Some of them come to you with toy surprises inside. Some of them come with nothing at all. But always they’re precious and fragile and beautiful, adding color and delight to an otherwise rainy season. Then, in the fall, they pack up their Priuses, and head back to school. Your treasure-filled daughters, scattered like Easter eggs, hoping to be discovered by someone who will love them, unconditionally, like you.

She travels different routes now, and shops at different stores. Sometimes she forgets that he, and that old life, are literally just around the corner. 

She wakes up everyday, grateful for the birds and the brand new fig tree she planted (yesterday) with a garden spade (because she doesn’t own a real shovel and the bitter woman next door wouldn’t loan her hers). 

And she’s glad, for all she’s gaining, but she’s also sad, for all that she’s given up, like hearing the particular, awkward, rhythm of her somewhat ungraceful older daughter cantering down the stairs every single morning, not just on her custody days, or her youngest, bursting into laughter, or spontaneously sitting down at their old upright piano whose top two keys don’t play at all…

Those last few years, he used to say, “I’m not going anywhere,” as a statement of his commitment. And at first, it felt comforting. But after awhile she realized that he loved BEING MARRIED, not being married TO HER.

He was sweet, he was kind, but he was weak. She tried getting his attention, but it was senseless. He, was senseless. He couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see. So, while his declaration felt to him like the highest possible bar, to her, it felt like prison, like a sentence. And so, leaving was left all on her.

She knows that she broke him. She wishes that weren’t the case, but she couldn’t find any other way. Total destruction, was what it took, finally, to make him feel. 

1. [My] addict, though beautiful, kind, tender, thoughtful, divinely sexy, will always, as long as he is using, put his drugs and alcohol first: Before me, before my kids, before his kid, before his own selfcare. His addiction will always be there and will always resent anything and everything that gets in its way.
   
2. I do not need to support financially, transportation-wise, meal-wise, habit-wise, health-wise, hobby-wise, anyone in order to be worthy of love. I do not need to be needed to be lovable. Aka, love, kindness, respect, tenderness, do not have to be transactional. Should not be transactional.
   
3. I am a wounded girl from an emotionally neglectful and physically disrespectful household. Where my feelings didn’t matter/were ignored. I do not need to remain silent or needless. I do not deserve only “broken” people to “love” me.
   
4. I was not raped–by my father, or my stepfather, or my uncle’s, or my neighbor’s–but I did suffer sexually at the hands of others who took unfair advantage of my kindness, my naivety, my desire for connection. That makes me vulnerable and leaves me with blind spots. Someone may very well have preyed upon me and my children for their own sick need for power. This does not obviate my responsibility, my role or in the fallout; but it does mean that I need to be vigilant, and also, make space to forgive myself for not knowing or doing better at the time, and in the future.
   
5. I am an adult, divorced woman. If I decide to have sex with someone, whether or not it’s within a commited relationship, that is my decision and my right. I am free. I am strong. I am worthy.
   
6. Healing is a daily decision and a daily practice. For me, it requires meditation, journaling, writing poetry, making art, playing and listening to music, taking walks, listening to the rain, washing dishes, folding laundry, taking showers, drinking water. Eating good food, laughing, teaching, sleeping, and being touched. All in moderation. All one day at a time. Some days, twelve steps forward, some days 11 steps back. It’s all a part of the journey.

Over think

Over eat

Over sing

Over bake

Over fuck 

Over care

Over dare

Over share 

Over hear

Over there

Over prepare?

Overrule.

It is over, see?

        I am.

                      over.

                                  Here.

After my father left, family dinners became Salisbury steak and accompanying mashed potatoes, cooked-in-the-aluminum-tray-provided and eaten in front of the TV. 

We missed his cooking, but at least we no longer heard his nightly curses from the kitchen, when he’d invariably hit his head on the same corner cabinet (How does someone do that every. single. day?) 

Other background sounds changed too: fights for his attention that had lead to smacks across the cheek were replaced by piano appegios, Chopin, and Beethoven, our mother practicing incessantly, her senior recital upcoming in the spring.

As we gave up on being parented, my sisters turned on one another, clawing and scratching each other through adolescence. I turned to kind neighbors and our bedraggled Collie dog for nurturing and guidance. 

Despite our Jewish heritage, our mother thought that December to bring home a Christmas tree. She pulled it out from it’s cardboard box and set it up to its full 3’ height. She wrapped it with colorful lights and tinsel strands in the living room, paradoxically named as none of us kids was allowed in there due to the white sofa. It remained the least “lived in” room in the house. 

She admonished us, “Do not tell Grandma about the tree.” Of course I did. It was so beautiful.

I don’t know if we’d have been a bit less tilted had they stayed together. Not even the best intentions can straighten what has begun to go sideways.

I.

My fingers trace
the curve of your shoulder,
the length of your
forearm. The line where your ocean meets
my sky.
We are horizontal.
One shift of your body and I am on top
Of a mountain
Gasping from the altitude.
I have never been so high.

II.

Where I stop and you begin

If I don’t teach you

We will be less than one.

III.

You took away my keys

and then you let yourself

Into my home.

Uninvited. Unwelcome.

“Not without an invitation,” I said.

“These boundaries,” you said, “I am agog.”

Yes. These boundaries are mine.

You cannot take them from me.

“Tell us about a time you broke something?” The prompt dared me, “Tell us about a time you made something with your hands.” What if, they’re one and the same?

The day I first saw you, I knew I’d love you.
You had eyes as wide as saucers, and you looked out
from that thick white turtle neck sweater
like you were afraid to love.
You were right to be afraid.
The world was going to take away everything
you held dear–
by the time you were 9.

The first time I saw myself, I was squinting at the sun.
Dressed up for a party. Overly fancy stiff blue dress, overly starched collar.
A birthday party for a girl I didn’t like.
My grandfather asked me to sit out back, smile for the camera.
I knew I was supposed to try to make them happy.

Once, I tried to learn to throw pottery.  It’s harder than it looks,
getting it balanced on the wheel, centered,
so your vase, or mug, or bowl doesn’t come out
lopsided.
Lopsided things are not greatly appreciated.

The first time we had sex, I was so nervous, I didn’t know what to do.
It was awkward and embarrassing. “Relax,” you said,
“We’ll find our rhythm.” And at some point, we did.

But now, even that, is broken.
That thing that I made
with the wide-eyed boy.
Broken.

The little girl’s face, my face is riddled with lines,
crevices. All of the expectations
and times that she tried to please.
Broken.

And: Where are you tonight? Slowly committing suicide
by self-negligence? Where is the man who taught me
that I am worthy? Deserving of love?
Broken.

I cannot fix you with my hands.
I cannot center the clay,
wet with anticipation. Spinning slowly on the wheel.

There was that one morning in January, or maybe it was February, when we awoke to a light covering of snow. The birds were silent, the trees were still. It was one of those days when you could stare out the window forever. But by noon it had all melted away.

Now it’s mid-March and the winter we’d all hoped for has landed upon us. Not by way of precipitation, but rather by viral infection. The world is on lock-down from Covid-19. It spreads, we’re told, through contact. So we’re practicing a new term, a new way, called “social-distancing.” To my kids all that means is that they are no longer allowed to have social lives. Forget the fact that this generation is more connected via Snapchat “Stories” and “Insta” (gram) than any other population before them. It’s not *just* that they want to be on their phones all of the time, it’s that they want to be connected digitally and be sitting next to one another, too.

We’re all trying to adapt.

Today I saw my neighbor outside as I put out the recycle bin just in time for the collectors. I lifted my hand to wave and I’d swear a red flag came across her face, “I see you. For God’s sake, don’t come any closer.” We were easily 30 feet apart. Is all of this really real?

My kids told me the other day that the Disney movie “Tangled,” a re-telling of the classic Rapunzel story, you know the one, where the mean old mother forces her daughter to stay in the tallest tower, away from everyone, in order to keep her safe was actually set in a village called, “Corona.” Coincidence? Of course. Yes. Maybe not?

I keep thinking about how in the 1970s, you could pull up to a traffic light and the car in the lane next to you would be blaring the same top 40 songs from the same radio station. In my case, WPGC. The music ran the gamut from Earth, Wind and Fire, to Kenny Rogers, to Paul McCartney, to Julio Iglesias, to Anne Murray, for Chrissakes. We didn’t know from identity politics, or genres like “Rap” and “Country” and how profoundly listening to audience-targeted music and news would divide us.

And now we’re living through physical separation, as well as political, as well as personal. What will this look like when we reach the other side, if there is indeed another side?

My dad is 88. My mom, 80. Both have compromised immune systems. He’s a diabetic. She has COPD. Neither one is listening to the news, staying out of the grocery store, keeping 6’ apart. They don’t care about catching this virus. They are tired, I think, of the way things have become. Divisive, argumentative. Even my own family can’t have a holiday meal without treading across someone’s feelings. Last week, my sister was appalled when she learned that I suffer from migraine headaches. She didn’t care that I get them, or how I manage. She was pissed off that she didn’t know this about me. It was about her.

We’ve all personalized our iTunes playlists, tuned into news geared to our fears, modified our home screens with the apps that only we use, recorded TV shows, so that we could watch later, alone, the shows that we prefer, rather than sitting down to watch whatever was on, together. We’ve become narcissists. 

Now, Covid winter is upon us.

During this season will we learn? Reflect? Emerge from this yearning for deeper connection? More prayer? More serenity versus separation? I am washing my hands, appreciating the water, warm from the faucet, and the soap that will make my skin clean. I hope our hearts will be, too.  

 

[Title used without permission by Simon & Garfunkel]