Is it okay I feel this way? I have let her go, and I am quite sure she is gone from me, forever. Probably, she never even thinks about me any more. It was the right thing to do, so she can move on, right? It's what she wanted me to do, and I had the courage to do it, finally. And I am firm in my decision, to the point I am not even sure I would take her back, should she ask for that, which she won't.
But, still, I miss her, so much. I hope she is happy, and that the new friends she makes appreciate how special she is. Meanwhile, as hard as I try, I am still very, very, very, very, very, very sad...
Is it okay to be sad tonight? Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, I promise I will be happy...
Saturday, July 08, 2006
A romantic interlude-1
About a week ago, I promised to try and write about some of the early moments in my relationship with my ex-girlfriend (what an awful way to refer to somebody!) so tonight I will try to deliver on that promise. As those reading this blog know, we have been apart for over two months now, and we split up a month before she left town, to continue her effort as a long-term volunteer doing hurricane relief work in Biloxi, Mississippi.
For the rest of this post, I will call her "Angel," which has a certain irony, since she is Jewish, and considers herself very much a Jew, culturally, though she is not at all religious. But down in the Bible Belt, her clients call her "Angel," which to them is a high compliment; and, I must say, though I am confirmed atheist, this label appeals to me on many levels as well.
When I first met Angel, I was about a year out of my second marriage, and, except for a short but intense relationship with a special someone who showed up right after my marriage fell apart, I had been alone for that amount of time. Not to fast-forward too much, but it would be half a year before Angel and I would become romantic partners, and I did not date anyone at all during that period of time.
The first night I met her, something about her touched me deep inside, somewhere that I could not then identify. Part of her appeal to me (a classic rescuer personality) was that she was in trouble; going through a painful breakup of a long relationship, but there was much more. The only way I can explain this is I instinctively knew that here was a person who was going to eventually emerge as a whole new being in our world, perhaps in ways that would help everyone she touched.
At the time, although I was hardly a poster boy for Those Who Have It All Together in this world, I somehow felt I could help her, so I offered to. Another friend who witnessed these first exchanges between us warned me: "Watch out, David. You are falling for her at first sight."
Okay, so she was right. I was. But I didn't know that yet. Checking back in my journals later, it was a full month before I sensed that I "liked" this new woman. I wasn't thinking with my male body, contrary to what many women believe men do; in fact, I didn't feel any particular physical attraction to her. What was drawing me to her was happening on some deeper, more mysterious level.
Part of what she told me she needed was to get out of her trap, the house she had bought with her long-time boyfriend, and which they now were going to sell as part of their breakup. (One reason I couldn't allow myself to be attracted to her was it was obvious she felt terrible pain in leaving him. And, if there is one thing I have learned in my love life, it is to move aside when a woman is still focused on someone else. The several secret love affairs I have had all ended, for me, when I could tell that the woman I was with was really crying for her partner. At that moment, I let them go, though I did not necessarily have the language then to explain why it was time for me to leave them.)
Back to Angel. She needed to be distracted. I was teaching at Stanford, so I invited her to spend a day with me down there. She agreed; I picked her up, and off we went.
Now, for those of you who haven't been there, Stanford is a rather strange place, in its own lovely way. The couple that founded it, in honor of their only son, who died tragically at a young age, appear to have had contradictory ideas for what kind of university it should be. The husband died early on, and his wife took over, but in an era when women were typically discounted and not listened to. (Some would say we are not yet out of those woods.)
The biggest mystery behind the early years of Stanford is whether Mrs. Stanford, the widow, was fatally poisoned, perhaps as part of a strategy by the early bureaucrats to circumvent her wish that it serve a much broader demographic than has proved to be the case.
In any event, she died, and the rest is history. (If you are interested, I can point you to a provocative book that explores this little-known story.)
Okay, back to my story. So the day I took Angel with me turned out to be "sexual harassment training day" so all of us professors sat in on a session that urged us to avoid any sexual contact with students, and to turn each other in, should we suspect a colleague of crossing the line.
Afterwards, as we walked back from this workshop, my colleague, Professor Bill Woo (who died this past April) glanced into my office and saw Angel sitting there. "Better make sure you do not harass her!" he quipped.
That was the first moment I realized that an objective observer might think the age disparity between us (15 years) might be an issue. She had a baby face that fooled Bill into thinking she was 20 years younger than she was, and therefore a student.
She was no such thing, but a middle-aged woman looking to be distracted by a new friend for whom she yet had no romantic or sexual feelings for at all. She and I went out for lunch and a long walk, during which we discovered Stanford's gardens of large wooden sculptures of figures with big breasts and very large penises.
I felt a bit embarrassed by these figures, but Angel didn't.
Well, this story has gotten much longer than I intended it to. Apparently, I am going to have to spread the narrative of how I fell in love with her over multiple posts. But perhaps that is best, as I continue my process of letting her go. So, I'll write some more later...
For the rest of this post, I will call her "Angel," which has a certain irony, since she is Jewish, and considers herself very much a Jew, culturally, though she is not at all religious. But down in the Bible Belt, her clients call her "Angel," which to them is a high compliment; and, I must say, though I am confirmed atheist, this label appeals to me on many levels as well.
When I first met Angel, I was about a year out of my second marriage, and, except for a short but intense relationship with a special someone who showed up right after my marriage fell apart, I had been alone for that amount of time. Not to fast-forward too much, but it would be half a year before Angel and I would become romantic partners, and I did not date anyone at all during that period of time.
The first night I met her, something about her touched me deep inside, somewhere that I could not then identify. Part of her appeal to me (a classic rescuer personality) was that she was in trouble; going through a painful breakup of a long relationship, but there was much more. The only way I can explain this is I instinctively knew that here was a person who was going to eventually emerge as a whole new being in our world, perhaps in ways that would help everyone she touched.
At the time, although I was hardly a poster boy for Those Who Have It All Together in this world, I somehow felt I could help her, so I offered to. Another friend who witnessed these first exchanges between us warned me: "Watch out, David. You are falling for her at first sight."
Okay, so she was right. I was. But I didn't know that yet. Checking back in my journals later, it was a full month before I sensed that I "liked" this new woman. I wasn't thinking with my male body, contrary to what many women believe men do; in fact, I didn't feel any particular physical attraction to her. What was drawing me to her was happening on some deeper, more mysterious level.
Part of what she told me she needed was to get out of her trap, the house she had bought with her long-time boyfriend, and which they now were going to sell as part of their breakup. (One reason I couldn't allow myself to be attracted to her was it was obvious she felt terrible pain in leaving him. And, if there is one thing I have learned in my love life, it is to move aside when a woman is still focused on someone else. The several secret love affairs I have had all ended, for me, when I could tell that the woman I was with was really crying for her partner. At that moment, I let them go, though I did not necessarily have the language then to explain why it was time for me to leave them.)
Back to Angel. She needed to be distracted. I was teaching at Stanford, so I invited her to spend a day with me down there. She agreed; I picked her up, and off we went.
Now, for those of you who haven't been there, Stanford is a rather strange place, in its own lovely way. The couple that founded it, in honor of their only son, who died tragically at a young age, appear to have had contradictory ideas for what kind of university it should be. The husband died early on, and his wife took over, but in an era when women were typically discounted and not listened to. (Some would say we are not yet out of those woods.)
The biggest mystery behind the early years of Stanford is whether Mrs. Stanford, the widow, was fatally poisoned, perhaps as part of a strategy by the early bureaucrats to circumvent her wish that it serve a much broader demographic than has proved to be the case.
In any event, she died, and the rest is history. (If you are interested, I can point you to a provocative book that explores this little-known story.)
Okay, back to my story. So the day I took Angel with me turned out to be "sexual harassment training day" so all of us professors sat in on a session that urged us to avoid any sexual contact with students, and to turn each other in, should we suspect a colleague of crossing the line.
Afterwards, as we walked back from this workshop, my colleague, Professor Bill Woo (who died this past April) glanced into my office and saw Angel sitting there. "Better make sure you do not harass her!" he quipped.
That was the first moment I realized that an objective observer might think the age disparity between us (15 years) might be an issue. She had a baby face that fooled Bill into thinking she was 20 years younger than she was, and therefore a student.
She was no such thing, but a middle-aged woman looking to be distracted by a new friend for whom she yet had no romantic or sexual feelings for at all. She and I went out for lunch and a long walk, during which we discovered Stanford's gardens of large wooden sculptures of figures with big breasts and very large penises.
I felt a bit embarrassed by these figures, but Angel didn't.
Well, this story has gotten much longer than I intended it to. Apparently, I am going to have to spread the narrative of how I fell in love with her over multiple posts. But perhaps that is best, as I continue my process of letting her go. So, I'll write some more later...
Another new bloom
Now I am noticing them, other flowers planted by J are springing to life in this sunny weather we are now having. Signs of renewal are all around -- a nice new neighbor, new friends, blogs I've discovered, ideas that compel me in new directions. This morning I'm thinking about my soccer star neice, Caitlin, recovering at home from ACL surgery on her knee. And about our neighbor friend, Christian, in the hospital with mysterious symptoms. Holly, whose Dad died recently. And Bob's wife Heather, who also lost her Dad very suddenly a few weeks ago.
My own father died at age 82 with a massive stroke a few years ago on the night before he was to meet my new little daughter Julia. They never knew each other. As much as I write about loss, I need to write about renewal. My sweet volunteer down in Biloxi is never far from my mind and heart -- I hope she knows that. She and her co-workers represent all of us, trying to rebuild a ruined coast that the experts say won't recover for 12 more long years from the storm of the millenium, Katrina, that tore ashore at the little hamlet called Waveland.
And, ever since, known as Wasteland.
This lantana has burst back to life, right where she set it into the soil a year ago. I figured it was a goner, because it was for the longest time just a collection of rigid bare branches. But now its leaves and red, yellow and orange blooms are springing back to life before my eyes.
I send this pixelated electronic image through the airwaves as a flower delivery for my ex-lover on this hot weekend. I think it may be stormy in Mississippi. It's calm here at home...
Friday, July 07, 2006
A new flower
Last summer, around this time, my sweet girlfriend helped me prepare for the August wedding of my daughter Sarah Daisy here in San Francisco. I was going to host a party for 50+ people in my flat in the Mission District; she went to a nursery and picked out a dozen or so flowering plants to put in clay pots by my front door.
A designer by trade, she has an artist's eye for color. The plants she picked complemented one another perfectly, dressing up our otherwise drab entrance. The kids made a big sign and the place looked great. Many months later, during our very wet winter, I noticed all the plants had died, apparently, overwhelmed with weeds.
***
A year later, this place has had a very different feel than last year. There's no question a cloud has been hovering over our household -- we all miss J, not just me. All three of my young kids speak of her fondly, ask about her, and say they miss her. I know this is something she did not expect to happen. But a theme of her life is she underestimates her effect on people -- radically.
So, this week, as I felt something changing inside me, emotionally, for the first time since we broke up three months ago, I realized that I was looking for some sign, some symbol of what I should do next. Life is all about change, constant change, the cycle of life and death and loss and renewal.
For me to even launch that "poll" last night meant I already, on some level, knew what I had to do. I couldn't have raised the issue unless I was ready to follow the advice I received. In fact, I already knew instinctively that the time was right to let her go.
She broke up with me on the day I opened this blog, back in early April.
I broke up with her today, July 7th, 2006.
I withdrew my proposal, the one had hung awkwardly over both of us since I made it, in late April. I committed to myself to now move on. I will not forget her, and I will reserve a place in my heart only for her. I will always love her, and hope she finds happiness and fulfillment that did not prove possible with me.
Maybe, somehow, we will find our way back to each other at some future point, but I doubt that; if so, it will have to be an entirely new kind of relationship between two people who will have evolved in unpredictable ways. I hope, above all, we soon can be close friends, as I am with virtually all of my former partners and girlfriends.
Looking back over these past three months, it has been an immensely painful and ragged process for me. Not only is this the hardest transition I have ever experienced (and I have had, by any measure a hell of a lot of personal and professional transitions!), I've never before shared my emotional reality with other people to this extent, including friends, family, strangers, and people who perhaps wish me ill (given some of the Comments and emails I have received.)
The truth is, of course, I don't know who reads these posts, unless you tell me. That's your choice, not mine. Anyone is free to interpret this as she wishes. Those of you who have contacted me, by and large, have been supportive and very kind. You also have been very kind to her, J, my ex-girlfriend, the woman few of you know, except through my descriptions of her here in this space.
The sign I was looking for, unconsciously, came to me two days ago. That's when I decided to post the "poll" and when I realized I owed J my decision. I was watering the plants little Julia and I have planted at the front of our house this summer, when I suddenly noticed that not every last flowering plant J had chosen was dead, after all. This tiny purple bloom and these random red blooms had survived all of this time, and thanks to the water Julia and I were adding to their pots daily, came back to life.
This is a new summer. Soon, my daughter Laila and her fiancé, will visit from Chile and we will plan their upcoming wedding a year from now. I'll try to remember all the things J did and dress up my place suitably two weeks from tonight when I host the first pre-wedding party for Laila here.
Most of the flowers at our entrance will be new. But I am also carefully guarding these fragile blooms shown above, as a continuing symbol of my gratitude and everlasting love for J. Yes, I am moving on, and finally I accept that our relationship is over. It has been very hard because of how special she is. Someone less special would have been easier to get over.
I'm not over her, don't get me wrong. But I do not want her to feel my sadness as a burden any longer. So, I'll move along now, perhaps even eventually meeting somebody new, but in the meantime, I will also help these tiny flowers survive at my doorstep.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Update: Voting over, results being tabulated
Friday evening: The candidates are expected to give their victory/concessions speeches shortly after 9 pm PST tonight...
Here are the questions to consider:
SHOULD I...
*1.* Let her go, forget about her, move on?
*2.* Or, continue to hold my heart open for her?
Under "Comments" below, sign in by choosing "anonymous" as your identity, and vote. Thank you -- David.
Here are the questions to consider:
SHOULD I...
*1.* Let her go, forget about her, move on?
*2.* Or, continue to hold my heart open for her?
Under "Comments" below, sign in by choosing "anonymous" as your identity, and vote. Thank you -- David.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Help me decide 1.1
Even casual readers of this blog probably know I have been struggling for the past three months over what to do in the wake of a confusing breakup with a remarkable woman who left me to move across the country and work as a long-term volunteer with hurricane victims in Mississippi. It's not like I've never been through a breakup before; there were my two long marriages, for example. But this relationship was different, in many ways, and I continue to love her with an intensity that surprises me. However, as time passes, the odds of her returning to me seem ever more remote.
Probably the best piece I've written that expresses how I feel about all of this was "Open Road" back in late April (see Archives). Honestly, I have never felt that our relationship had to necessarily confine her from pursuing her dreams. On the contrary, I am proud of her and what she is trying to do, and I want her to find what she is looking for. If you truly love someone you have to be able to let her go. And, as much as possible, to then welcome her back, should she discover she's made a mistake -- that what she really needs is to be with you. I don't think she feels she made a mistake. And in fact I don't think she made a mistake, either, by leaving me to go there and help people who badly need her help. This is a confusing story, and it is also sad, though ultimately it may take a hopeful turn in some unpredictable way none of us yet envisions.
In any event, it's time for me to solicit your advice. If I can figure out this F#*@ing polling software, I intend to put up a poll on this site in the next few days, asking readers what I should do.
*Let her go, forget about her, move on?
*Or, continue to hold my heart open for her?
I'm still trying to decide whether to do whatever the majority tells me to do. I've always been stubborn in that it is fairly hard to convince me to go against what my intuition tells me to do. Logic is not my strength. But in this case, since I have turned to a public forum to air my pain and seek advice, maybe I should let "the wisdom of the crowd" determine the fate of this relationship?
Probably the best piece I've written that expresses how I feel about all of this was "Open Road" back in late April (see Archives). Honestly, I have never felt that our relationship had to necessarily confine her from pursuing her dreams. On the contrary, I am proud of her and what she is trying to do, and I want her to find what she is looking for. If you truly love someone you have to be able to let her go. And, as much as possible, to then welcome her back, should she discover she's made a mistake -- that what she really needs is to be with you. I don't think she feels she made a mistake. And in fact I don't think she made a mistake, either, by leaving me to go there and help people who badly need her help. This is a confusing story, and it is also sad, though ultimately it may take a hopeful turn in some unpredictable way none of us yet envisions.
In any event, it's time for me to solicit your advice. If I can figure out this F#*@ing polling software, I intend to put up a poll on this site in the next few days, asking readers what I should do.
*Let her go, forget about her, move on?
*Or, continue to hold my heart open for her?
I'm still trying to decide whether to do whatever the majority tells me to do. I've always been stubborn in that it is fairly hard to convince me to go against what my intuition tells me to do. Logic is not my strength. But in this case, since I have turned to a public forum to air my pain and seek advice, maybe I should let "the wisdom of the crowd" determine the fate of this relationship?
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Declaration of Interdependence
Still in motion, today I had breakfast in one town, lunch in another, and tonight will have dinner here, where I've landed, yet again in the thick heat of this region. I dusted off an old fan but it didn't seem to work, at first. So I shook it soundly, and manually caressed its circular cover with the forefinger of my right hand until it suddenly sprang to life, moaning, and cooled this stuffy room where I write.
With all due respect to everyone celebrating July 4th, I can't join you. I wonder why are we still excited that we broke away from England 230 years ago? These days, aren't the English practically our only "ally" in that "war" we are fighting? (Except for Poland.) Everyone else in this world sees what we are doing in Iraq as a grab for control over oil resources. But the good old U.K. stands with us. (That tree didn't fall far from its apple.)
The other day, my ten-year-old son, Dylan, brought up the subject of global warming. "Dad, that is something that gives me nightmares. Kids like me will probably grow up and feel the effects in our lifetime. The old guys like Bush say it doesn't exist. It's going to be up to my generation to do something but it may be too late already!"
Dylan is an old soul at a tender age.
Imagine a world where we still celebrated our various national and cultural heritages, but not in nationalistic, exclusionary ways. All of our xenophobic "independence" marches would be downplayed (sorry old soldiers), so we all could explicitly celebrate our knowledge that we are one species, clinging to a rock spinning through space, governed by laws of physics we only partially understand. (My 11-year-old, Aidan, prefers the Flaming Lips version of this image, and sings it frequently, something about the "illusion of the sun going down" when it's really just the "earth spinning 'round."
A long time ago, when I was very young, I read "The Challenge of Man's Future" by Harrison Brown. I think he wrote that book in 1954, long before the first "energy crisis" here in America, where today a fancy 1955 dark-green Buick with whitewalls sat with a flag affixed to its aerial in the town near where I ate breakfast. Brown speculated that we would have to unlock the hidden stores of energy in wind, rocks, and waves in order to survive as a species.
His words were prescient.
So much of what I've written here has been extremely personal, which is not my main desire as a writer. Yet it is equally true that we need to recognize and honor our interdependence in both the personal and the social realms. That has been my plea all along. Just keep relating--don't abandon those you care about, including people you've never met.
I seldom mention this directly, but from an early, early age, I witnessed and felt the tragic awfulness of sudden losses of some of the people my family loved. My father's family, in particular, suffered a series of tragedies when I was an impressionable boy -- sudden deaths in accidents, mainly, and then from diseases that stole relatives away prematurely.
My father's own father, for whom I am named, died when my Dad was only eight. He and I both know the silence death brings. You keep talking but they never answer.
It is the silent living who truly torture me. Like a blind man, I can only hear those who speak, even if I otherwise sense your presence, using my sixth sense. Who would observe me but remain silent and why? I don't want to be only seen and heard; I need to be spoken to and held.
One of the most important poems I read as a boy was Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, etc.
An old friend recently told me, that (like Dylan), I have always been an old soul, too. I can only hope my littlest boy navigates around the meaning of that verse better than I have, should the reasons not to prove to overwhelm all the reasons why.
With all due respect to everyone celebrating July 4th, I can't join you. I wonder why are we still excited that we broke away from England 230 years ago? These days, aren't the English practically our only "ally" in that "war" we are fighting? (Except for Poland.) Everyone else in this world sees what we are doing in Iraq as a grab for control over oil resources. But the good old U.K. stands with us. (That tree didn't fall far from its apple.)
The other day, my ten-year-old son, Dylan, brought up the subject of global warming. "Dad, that is something that gives me nightmares. Kids like me will probably grow up and feel the effects in our lifetime. The old guys like Bush say it doesn't exist. It's going to be up to my generation to do something but it may be too late already!"
Dylan is an old soul at a tender age.
Imagine a world where we still celebrated our various national and cultural heritages, but not in nationalistic, exclusionary ways. All of our xenophobic "independence" marches would be downplayed (sorry old soldiers), so we all could explicitly celebrate our knowledge that we are one species, clinging to a rock spinning through space, governed by laws of physics we only partially understand. (My 11-year-old, Aidan, prefers the Flaming Lips version of this image, and sings it frequently, something about the "illusion of the sun going down" when it's really just the "earth spinning 'round."
A long time ago, when I was very young, I read "The Challenge of Man's Future" by Harrison Brown. I think he wrote that book in 1954, long before the first "energy crisis" here in America, where today a fancy 1955 dark-green Buick with whitewalls sat with a flag affixed to its aerial in the town near where I ate breakfast. Brown speculated that we would have to unlock the hidden stores of energy in wind, rocks, and waves in order to survive as a species.
His words were prescient.
So much of what I've written here has been extremely personal, which is not my main desire as a writer. Yet it is equally true that we need to recognize and honor our interdependence in both the personal and the social realms. That has been my plea all along. Just keep relating--don't abandon those you care about, including people you've never met.
I seldom mention this directly, but from an early, early age, I witnessed and felt the tragic awfulness of sudden losses of some of the people my family loved. My father's family, in particular, suffered a series of tragedies when I was an impressionable boy -- sudden deaths in accidents, mainly, and then from diseases that stole relatives away prematurely.
My father's own father, for whom I am named, died when my Dad was only eight. He and I both know the silence death brings. You keep talking but they never answer.
It is the silent living who truly torture me. Like a blind man, I can only hear those who speak, even if I otherwise sense your presence, using my sixth sense. Who would observe me but remain silent and why? I don't want to be only seen and heard; I need to be spoken to and held.
One of the most important poems I read as a boy was Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, etc.
An old friend recently told me, that (like Dylan), I have always been an old soul, too. I can only hope my littlest boy navigates around the meaning of that verse better than I have, should the reasons not to prove to overwhelm all the reasons why.
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