SUMMER HOLDINGS

There is an ease with which summer wraps it's languid, lazy heart around my own that holds me in.  It begs me to look more deeply into my troubles and to resettle them to reflect a more provisional despairing; one that will dissipate gently at the season's close.  Like a summer romance that has made it's gracious truce with melancholy by Labor Day.

It is that quiet, manageable forfeit of will that sends all anxieties to the ground with assurances that they will not sprout again next spring because by then, surely, everything will be different.

And therein lies the prayer of every summer night:  That by the time winter has cowed my barefooted insouciance into snow boots and frosted ambivalence, I will have found enough peace within myself to sustain hope within the barren curse of cold.

I have been holding fast to a certain measure of promise inside of my restlessness (a restlessness I've come to understand may never leave me), more so this summer than in any other I can recall.  But I've noticed, too, that I no longer want to remember summers gone by with the same sentimental tangle of heartbeats that sends other mothers lifelines of comfort.

I don't yet know whether that is because of the unarguable loss of innocence and pretense that branded its dark truth upon me with the doleful fate of my imprisoned son or the ceaseless isolation and conflict of my soul as it searches for that hard knot of purpose within the challenging vow of principle.

Perhaps it is simply to avoid the pain of contrast and the power it contains to illumine my maternal failings in the hard light of retrospection.

Whatever the source, frivolity has certainly been blanched from my expectations.  At least for this intolerant moment.

 I am very fortunate, however.  I own an outer countenance of buoyancy that stabilizes my heart during the day and allows me to conduct a fair and pleasantly regulated existence from dawn to dusk.  It has been my salvation; this happy, eye-winking sparkle.  It keeps the curious satisfied that there is no sorrow here and questions remain unasked.

I have banked on my veneer of gracious forbearance to keep the darkness from crushing me, too; knowing that darkness can only be informed by what you yield to it.

I smile, darkness winces.  I cry, it owns me.

But there have been summers similar to this before.  The ones whose dynamics are aligned with trepidation and make me question the very heart of everything in every tense: past, present and the ominous future.  All have been survivable.  All have been enlightening.  I don't doubt this one will be any different.

There was one spent on the beach at my parent's then summer home.  I was feeling especially tormented by the randomness in which my life had evolved to that point, specifically how my lack of forethought had impacted the lives of myself and my firstborn.   I drew the accompanying picture for him and he has asked that I never sell it or give it away.  Someday it will be his.  Someday, when he is once again in full ownership of his life.

But for now I will share it because tonight I am holding it in as closely to my best intentions as the sultry summer has held me to it's best promise.

Side by side
by oceanside

we spied the tide

that never died

but scored my pride

with tiny scars

that fell inside

like wounded stars

and while I chide

the sin that mars

I cannot hide

which one is ours.

The holdings of summer are warm, indeed.

THE UNWITTING CONTENDERS ON OS

No matter how frequently and seamlessly they happen, I am continually amazed at the serendipitous confluences of life.  Oftentimes they can only be realized in retrospect because the web extends so far and wide we cannot see it from our spot at the center; but the cohesive fibers have woven another mandala of life lessons in spite of our inability to recognize them right off the bat.

I found another example of this during the "Cool Kid" debate on OS.  I don't know specifically how it began or what the underlying motivation was because I am too new to OS to know many of the snarky backstories and too focused on my own literary microcosm to care.  And so I read the posts and reciprocal comments with both confusion and fascination.

I also read them with a penitent gnawing at the back of my waning self-righteousness because I knew that I, myself,  had recently extracted my big toe from my big mouth and dipped it into a similar fracas.

I had let myself become wounded and offended by a posting and the subsequent comments of a fellow OSer and rather than extend an invitation to reason and question or disclaim them quietly and privately, I welcomed the big boys of vindication and unleashed a wild punch right in the center ring of the OS training camp.

Given the wide birth I have always extended to compromise over the years, I must say it felt good to be the one doling out the vitriol.

At first.

But quite soon it became a hollow satisfaction, which surprised me and it was definitely not the sort of gloating that I was willing to accommodate.

Within twenty-four hours I had PM'd my perceived antagonist with a very contrite and sincere apology for calling her out in such a public way and a couple of hours after that the two of us were exchanging animated PM's full of both relief and happiness that our conflict had such a positive resolution.

We even took it a step further, at her brave initiative, and made our peace in the same public forum in which we had enacted our jaundiced exchange only the day before.

Ironically, we are now becoming friends enjoying a mutual admiration and respect for one another, as well as the discovery of several life similarities that are as striking as they are unifying.  It is an example of the power of humility and forgiveness in action and it is a necessary though, sadly, all too infrequent occurrence.

And that evening as I took another late-night perusal around OS, I began to see the seeds of that principle sprouting in various forms everywhere, from the comments to the blogs; and I couldn't help but wonder what sort divine canopy of goodwill and grace must be hovering over our destructive heads which keeps us from committing all-out verbal OS genocide.

I'd like to think that it is one of our own making; that it is constructed from the inherent etheric nodes of decency and kindness that lie at the core of our collective souls; that it is our own better humanity just trying to inform us that pain is never a welcomed verb to either inflict or to feel; that it exists as a reminder to look up to the heavens and to our ultimate destination before we furnish our discontent with enough power to provoke us so that we lash out in anger first and ask questions later.

This world is a training ground, with OS being merely a minor match within a much larger event; the one we all struggle through with hard work and conditioning in the hopes we will just survive our daily bouts.

And like everything else, it comes with choices.  We can choose to serve as compositional cut men and dispense articulate, wordy bandages or as predatory bullies feeding off the trepidation of the floundering lightweights circling this prolific ring.

For myself, I have to admit that even though there was a moment when I felt I needed to express my displeasure in a way that could be witnessed by all, that moment was brief.  And had I just waited out my immediate compulsion to flail away with fisted vowels flying, I would have been the better for it.....because I probably would not have done it at all.

So I learned some things.  I learned them as a result of my own flawed actions, and I learned from observing the interactions of some others.  I didn't feel good about myself until I made good with the person I clobbered.

Hopefully, the conciliatory trend I witnessed elsewhere had the same restorative calm upon those others who selected that option.

Of course, I'll never really know, but being a firm believer in redemption and in the existence of a story much greater than the ones we tell ourselves, I think there is a lot to cheer about.

The next opponent I take down is going to be my ignorance, so grab a seat.

The gloves are on.

THE FRUIT OF COMPROMISE

In the hours that follow any despairing revelation there is usually that moment of compromise.  Compromise with life, with God, with convictions and with the pitiless parade of circumstances that place us where we stand from moment to moment.

That compromise came to me the morning following my calm but adamant declaration of cerebral and sentient liberation from the current dynamic of my marriage.

There is no rancor here.  When you stand in your truth, there does not need to be.  In fact, that is often the hallmark of veracity because when truth is untainted by emotion, it is pure; and purity has no agenda nor does it have a preference for sides.

However, what truth does contain is peace.  It is not the kind of peace promoted in wartime nor the sort sung about in churches and temples.  Those apply to outwardly mobilized forces of human interaction and the championing of decency as the collective standard; and while they are equally as profound and crucial, they are shared as an objective goal and often a great struggle is necessary to accomplish the ends they promise.

The peace that I am referring to is one that is so subjective and held so deeply within the unique character of its human vessel that not only does it immediately benefit only that person, but it is only applicable to that person.

Quantum physics being applied, of course, insists that the truth and peace of one will eventually benefit all.  Unfortunately, that theory cannot be proven because in order for it to work to its perfection, each one of us would have to be aligned with our own truth all of the time, which we are not.  That being so, people are bound to get hurt in the wake of our stridency.

This brings me back to my point about the necessary human invention of compromise.

In a marriage the 'two may be joined as one' but that does not imply that they actually are one.  In fact, in many marriages the diametrically oppositional forces are so pronounced that it is astounding to both the couple themselves and any cognizant outsider that they are even able to get within a mile of one another without a significant conflict arising let alone sharing the same bed.

But there are forces of attraction that have no logical explanation and purposes behind situations and circumstances that will never be fully known or understood as long as we still need to hold air in our lungs order to live.

This would adequately describe the context within which my marriage falls.  Speaking for myself, I am a willing participant in the category of oppositional attraction.  At least some of the time.  The rest of the time I am watching reruns of "Snapped" and "Forensic Files" and taking notes.

But in terms of compromise, in nearly every relationship I have either observed or been involved in, there is an inequitablility within the partnership which is seldom overtly acknowledged but accepted in vague undertones.

I don't know whether to characterize it as a being a greater need of one for the other, love of one for the other or hold over one by the other; but in any case, there is always one whose upper hand is apparent and heavily laden over the faltering fingers of the other.

Early on in our marriage, the upper hand belonged squarely to my husband.  He was older than I, had a respectable job as a school teacher, owned his own home, was an exceptional local athlete often featured in the town newpaper and was extraordinarily handsome.  In the prominent Connecticut town in which we lived, he was considered quite a catch and made himself even more appealing by his confirmed bachelorhood.

When we met I was twenty-five, just coming off a disastrous eight-month marriage to an abusive misogynist, a college dropout working at a despicably barren temp job, a closet artist and writer living with my parents and, while I did not yet know it, very newly pregnant from an ill-conceived rebound romance.  By my own critical assessment, I was a consummate loser.

Within a year and when my son was three months old, my husband and I married.  I adored the man.  I also felt indebted.  I need not have, but I did.   I knew at the outset that we were extremely different that if this marriage were going to work, compromise was key; and since I was the beholden loser, I was willing to do nearly all of it.

Until recently, that dynamic was the basis for and the adhesive of a marriage that at its best is challenging.  At its worst, insufferable.

Yet this is not a blame game.  It is not a question of one being good and the other, bad.  It is a question of being different; of there being so little common ground between our interests and personalities the dirt of it would hardly fill an ashtray.  There are no bad guys here.

And what has happened with the children now gone is that my commitment to compromise for the sake of unity is waning.  It is not a question of desiring change on his part.  People can't do that.  I am still willing to sacrifice conversation to the alter of ESPN; and I understand that I will never be understood and, therefore, will continue to do the lion's share of listening only.  I also realize that I will only be supported in what I do in as much as he can comprehend what I do, which is fairly slight.

All I am announcing is that I WILL do what I have waited a cycle of child rearing to do and that it would be best to stay out of my way while I'm doing it.  Lack of support I can handle because I understand why it is not forthcoming, but obstruction?  No way.

Beyond that my commitment to compromise within the marriage remains intact.

I don't have time to upset and reconstruct the whole apple cart and still meet my goals.  I'd rather make friends with the occasional worm and keep pushing the wagon.  Bad fruit is still edible.  You just have to know where to make the cuts.

And sometimes overly-ripe apples yeild extraordinary pies.

You take your piece and find your peace.

VERACITY, A SORDID OPTION

In a world whose usual method of exposing irony and dispensing reality checks is by pure devastation, I must say that the gentle evisceration I've experienced tonight has brought courage to this faltering heart; for while the layers of padded denial were being peeled away, there was substituted a lovely blanket of support in the unified spirit of the OS commenters.

This afternoon I was feeling quite invisible.  Not only as a writer on OS but as a salient human encased in flesh and bone.

On a pedestrian level you could say that the empty nest syndrome has sparked my descent into self-doubt and second-guessing by proffering me the gift of uncommitted time  in which to reexamine my soul, but it is much more than that.

This biological pause in the rat race of evolution has brought me to the edge of a precipice that has no logistical orientation or psychological categorization.  I am just here.  Merely apparent.  Faintly alive and barely grounded.  My children are gone.  My house is empty.  My marriage, in an advanced stage of dysfunction.

Truth and probity are sober concepts in that they belie some sort of cosmic redemption.  They speak to stalwart souls and honor and sainthood and they hold the promise of perfection.  The part of me so deeply aligned with Don Quioxte resonates with these connotations.

But none of these attributes can be gained without having first been held fast over the fires of the mundane coals of everyday life, and no truth is ever revealed without bone grinding suffering; whether by the principle or of the supporting cast.

And yet truth is called for if advancement is aspired to.

What can I say?

I can't reveal the soiled character of those around me who beg off such exposure.

I can't slam the ignorant who have no notion of the impediments that litter their objectivity and prevent balance from being achieved in their lives.

I can't hurt the fragile who cling to their feigned reality as though it were sound.

I can do nothing but offer the vague depictions of my life insofar as it remains solely mine.

You want truth?  From my vantage point truth changes moment to moment.

Tonight?  Tonight my truth is bartering with my conscience and my sense of obligation.  Tonight my truth tells me that my marriage is over; that it has been over almost since it's inception but has maintained its status for the past twenty-eight years through sheer force of will and a fear of failure; both at my moralizing insistence.

I wanted to comment earlier to all those who took such time and such care to address my post this afternoon, but I was called away by life.  Some friends of ours, my husband's and myself, invited us to an impromptu cookout at their home late this afternoon, so rather than address the comments, I addressed my life.

By all ostensible accounts it was an uneventful evening spent in the company or our friends and some of their young neighbors.  There were burgers being grilled into oblivion, hotdogs verging on cremation and all the predictable condiments to spice up the midsummer fare.  There was even a testosterone-funded croquet game unfolding on the verdant surface of a level and suburban-ly compliant backyard.  And a couple of the neighbors ferried newborns under two months old, which lent that unavoidable air of beginnings and morbid awareness of endings to the gathering.

 For me it was the same untenable game of screening and borderline socializing that I have been practicing since I was twenty-five years old and the "two shall be as one" principle was thrust into my formerly highly rebellious and autonomous field of play.

For every word I spoke tonight, I could hear the muffled and displeased voice of my husband as he hovered nearby directing me to either shut up, change topics, slow down or cease fire.  But this is the status quo between us.

If I laugh, it is too enthusiastically.
If I don't participate, I am anti-social.
If I speak candidly of my life, I am revealing too much.
If I praise someone, it is not necessary.
If I fail to address or acknowledge something he deems important, I am negligent and indifferent.

But on the way home as he was criticizing my driving although too impaired to drive himself, I felt a surge of regret gathering in my gut; mile for mile reconstituting into exasperation until I heard myself saying to him out loud but without any venom whatsoever, "Enough!"

"I am done!
I am done being censured for speaking my truth!
I am done being edited for my sincerity!
I am done being defined by my tits and my acquiescence to your demands!
I am done being accepted on conditions I did not design!
I want to be loved for all of who I am and not for what I appear to be or how well I perform!
You cannot dominate me anymore!  The children are gone.  I have no reason to remain.
If it is too trying for you to cope with me, then I beg you to let me go because I am not going to submit to your anal imperatives anymore.  I no longer need to.  The choice is yours."

Being a short distance from home I was concluding my statements when we turned into our drive.  Once, parked, he exited the car faster than I have ever known him to move and went directly upstairs.  By the time I put the car in the garage, turned off the house lights and made my way upstairs, he was already in bed and asleep.

Apparently, anger and denial are both agents for somnolence.

You want truth?  This is my truth and my current reality.
What becomes of it tomorrow is as much an unknown to me as it is to heaven, but I'll keep striving to get there nonetheless.

So now, at 1:42 on Sunday morning this is as raw as I can be.

Truth?  Truth is no longer eloquent or polite.  It does not round out sentences with juicy adjectives or smooth jagged inferences with soft allusions and gentle vowels.  It is dry, humorless and utterly despairing.   It is real.

You can take it or leave it.

I don't have that option.

When the sun rises at dawn, I remain embedded in the circumstances that surround me.

But I refuse to be defined by them.

And so it is.
For now.