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I just came across this poem by Mary Oliver in my journal. Who gave this to me early on in my own journey? Was it you CJ? Not sure, but it seems well worth re-reading and reminds me of the talk a few weeks back about finding an exit strategy. Tomorrow I start filling out some divorce stuff in earnest, something I’d been putting off until taxes were totally laid to rest. And they are. Each day, I do the thing that scares me most. It seems like the best way to just slow keep getting through it. Even if just an inch at a time. So deep breath: onward.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Given that Sinead has four kids by four different men, I’m not sure she learned all of the lessons this song has to offer. Nonetheless, the power of this performance is incredibly cathartic!
When I was stressing over the state of my house recently, a friend reminded me of the golden de-clutter rule: If you haven’t used it in six months, it goes. I looked at my books in horror. “Not books,” she assured me.
I just completed filling out the very onerous “Home Affordable Modification Program Hardship Affidavit”–a document that I’m guessing many people will never be able to accurately complete, or at least in the tiny window of time allotted, making this lifeline to negotiate mortgages a bit of sham. With luck, my taxes will be done by week’s end. All of which is April feel like an excellent time to start boxing up certain accoutrements of my marriage.
I have a big pile of cardboard boxes and my goal is a box a day. Target Numero Uno: Alex’s clothes and other stuff he never got around to before leaving the country. Next, will be the stuff that I don’t use any more. If I imagine it gone and feel lighter, it’s history.
More importantly, I need to find a really big, albeit invisible box, in which to put all of the mental and emotional stuff that I have used in the past six months but that I hope to get rid of now. There’s a heap of anger. Stacks of sadness. A few pounds of self-pity. And cases of fear. More than anything, I’d like to throw out every ounce of fear. It’s done me no good.
I wonder about my friends’ box. About the people out there reading this. What’s in everyone else’s boxes and what would it look like if we met at the spiritual dumping ground, passed our boxes around, giggled kind heartedly at them, smiled at our small human selves, told a few jokes, passed along a few hugs, and went home to our much lighter, brighter homes?
Spoke to Alex yesterday. He’s in Sudan where all aid organizations are being evacuated. I’d been reading the news, scouring the web for more information but hadn’t talked to him. I’d slept with the phone by the bed in case he called – or worse, in case someone else called about him. I felt torn and weird – here I am actively working with a lawyer to draw up papers, which is such a relief, but I’m also worrying about this person who I still love in many ways and who is in this crazy situation.
The talk was good. I read him newspapers over the phone because he has no source of news there. They’re all in lockdown until they evacuate. We talked about the kids. The dog. Springbreak. And then the conversation ended the only way it can when you’re talking to someone you’ve known for eighteen years who is being ordered about by a crazy president of a country with an ongoing genocide: ”I love you.” “I love you, too.”
It reminded me for the hundredth time of how relatively close Alex and I are to having a working, healthy relationship. And of how many people would take what we have. There are women who would accept his penchant for lying and his financial mess-ups because he’s a great cook and a wonderful dad. Just as there are men who might turn a blind eye to my tendency to fall in love with a different person every few years because I hold everything else together.
I wonder how each person decides what her limit is? How do we know when enough is enough? It would be so much easier if there were rules and guidelines – speed limits of love. Instead, it’s all got to come from the gut.
What She Was Wearing
by Denver Butson
this is my suicide dress she told him
I only wear it on days when I’m afraid I might kill myself if I don’t wear it
you’ve been wearing it every day since we met he said
and these are my arson gloves
so you don’t set fire to something? he asked
exactly and this is my terrorism lipstick my assault and battery eyeliner my armed robbery boots
I’d like to undress you he said but would that make me an accomplice?
and today she said I’m wearing my infidelity underwear so don’t get any ideas
and she put on her nervous breakdown hat and walked out the door
“What She Was Wearing” by Denver Butson from Illegible Address. © Luquer Street Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
