expectations, and mindless hours in front of the television or computer. Those moments when something out of the ordinary wakes us up are rare. They get rarer with time and age. A fleeting connection is a gift, a remembrance of excitement that infects with joy and magic. How sad to waste them, fall back into the anonymity in the surging sea of humanity, to disappear into the static, to become one with the predictable grey blur. Isolated. Silent. Lost. Disconnected.


that smile.

Dead and Married

Yesterday's post stirred up some interesting responses. Some people are focusing on the marriage aspect and others on the death aspect. Beanie's focused on the death part and she says Mom is right.

"About what?"

"That we wouldn't know you died until later."

"So what makes you think you're going to be around when I die?"

And the conversation went on from there. Beanie realized that even though she lives in the same state with the rest of the family they don't see each other all the time and don't communicate regularly. She can't be certain she'd know right away that any of the family had died. I did promise her that I'd make sure to die when she was around so she'd know and could phone everyone to let them know I was dead. She's afraid she won't be on time because she missed Dad's last moments by a few moments.

I'm not as morbid as the rest of the family. I make jokes. I laugh. I concentrate on the now and the immediate future. Death and I don't have a close relationship, not like the rest of the family. They check the obits first before reading the rest of the paper and Dad kept a "death book". It was a scrap book full of clippings of family deaths, or people he thought were interesting. It was a hobby. Mom's sending his Death Book to me with the proviso that I keep it up. Well, since I'll be around at least another 96 years, I can do that and make sure all the rest of them get into The Book.

Since I'll have the book I think I'll add my own special views into it, like some of my favorite death jokes.

At the end of the world when the bomb is dropped, the only things that will be left will be cockroaches, moths and Mom.

When Dad was alive, I made him promise to take Mom with him so we could get the group rate on caskets and funerals. Carol hates that joke. Dad and Mom loved it. Then again, Mom plans to be cremated when she dies and wants her ashes put in the box where she keeps Dad's ashes. I told her she needs to let Dad have an eternity free of her. It's not as bad as her first plans to be buried in Dad's grave with him. That was sort of my idea without being buried in the same coffin, just at the same time. Dad reneged on his promise though. He died and left Mom behind. Nothing like leaving your mess for someone else to clean up -- or live with -- but that's Carol's problem. She volunteered.

In a story arc that begins with life and ends with death, about the only other major moment in life, other than having children, is getting married and I've been giving that a lot of thought since Mom keeps bringing up my shameful unmarried state. I'm not worried about getting married, but the idea of marriage and the furor of emotions and philosophical nit picking (interesting story there, too) that goes on because of homosexuals wanting to get married is food for thought.

The political Right and several world religions want to ban homosexual marriage because marriage is between a man and a woman. That's lets out a marriage of the minds and other similar uses for marriage. Marriages of different metals to create a new and stronger bonded metal. Marriages of convenience that are only as sacred as the financial and social gains of the parties involved. Marriages on paper that are little more than two people sharing a name, a house and finances, usually one supporting the other. Green card marriages. Ideological marriages. Shot gun marriages. Incestuous marriages. And I could go on.

The idea that marriage is sacred, especially when you consider the Catholic view that nuns are married to Christ, which makes him a bigger polygamist than Brigham Young or any of his contemporaries, is iffy at best, especially when you consider what that says about monks, brothers and priests. The ick factor is high, Rocky Mountain high. I don't think the furor over marriage has anything to do with being sacred, not when you consider all the loveless marriages based on nothing more than convenience, need and financial or social considerations. Doesn't seem all that sacred to me. It's really not about being sacred but about legitimacy.

Marriage legitimizes children and relationships. A man and a woman can spend their whole loves together, but if they're not married their children are bastards, illegitimate. Even if a couple don't have children, their relationship isn't real, isn't legitimate unless they bind their love up in a holy band. Spend 60 years living together, loving together, being together, struggling together, working together and it's not legitimate in legal terms or in society's eyes unless you sign a paper that says you're married. And there lies the problem.

If homosexuals are allowed to marry, that legitimizes a relationship the majority of society considers an abomination. The argument that it opens the doors to marriage between humans and animals doesn't fly, not when you consider how many people are already married to animals parading around pretending to be human and getting away with it. Society is fine with legitimizing a union between a middle-aged man and a prepubescent girl or a marriage disguised as a social or financial merger. Society is even fine with legitimizing abusive relationships that marginalize both sexes, but not a loving relationship between two people who happen to share the same plumbing. It seems society will tolerate anything but that.

When you deny another person happiness and the right to share love and legal protection it becomes nothing but petty revenge for not following the dictates of presumed societal norms. Commitment comes in many forms and it shouldn't matter who deserves legitimacy. Legitimacy has nothing to do with what a person or group of people deserve. There is no moral high ground here, not when society stands by and allows the supposed sacredness of marriage to be lessened for financial, sociopolitical, religious or ideological sleight of hand.

Marriage, like death, is a fact of life. Death isn't sacred, at least not since human sacrifice was frowned upon as a barbaric custom. Life isn't sacred when anybody with the right equipment can bring children into this world to be abused and used and sacrificed on the altar of legitimacy to protect financial holdings or use to maintain the fiction of legitimacy. Marriage is a legal term that functions to protect communal property and secure the legal status of offspring, adopted or natural born. That's all it is. To deny anyone protection under the law in the name of keeping a legal fiction, in most cases, sacrosanct is the domain of schoolyard bullies.

I've been married twice and the first time I married I had a choice between the father of my unborn child and a man of property, much older than I, who cared for me and wanted to protect me and give me a good life without consummating the union. I chose my unborn child's father and I used to wonder if my life wouldn't have been better had I chosen the other man. I've seen supposedly happy marriages turned into battlegrounds and cold wars to rival the animosity between Russia and America.

I've watched children stunted and emotionally deformed by parents who were more interested in how they appeared to their neighbors than in the fact that they inhabited the same house, barely speaking to each other without abuse and anger. I've seen couples struggle together to bring up their children, sacrificing to give their children a good education, because they loved each other, and without a marriage certificate. I've seen every possible permutation of people coming together, but in the end the relationships that still make me smile were built on love and acceptance, couples who weathered storms and depressions and impossible happiness.

Those relationships had nothing to do with legitimacy and everything to do with love, two people coming together because they couldn't imagine their lives without each other. Not so surprisingly, some of those relationships were between couples who shared the same plumbing, inside and out. I want one of those relationships. Don't you?

We don't need you...

...and we're not sure we need you either.

An old friend mentioned something yesterday that made me stop and think. He said more and more women are staying single because they don't need men to support them. I guess you could say that marriage is a buyer's market and the buyers have changed. Too bad men haven't changed, and that may be the whole point.

Women have put men through their paces since they became financially independent and the whole women's movement in the sixties seems to have disenfranchised men in a lot of ways. What it all comes down to is that men probably aren't much different now than they ever were and women are willing to put up with less since they don't need men to support them, making women the buyers instead of men. Once upon a time, men were the buyers choosing which women would give them the best chance of propagating their species -- or continuing their line, if you prefer. Rich men wanted not only a good breeder but a woman who looked good, a beautiful ornament for their arm or their table. Now the tables have turned and women want someone who looks good, a beautiful ornament for their table or on their arm, and a good income sweetens the pot. They also want men who make them feel good and don't give them too much trouble. Kind of puts things in a different perspective.

Since divorce is not only legal but fairly easy to get, it's like the sword of Damocles over a couples' heads and hovers dangerously over the head of the weaker partner in a relationship, except the weaker partner isn't always the one with control of the purse strings. Makes an interesting situation, no? Definitely something to think more about.

That is all. Disperse.