Requiem for a Friend

Posted on by learning to live like water

Pretty much all of my married life, My ex and I owned a boat.  We went from 16′ to 20′ to 30′ to finally a 41′.  We bought a slip for it back in 1989, and kept our boat there until we divorced in 2010.  Over that time, we made lots of friends.  Had a lot of good times.  Probably the best times of our marriage, because it was the only place my ex could forget himself.  I have always said that it kept us married a lot longer than we should have been.

In the divorce, I got the slip and he got the boat.  I believe he has now sold the boat, which was sad for me, because I loved it so, but inevitable.  But in owning the slip, I could rent it out, and still maintain access to see all my friends there, and it gave me access to the water, which, well hell….I try to live like water, was important to me.

Our community there was very much a summer community.  We generally were out of touch with our friends down there during the cold winter months.  But then come April, and time to get the boat ready, and we’d all meet in the yard, and half the time do nothing the first day but get caught up on each other’s winters.  We’d pick up where we left off, just as you do with any friend you’ve had for 20 years that you don’t see as regularly anymore.  All summer long we were intimate parts of each other’s lives.  We’d cruise together, we’d spend hours in each other’s cockpits until late in the night drinking wine or rum, just shooting the shit.  It was wonderful.

Today I went down to put up a flyer in the clubhouse to rent out the slip. I had not been down there in a year.  We have had a new dockmaster for the last few years, but I never met him, because without a boat there was no need to interact with him.  But today, he happened to be near where I parked and asked if he could help me.

I explained why I was down there, and who I was.  He has been at this yard for years, working on boats.  I recognized his truck.  We had a nice long conversation about old timers like myself, the state of the dockominium, the politics, etc.  Then I asked him if a couple who were probably my best summer friends down there were there.  He leaned against my car and said, “You heard what happened to Betty didn’t you?”

“No” I said.  “I don’t talk to them all winter…”

Betty wasn’t feeling well, and went to the dr.  They told her she had a couple of cysts on her liver, and it was nothing to worry about.  She went to Yale New Haven Hospital I guess, and there they found that she had liver cancer.  Far too advanced for any treatment available for that deadly cancer.  They sent her home to die.

And so, she died.  I cried most of the way home. I had been hoping, actually planning to talk to her today.  I was sure she and Bill would be down there getting her boat ready as they had for the last 20-some years.  And now, she’d never be down there again.  Her husband was not there either, so I couldn’t even see him to give him a hug, and cry with him a little.

Betty was outside the box, and I loved her for it. Betty was always the captain of her boat, which was ok with her hubby Bill.  When they pulled into the marina on vacation in Block Island, the dockhand would be directing Bill.  He would say in his inimitable Yankee accent, “You better talk to her, she’s the captain.”  She did all the maintenance.  She once had a boat that needed a new canvas.  She brought her sewing machine (industrial) down to the dock and stitched it up right there.  It was beautiful, professional.  She also recovered all her cockpit upholstery, not a small job on a 34′ boat.

Betty worked at Electric Boat, and from what the dockmaster told me, had finally retired this past year.  She had worked as a ship-fitter, installing things onto the high-security level of our nations grandest submarines.  I once asked her what it was like, the secure level of the subs that they never let you see.  She said, “Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” and then laughed her ass off.  But she didn’t tell me.

In her spare time, she did wood carving, and designed a bird house that needed no nails, it just fit together.  She gave us one.  We painted it, and put it out.  I wonder if ex still has it.

A couple years ago, she and her husband bought a 37′ sailboat, and began to lay plans to quit working and cruise the high seas.  She and Bill took me out on her boat one beautiful September afternoon. We went to Fisher’s Island on a flat calm sea.  Not much sailing that day, there was no wind to speak of. She let me drive the boat for awhile, so I could see how different it was from a power boat.  We sat and talked and talked for hours, in the cockpit.  Finally she looked at me and said, “I wonder what time it is?  The sun is getting pretty low in the sky.”  Turns out it was 6 PM on that late September afternoon.  So we pulled up anchor, and headed the 5 miles back, which took us 2 hours!  We got in and tied up in the dark.  Just an absolutely wonderful day.  I haven’t been on the water since.  And I miss it so….

So this is my requiem for Betty.  So, ok, requiem is supposed to mean a mass, or a song, or at least a solemn chant.  Let this be as close to it as I can come, my solemn remembrance of a friend. There won’t be another like her.  I am blessed to have had her for a friend.  I will miss her a lot.

Counting My Blessings

Posted on by learning to live like water

Sitting out on my deck, having coffee outside this morning. It’s my first time this season.  It’s where I spend my hour to myself every morning when it’s warm enough.  It’s not really warm out yet, it’s ony 50°F, but I have a blanket around my shoulders and the sun is warm on my back.  There are few clouds in the brilliant blue early morning sky.  It promises to be a beautiful day.
There are a few things on my mind this morning.  I did a gratitude meditation, and have so much to be thankful for.  For one, that I have this place to sit and have my coffee.  That my health, while I am diabetic, and arthritic, is actually pretty good.  The diabetes is well controlled, the arthritis seems to be improving as of late.  It is really only in my hands that I have an issue with it.  I haven’t had as much as a cold in maybe a year, and even then, the last cold I had was very minor. So I say, I am blessed with good health.  Nothing that affects my quality of life.
I am grateful for my family.  My son who is doing remarkably well, is healthy, strong.  He has found his niche I think, and is making something of his life.  I’ve worked hard with him to overcome the affects of growing up in an abusive dysfunctional household, and he seems to be emotionally mature.  I am proud of him.  And grateful.
I’m grateful for my two sisters, and my mother.  We have always all been very close, even though we live at great distances from each other. My mother’s stroke, which has left her partially paralzyed and unable to communicate, has stressed and tested the bonds between my sisters and I, but we have always had our base in love and care, and when things get tough, we return to it, for comfort and love.
I am grateful for the presence of S in my life.  He has added a dimension to the joy in my life that seems to balance it.
I am grateful for my family of friends.  Last night I went with a friend to a high school play to see another friend”s daughter.   We got to the high school close to starting time, because we had waited to watch the Kentucky Derby before we went.  The friend whose daughter was in the play greeted us  at the door.  “Go down to the 4th row,” she said.  “You’ll see everyone, there are seats there for you.”  And there in the 4th row were more of our friends, and some of her family, who I am also close to.  I love being part of a group of people who have been best friends for 10 or 15 yars. Blessed.  Just blessed.
I ran into my old next door neighbor at the play.  I knew my old house had been sold in a foreclosure sale.  I am concerned about what my ex will do,he has lived there almost 40 years now.  He does not adapt to change well,which really is the crux of why he lost the home. I also know that he blames me for it all, (because if I hadn’t left him, and he hadn’t had to give me a settlement….yada yada yada) and so I am not in a position to call him and see how he is, what his plans are, to ease my mind that he will recover from this.  I know he is devastated, but I don’t want to be at the receiving end of his anger again, at least, not face to face.  He is probably going to lose his business too.
Truth be told, if I hadn’t left him, and then our son, he would most likely still be drinking, and would have gone through all the money he had to give me, (since he already went through much more money than the amount awarded me) and we would all be facing homelessness.  My being there, working with him was just a form of enablement.
But it’s sad, to see someone with whom you shared so much of your life, get to such a state.  Knowing that there was a time when he, we, could have had everything we ever wanted  Ego and greed and fear destroyed his life.  I pray that someday he’ll see the real reasons why his life unfolded as it did.
But this morning, I turn to gratitude.  That some light shone on me, and I have been able to create a joyful life.  Family, friends, a man who I thoroughly enjoy who boggles my imagination every time I’m with him, a home, a life.  I am blessed.
I can’t remember who said it, but some one said, “If you only have one prayer, let it be Thank you.”  This morning it is Thank you.

Off of the Spinning Wheel

Posted on by learning to live like water

Ever evolving life, and relationships.  I am choosing for the time being not to be writing about my relationship with S.  I will only say that I think we perhaps hit a turning point last weekend. And this is about me…not him or us.

I have realized how obsessive I have been about our relationship.  I have been unbalanced about it for quite some time.  I was making S my life, instead of giving him a place in my life.  It is too much burden for anyone to bear, to be your life.  As a result, I want to focus on some of the other things that I’m passionate about, while not giving up my passion for him.

Acceptance of what is has not been an easy thing for me.  I have been trying to make sure I am safe, which is a hold over, baggage, from a terrible long marriage.  Too many years lived where I so rarely felt safe.  Even those times that I thought I was, I found out I wasn’t.  It was all, everything, a manipulation.  My ex might make me feel safe for a day, an hour, a week, maybe even a month or two.  And just when I got relaxed and happy, he would pull the rug out, turn my world upside down, with no warning.  Crazy Making.

I apparently expected S to do this too, and he does not. He does not have a manipulative or controlling bone in his body. I realized I have projected my fears onto him, and he didn’t deserve that treatment. He’s not my ex, nothing about him is like my ex.

I feel like I have been spinning around on the outside of a wheel that was started when I was married.  I took 5 years after that was over, and didn’t consider dating.  I wanted to rediscover myself.  After all those years of wrapping my head around someone else, trying to keep him happy, which was not possible, I needed to find out who I was again.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on it, until I met someone I was incredibly attracted to.  Old fears began clawing at the back of my mind, and I wanted to have a relationship that I was safe in,skipping over the part where the relationship just grows at it’s own pace, developing….pushing beyond what he was ready for. I wanted to go from Point A to Point B without traveling the distance.

And suddenly, I saw it.  I saw what I was doing.  I see it now.  And what I realize is, I AM SAFE.  Because I am strong, independent, and have a lovely life of which he is now part, an integral part, but not the whole thing.  I think he is happy about this.  I am happy to accept what he feels able to willingly give me.  I don’t feel the need to ask more.  It’s time really, to trust that the universe has brought us together for a reason, and leave it at that to evolve as it will.  Maybe we will grow together, maybe for a short or long time.  Now…right now, I feel good to have a handle on myself, and trust in myself, and my gut to keep my evolving in a more fulfilling balanced way.

I feel like I was holding on to that spinning wheel with one hand, and let go….just let go.  The wheel still spins I’m sure, but I’m not on it. I may be a little dizzy, lol, but I’m getting my groove back.  Life is good.

Conspiracy Theory

Posted on by learning to live like water

God, you know, I can write some very convincing bullshit, really! Thinking I know what’s going on when I only know half the story.

Well…my blog has always been about what I’m feeling or working through at the moment I write it. But dang, I look back and see how skewed I had things in my own mind, and how things just kind of evolve and grow and all the panic I put myself through was so unnecessary. As if I am addicted to the emotional highs and lows and so create them for myself.

Ugh. Gotta stop that. Sometimes I feel so enlightened, I can be kind, thoughtful, mindful. And then sometimes I am so totally in my ego, making myself so afraid, of NOTHING. Geezus. I’m very good at convincing myself the bullshit is real too.

Oh yeah, sometimes there is a little tiny kernal of truth which I then grow into an Iowa cornstalk. Why the hell don’t I do that with the good things that go on.? I keep finding out that what I want is just sitting there waiting for me. When the hell will I learn?

When you decide what you want, all the universe conspires to bring it to you. So says Paulo Coelho, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Goethe….et al.

I think I will just sit back for awhile and watch it conspire, lol.

Gifts from Destruction

Posted on by learning to live like water

This post was inspired by Curious Evelyn Seeks blog this morning, “Passionately Curious”.  She made me remember how I only found my passions when I was able to be free of an abusIive dysfunctional marriage.  The last five years of that 32 year marriage I began to journal incessantly.  I needed to record the insanity in which I lived, the cruelty, the unhappiness.  I remember thinking “I have to write this down.  No one would ever believe this happened.”  As it turned out, during my three day divorce trial, the judge allowed me to use the journals during my testimony to remember dates and times of events.  I am sure they gave me a lot of credibility with him.

Once I left my marriage, I found I actually had some creativity as I learned to make jewelry.  I sell it online,( http://www.sundogsdesigns.etsy.com)  tho it is only a hobby now, because I still work full time.  I discovered a passion for the journey to recover my soul from the near theft of it, and have been passionate about my spiritual path since, leading me to become a reiki master.  I have always loved the sea, a passion that has only grown since I have been free.

And the writing, begun to simply record my life, has become a passion…with my book that’s underway, with this blog. Writing allows me a way to observe things, and work things out, and keeps me sane.

The point is…there are always blessings buried in the pain.  There is always growth that can come from destruction.  I would not trade the gifts I have been given that grew out of that sad, destructive, and chaotic time in my life.  Like my favorite author, Elizabeth Gilbert, says in “Eat Pray Love”, as she sat below ground in the ruins of Rome, “Ruin is the road to transformation.”  Absolutely true.  The duality is obvious.  There are always blessings in the destruction.

A Lesson from a Zen Master

Posted on by learning to live like water

I get an email regularly, maybe daily, from a site called the “Wild Divine”.  Today there was a link to a Zen meditation, which I clicked on to use for my daily meditation.  It was a guided meditation, by a zen master.  I was soothed by his voice, and found myself in a pliable state, non-resistant to his suggestion that our most important task is to enjoy life.

Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested:

That’s something I’ve forgotten, in all my angst over unrequited love lately.  I think that this weekend, without S, I will just endeavor to enjoy my life.  And why should I not?  I’ll take care of my house, which should be a labor of love, since I love my home.  Gonna do things I’ve been putting off for no good reason.  I thought about going to the gym, but instead might go walking with a friend, on an old train track in town.  I might write, I think I might actually work on the book, which I have ignored now for way too long.  I have the fixings to make so much jewelry that lays unused.

I’ll channel the passion I have had for S into my life, and have a passion for it instead.  I won’t not love S, I will just find things to do so I am not spending my time wishing for what I can’t have.  That’s a waste of time isn’t it?  Once you know, you know.  So I have spent some time grieving it, and I’m not saying I won’t spend more, but I won’t lose myself in the grief.

You gotta honor your feelings.  So…I can honor the grief, the loss, the sorrow. But I can’t move in and pay rent to stay there.  It’s good to know that I’ll be ok.  I’m glad that I have done the work that has given me the resources to find a way through this.

Accepting Reality

Posted on by learning to live like water

I heard from him, not long after I put up the blog yesterday.  He thinks I’m attacking him, in my communication with him.   Since what I said in answer to his “Are you pissed off” questions was to tell  him how I felt, and nothing more, I have to assume that my being unhappy is perceived as an attack on him.   He said he didn’t talk to me for the whole day because he was “annoyed that you played the same broken record again.”

So….It’s an annoyance to him if I am unhappy, if something is bothering me, wearing on me.  If I am struggling.  It’s an attack on him.

Not struggling to understand this morning.  Struggling only to accept.

Reality, standing in front of me, hands on it’s hips, saying, what are you gonna do now?  Now that  you know????

Going with the Flow Today

Posted on by learning to live like water

The other night S and I were having a conversation via text.  It was kind of light hearted, flirtatious, easy.  I was getting sleepy and said goodnight, he continued texting, so after about 10 or 15 more minutes, I said I was going to sleep (because I couldn’t keep my eyes open).  When I woke in the morning there was a text from him much later, during the night asking if I was pissed off.

The question itself confused me….I didn’t think I’d said anything to indicate that I was angry or upset over anything.  I was however, feeling the struggle that I wrote about yesterday.  Had been feeling it the night before, though I hadn’t thought it came through in my texts because it was only a feeling then, not yet developed into a thought.  His question, wondering if I was pissed off, kind of propelled it into a thought though.  Thus the blog about “Struggle”.

I didn’t want him to think I was angry,but thought he deserved to know what was on my mind, so I told him.

I have not heard from him since I told him.

Which is, in and of itself, confusing.  If he was going to ask the question, did he not want an answer?  A truthful answer?  I told him of the struggle, I have told  him of it before.  It is not news.  It is a struggle that at times presents itself, I have to deal with it or not.  He also can deal with me and it or not.  I asked for no answers from him, or changes.  Just said that I was longing for something that wasn’t there.  Truth.  He knows it.  I know it.

So, not to hear from him in 24 hours is more than just confusing, considering we normally have an ongoing text conversation all day, and usually a phone call.  What does it say?  That he doesn’t want to deal with it.  That he doesn’t want to know if and when I have issues with the one-sidedness of our relationship.  I don’t know.

And then, I’m concerned that it was bad timing for me, that perhaps his friend who is so sick took a turn for the worst, and that, and me and my issues, and the fact that he had a bunch of family birthdays to deal with yesterday, were too much for him.

And there I am making excuses for him.  Life happens.  I asked for nothing from him when I briefly explained my struggle.  If he was overwhelmed at the moment, I would have expected a “Can we talk about it later?”  If his friend took a turn, he knows he could tell me and I would be there, and shelve whatever I was dealing with until later.

Reminiscent of him blocking me for what seemed to be no reason last week.

Feels like rejection, feels like I am very much more on the periphery of his life.

Feels like I should perhaps take the love I feel for him and redirect it into the rest of the world for the time being.  Once again, it feels like he’s just not that into me.  And really, it accentuates the struggle I have, and it confirms what I feel.

So, in my best Byron Katie voice I will say, “I wish you well S, if that’s what you want. I am a lover of reality, and the reality is that you want something that doesn’t include me.”

My life is rich and full, of friends and family and things I am passionate about.  If S should choose to communicate with me I will be open to it, but I won’t obsess over it, or the lack of it.

It’s all about letting go I guess. Seems I’m being forced into letting go, and I will go with that flow, until the flow changes. Maybe the flow will take me somewhere better, or unexpected.  Who knows.  Just living like water.