the end and mashed potatoes

Today is thanksgiving. It is hard to tell. it is tropical and warm and no one is discussing stuffing. Today I am going to spend thanksgiving with my broken family. Pretend for one day like we are not broken. Like we still exist. Eat mashed potatoes. A chicken instead of a turkey, the real thing is far from possible.

I didn't really know it was over till now. The end of something sounds clear and precise but in fact is a nebulous blur of possibility. Only now do I feel like it is over. The day I asked him to move out I didn't even believe it myself. When I left for Paris and he stayed in my house with our son possibility still existed. When he started seeing her and we spent that sad week floating down the river in Borneo looking at proboscis monkeys it felt over but in fact there would be months of what if's, more tears, a lot of anger.  More pulling than if we had been using a proper rope. 

The back and forth. The I want you, I miss you, go jump off a cliff is constant untill its not.

Now it is clear, real, I know it as well as I know how to make the stuffing. I know we are done. I feel nothing anymore. the sadness is gone and even the anger seems to be drying up like a creekbed in the summer. Mashed potatoes, gravy and divorce. 

He told our son about his new girlfriend and plans to introduce them this weekend were only halted by a stick to the eye, the obvious outcome of sordfighting at eleven. 

I no longer rile in a ball on the floor. I no longer spew tears like leaky faucets. I am hollow and empty like the balinese fire truck which recently showed up to a five alarm blaze totally empty of all liquid. Ironic or just tragic, I am not sure which. 

He seems like a stranger to me, someone I don't quite recognize. His choices that of a foreigner. I look at her and understand nothing. His friend on facebook inviting him to an evening of rainbow shots. His smoking. He has been released to the world. I am no longer there forming him. He is what he chooses to let other people make of him. Rainbow shots. 

I let him keep the leftovers. I had no desire to eat mashed potatoes and stuffing the next day. It was over we are done. Polite conversation and our son is all we exchange. No Turkey. All the searching doesn't produce on on an Island with no Turkeys. Just another day. 

Practice

I drove to salsa feeling light. I felt like the world around me was mine again, not a strange empty place. I felt like I needed no one and plenty would want me if they only knew me. I felt glad, secure and confident. I felt like everything was possible and I needed no one in particular. My only focus simple gratitude for having remembered to drive my motor bike in flip flops instead of salsa heals, making stopping more reasonable. No complications. The night was hot and sweaty. I was happy. I was alone.

I sat on the big backed sofa changing into my salsa heels. Before the band started I ordered my first glass of red wine in awhile. I enjoyed the sips. Each one careful and delicious. I was alone. I was ok. Really ok.

In indonesian there is a word people use to describe not good when asked how you are doing in polite conversation. Lumian. It means just more than enough. For a long time when people asked me how I was this is all I could get out. Lumian, just slightly more enough, just barely alive, just slightly more than ready to jump in front of traffic. I was so much more than that this evening. A lot more than enough. 

Everything requires practice. I believe this as gospel. In order to become excellent or even just ok at something you have to embrace being terrible at it. Keep doing it. Let go. Be terrible. Love being terrible. 

My salsa dancing has progressed from terrible to mediocre to borderline passable. I practice a lot. I look dumb. I step on people 's feet, miss the beat and generally suck. It is less than sexy. I keep trying. 

Being alone or at least not partnered in the world and managing happiness is the same. I am practicing, getting better. I am starting to feel ok, like I can walk thru the world with no one holding my hand. Like I can do it and feel good even. 

I danced all night with different people including a very nice older gentleman who was incredibly generous with dance instruction despite my begining salsa. I had long moments when the dance was fluent. I had other moments when I totally lost the steps or missed a lead and didn't turn when I should have.

I am sure being alone will be the same again. I will faulter, slip up, get scared, feel lonely again. Loose my moments of happiness. 

I woke up this morning under my blue mosquito net, startled to be alone in bed. No child, no partner, no lover. After my eyes focused enough to remember where I was, I regained my emotional footing. The bed is empty and I am still startlingly ok. I am really astonishingly ok. I am no longer looking back with regret. I have let go. He can go on his way, I will go on mine. I am good. I am alone. I am happy. 

She is his girlfriend. You are my friend.

You are my friend. 

You coached me befor I met her. Before I faced the woman over a cappucino who now casually refers to herself as his girlfriend. You sweetly talked me thru it, you told me to hug her, to be nice. You looked at me as you said this with your large sweet brown eyes measuring me, willing me forward. Your wild curly hair defying your seriousness and ensuring that despite the topic at hand you still appeared playful. 

I now find you irresistible, like ice cream. Is this the oxytocin? I try not to appear overzealous as I wait for you to let me into your cracks, like sunlight thru leaves.  

Will you touch my leg as we ride the motorbike? Will you grab my hand as we are walking. When we lay in bed naked for hours as you ply me with music will you reach for me from across the otherside of the bed, grab me and pull you towards you? Maybe sometimes, for a moment. I am mostly left wanting. 

You are my friend.

She told me her life story, sprinkling in details that compelled me to envision this new reality of her and him. The story of her hair being left in his hair brush that she thoughtfully removed to spare its view from my son. Her vision of meeting his parents as the new woman in his life. She doesn't yet realise that she will be eating his mothers chicken divan and complimenting its blandness. I would always be his family she said, as she smoked another cigarette. 

She is just his girlfriend. You are just my friend. 

You called me after I met her and genuinly wanted to know how I was. We got on a motorbike and I rode with you to the dentist. We spent the night withought sex, just naked snuggles, music and conversation.

You are my friend.

The next day over a final cappucino befor you left for two weeks home to Australia you asked me how I felt. Two days earlier we shed real tears at the thought. What would we be missing if we stopped having sex, if we kept our friendship and left the rest behind? We took the question and turned it over and over in our hands. Applying all the logic and reason that you and I could throw at these otherwise fragile human emotions. 

In the end you don't like me quite enough, your want is outweighed by logistical hurdles or subtle inadequacies.

I of course have the same, but some how this doesn't stop me from wanting you.  At least today and tomorrow and the next I really want you. 

You hugged me and I walked away. It hurt. My heart. Enough that I could feel it. 

You are my friend. 

Find another shell, keep sorting.

"You are on a beach sorting thru the same bucket of shells" my friend said. If these are the shells in front of you these are the shells you will sort for. But there are so many, why keep sorting thru the same pile. Go ahead, drop them back in the water. Let them float away. Find new ones. Another beach. 

I will keep looking, keep walking, keep dancing, keep doing. 

I won't think about that one's curly hair or running my fingers thru his beard or wanting his music or his sweet brown eyes. I still want him, I do.

I won't think about my life partner and his new girlfriend or the loss of eating mashed potatoes at thanksgiving as a family. We are done. 

I won't think about the one who would tell me what to do, and buy me unsolicited cake while flashing his smile. He was never a possibility. 

Drop them in the ocean, release them to the waves. 

Today is a new day. Let go of expectations, let go of attachments. In this new reality attachments are not the way. Don't attach, just be. Let people flow thru you and around you. Grab a bit of them hold on tight just for that moment and then release, let go. 

Be budda, he didn't attach. He walked away from his wife and sat under a tree. Find the tree, let go. Don't attach, let go. I like you, you are lovely, goodbye. 

The portugese man with the shaved head and the slight grey stubble, smiles and takes a strong lead, spinning me one extra time out of turn. I can't talk to him. He has nothing to say. Just spin me. I will ablige. 

The French man is very tan and hansom enough that the dance instructer imagines or wishes he was gay. "Do you ever dance in the evening" he says. I help him with his dance steps and he is open and grateful. He is too young, too tan, too short. But sweet and of course French. 

The Belgian won't speak to me in class but keeps asking me to go out in the evening. He is sweet and very young, I might need to lead. 

The older vinyard owner is coming back. I will enjoy his company for a time. A nice dinner, some wine. We can talk about food and building things. I don't desire him. He will always leave. He has a wife. 

Keep sorting. Keep looking. Keep throwing them back to the sea. 

The mute swan, the malagassy giant rat, the prarie vole and the black vulture are all monogomous. choosing partners, attatching, not letting go. They fall and then stay. They find someone and keep them. They do life's work together. 

I spent my life being these creatures. I spent my life monogomous to one mate. So what does the dating process of these creatures look like. How do they keep from latching on to the first potential mate and instead sort thru the options to find the best possible mate or just enjoy a connection for a moment. How do you resist the urge to get stuck with someone if you are a vulture, a rat, a prarie vole?

I am a prarie vole. I am trying to date. I have the urge to latch, to attach, to give up the search.  or a rat in this world. I must resist. Keep sorting. Be buda, drop the shell in the water.  Drop it. Let go. Be buda, find the tree.

Maybe the prarie vole has it all wrong. Maybe this is not what I even want. Maybe an intense emotional connection with another human being is nice in the moment. When the moment passes I should let go. Move on. Find the next one. Appreciate that moment for what it is, a moment. A shell. Enjoy that moment. Drop the shell in the water. Be buda, dont be a black vulture. Move on, fly away. Drop the shell in the water. Let go. Don't attatch. Drop the shell. 

La rueda

La rueda is a cuban form of salsa that is performed in a circle. The men dance and spin thier partners and then swings them on to the next person. As a woman this means that someone is always there to catch you. Each person takes you in and grabs you and holds you only tight enough to keep you spinning in that moment and then lets you go. You spin on to the next partner who catches you in turn. 

I feel so freed by this experience. I am indulging in Salsa to practice this metaphor of letting go. A metaphor for my new life. I am no longer dancing with one partner. I am no longer being held tight. I am being spun and then sweetly caught by the next man in the circle. 

I attended a halloween party last night. The man who was my first went with me. Two days earlier we spent one last day and night together. A day adventuring on sheer plunging beach top cliffs watching the sunset, the night tangled up under the sheets. In the morning we drank a cappucino and declared ourselves friends. No benefits. Just friends. The halloween party was the first to test out this new reality. We started the evening together talking and then slowly spun from person to person seperatly in the crowd. Dancing small talk. I peered at him from across the room as women flirted and chatted with him. We are friends. We ended the evening discussing our options. We would each now spin to the next partner. His choices were clear. A dark skinned girl from london wearing a hat wanted him in that moment. He would take her. I would keep looking. 

May the next person catch me as I spin, may they not let me spin out. May they let me land softly. 

Tomorrow I will rueda again. I will practice in the salsa movements the feeling of being held by strangers for a moment and then letting go. Always letting go. 

I am just a prairie vole

The prairie vole is frequently used in studies to emulate the nueochemical experience of humans. The prairie vole much like humans tends twords monogomous pair bonding. They do ocassionally divert from this, displaying behaviors that parallel that of human's such as divorce, seperation and infidelity. 

One study examined brain chemicals emitted when prairie voles were randomly given a partner and made to share space with them for a specific duration of time. Apparently, bonding chemicals emitted make the prairie vole exhibit a preference for those he spent time with, even when later given the opportunity to choose more genetically suitable mates.

So here I lay, the prairie vole being fed the brain chemicals that nature gave me to ensure successful pair bonding. I don't want these chemicals now. They are no good for me. This is only my randomly assigned partner. I don't want to get stuck.

He was my random selection. A research participant. I chose him to take my virginity. Not my real virginity but to break the spell of seventeen years of monogamy. 

I chose him because he was there, because he was kind, and just funny enough and smart enough. This is what I needed. An emotional respite. A clear understanding that sex and human connection were still possible for me. The brain chemicals were not part of my bargain.

The first time I laughed the whole way thru. Finding it unbearably funny that I was kissing a stranger. The sex was not akward or difficult and was surprisingly normal. I was not insecure or shy in most of the ways I had imagined and worried about. It was good even. 

The second time, the chemicals showed up. I started to feel something deep in my belly for this stranger. This stranger of a different race from a different continent. Who I has only met on five seperate ocassions. 

We layed in bed by the hour contemplating the evolutionary biology of prarie voles and how to resist the chemical reality we were being flooded with. Strategies were discussed. Less time together, no socializing just sex, or maybe a time limit. We settled on nothing.

By the third time I could feel him trying. Pulling away, just a bit. It made my belly ache or was it my heart? It made me realize that the chemicals are half the fun. They envelop you, wrapping you up in closeness and wellbeing. They are why we do this. To feel close to another human. 

I don't know when I will see him again or how I will keep from getting stuck for another 17 years with just some random selection. Four short dates being enough of an entoxicant to render me helpless. 

I have decided not to worry, to let go, to stop thinking and just feel it all. I have learned that resistance is futile. I will just enjoy the high. For now. 

Someone else's laundry

I am wearing a shirt that is not mine. The laundry gave it to me by mistake. I can't give it back to the rightful owner so I am wearing it. 

Not long ago it was worn by someone else. A woman. I maybe even have passed her on the street or stood behind her in line at the supermarket. 

I should be bothered by this proximity with a stranger. The wearing of a strangers clothes just washed. I am not. 

You spent the week with her in another city, sharing a bed, sharing space. You will see me tomorrow possibly. I will hug you, share your space. You may tell me you love me as you did before you left. 

I spent the weekend pondering if you ever wanted me back, would I be able to share you like a shirt worn by someone else, just laundered. Would my phyche be able to ever get past this? This use, this wearing, this closeness. 

Once in the evening you came wearing her sweatshirt. I asked where you had gotten it. It was hers. I cried. Her things on you. It hurt so much. 

You just texted that you are back but didn't invite me for coffee as you said you would, only that you will pick our son up from school. I want to die. I understand why people feel this, that they can't bear the pain and they want to jump off of bridges. I did this damage. I pushed the first domino. I pushed us down this hill. Now I am a divorced mother. We never even were married. 

I went on two second dates today. The spanish guy who owns a vespa shop in Barcelona and the Australian journalist. I like both of them for company. For an hour. For a meal. This is supposed to help, this company. 

It really only reminds me of my loss. 

How do I replace this lifetime shared. I have to trade you in for someone else's shirt? For someone else's laundry?