I reach my leg under the little formica table and say his name to nudge Tad awake. Outside in the drizzle is a stunning 17th century farmhouse on a hill surrounded by handsome Cypress pines. He wakes from his slumber, turns his head and looks up at me from under the rim of his red baseball cap with those big green eyes of his. (I told him not to wear baseball caps in France because he looks like a tourist). He's smirking because he knows I've woken him up to show him yet another pretty house. He often gets tired of my distractability and shows his need to pull away and recharge his batteries by nodding off. This time he reaches his hand across and touches mine, with just a smile, he rubs his ankle up against mine out of the view of the other passengers as a way to say, "Yes dear. I love you. Now let me sleep." Then he lies his head back down. A big smile comes to my face followed seconds later by a slow gentle cry that brings fat tears tumbling down my face which I cover with my hand so other passengers won't notice.
The reality is: Tad is not here; he is not on this trip with me. The reality is: Tad is dead. And the power of my imagination is both the incredible joy it brings me by creating pleasurable images and the terrible sorrow it unearths when it reminds me that it is -in and of itself- just a mental image setting off bodily sensations.
(If I use my imagination just right I can even feel the particular texture of Tad's hands.)
As I rush across the French countryside in a long metal train I find myself wondering if those seventeen months of cancer even existed. Maybe I just dreamt them too. The long nights in hospitals, waking every time the nurse walks in to check his vitals, the constant struggle to to see if I can understand what the doctors "really" mean behind their multiple masks. Did I just make up that fight, those phone calls, the hollering matches, the tearful nights holding each other?
Was this too just my imagination?
What's clear is that I did not dream the part of the story where the leukemia finally killed Tad. I did not dream the day he stopped breathing in my arms after suffocating on his own fluids. I did not dream the view of his cardboard box coffin sliding into the square chamber of the cremation furnace. That I know is not my imagination.
He is dead and I am not. Can someone please give me the instruction manual for loving a dead man? Because I don't know how to do this.
I find myself wondering when it will stop. When will I get back to wanting to be in love with a live person? I guess I am already there - I want to be in love with a live Tad. He's the one who is unavailable - so to speak.
If I were to give a name to this state it would be "bittersweet" - every memory is like a sweet dark chocolate that I get to relish in then suddenly I hit the bitter, hard center of reality and it becomes unpleasant.
* * * * * * * * * * *
This is not my first dance with death; far from it.
I saw my first cadaver at age 12 when I went to see my cousin lying in a casket; shot dead during a hunting accident. I saw my grandfather's corpse before I turned 18.
But the long, ongoing dance with death similar to Tad's was when I was in my early thirties and was told I had a medical condition that could be controlled temporarily but never healed. It would only get worse and for years smart doctors told me I needed to prepare for my imminent death.
Then some brilliant team of scientists came along and discovered a drug that saved my life. It's pretty clear to me that none of the men in white saw it coming given the seriousness with which they conveyed their concern that I prepare my family and friends for my death.
Now that I am back in France I see how being here helped me deal with the reality of death.
When I lived here in Bordeaux I was restoring a 17th century farm house. One of my pleasures as a cerebral break from the exhausting physical work was to come into the city and do research on the history of the house and the families who had lived there.
The notion that this place had been there hundreds of years before me and the thick stone walls would probably be there many years after me somehow made my loss and fear of loss much more bearable. The old house with its multiple owners whose names populated the "cadastre" at the local archives put me and my own life in perspective. History is just a long story about dead people.
I grew attached to that house and had romantic images of being buried in the park out near the tiny 18th century chapel.
During this visit my sweet friend John and I went back to that house - now a bed and breakfast slash winery. I walked from room to room noticing the floor slats I had replaced, the sink I had installed, the paint I had slathered on the walls. I walked around remembering names and faces of people who had come and gone in those rooms.
At one point John intimated that this visit might make me uncomfortable (it is indeed a rather enviable place to have lived).
But the truth is I didn't feel any painful urges tugging at my heart as I walked through this old rambling place. It was a big part of my life. I shared it with someone dear to me and now neither is a part of my life and I feel quite at peace with that. It's that simple.
I wonder what it will take for me to get to a phase in my life when I can say to myself "Tad Crandall you were a big part of my life but you are no longer and I feel at peace with that. It's that simple."
* * * * * * * * * * *
While here a young Frenchman appeared to flirt with me in a way that stirred something. He was sweet and sexy and seemed smart (one or the other alone would be insufficient to prick my ears). As we began to get to know one another I suddenly began to feel nauseous. Without notice I became aware I needed to get to a toilet quickly. I proceeded to vomit profusely.
If I am to believe many Hollywood movies this vomiting was caused by severe emotion but according to my GP I simply developed a stomach flu, what the French call "une gastro". Needless to say it brought an end to any flirting. I took the prescribed medication, went to bed (alone) and slept for a long time.
When I woke up this morning I found myself thinking: "Tad knew every one of my physical and psychological quirks. How will I ever be able to meet someone who will accept me for who I am? There's no possible way I'll ever be able to invite someone new into my life."
Then I began to say aloud to the stone walls words that surprised even me: "Tad I can't believe you left me alone? Why did you have to go and leave me here? I'm really pissed off at you for dying!"
I had never felt anger about Tad's death before and I immediately thought of Kubler-Ross and her silly stages and how I was actually having one of them; finally an experience that someone had documented as normal.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Driving back from the airport where I've just dropped off Madina it occurs to me that most of life is about memory.
My capacity to drive a manual car after ten years of driving an automatic, to find my way around the unmarked Bordeaux suburbs, to remember how to negotiate a round-about at high speeds during rush hour - these are all based on memory.
How is it that some memories are so painful and others so warm?
The Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman says that one of the reasons it is hard for us to measure happiness is that we confuse our feelings about our life with our feelings about our memories of our life.
And what worse his work has shown how something that has the potential to be a really good memory turns into a bad one when it has a less-than-happy ending such as a peaceful vacation that finishes with a harsh dispute over the hotel bill.
If this is true then we might surmise that most relationships will become a painful memory - because they will end in unwanted separation. It's a wonder we allow ourselves to have children, to open up to other humans, to find a mate!
It would no doubt make my memories happier if I believed that Tad's departure from this earth was the immediate delivery of his soul into the arms of a loving god. It would allow me to walk around saying how happy I am for him; how lucky he is to be with god. But I can't. I simply don't know that to be true.
What I do know (or at least feel very strongly) is that this painful sorrow, this revisiting of memories, this conjuring of loving images, this talking aloud to a dead man is all part of our love story. It is all part and parcel of the beautiful encounter between Tad Crandall and Greg Rowe.
I can't have the beauty and love without the pain.
* * * * * * * * * * *
PS When I put the new SIM card in my French phone I was served up a series of beautiful text messages from Tad so excited to be sharing his arrival first in Florence, then Rome, and finally Venice where he compared the throngs of tourists to locusts. These were from 2009 where we split paths so I could go back to the US. With the magic of telecommunication competition, the new company kicked in and all the messages disappeared. I stood in the phone store smiling even though it stung. "The temporary nature of life," I thought.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
recalculating
The gut-wrenching, painful memories are slowly letting go of me, no doubt tired of gripping my brain for so long. I no longer lie down in my bed and immediately think of Tad's corpse that was there less than two months ago. I no longer wander the aisles of Trader Joe's my eyes wet with sorrow my heart yearning to prepare him dishes he enjoys.
I vaguely remember the seizures that took him to the floor, the spontaneous bleeding here and there, the moments of exhaustion when I would struggle to move his 195 pound body from the bed to the toilet on his office chair with five little wheels as support.
I've been called "resilient" by many of my friends. I find myself wondering if this is simply a well-developed capacity to forget pain.
More and more what I do remember - actually it's not a memory, it's a new original thought each time. So let me start again: More and more what I hear in my head is Tad's loving voice encouraging me.
This pisses me off somewhat.
I always swore I would not turn someone into a demi-god just because they're dead. Death does not make us perfect; Tad was by no means perfect.
And yet what remains in my head is Tad's perfection. The voice that appears when I stop and listen is that of Tad so full of love that every word he utters is supportive and kind; reminding me not to "sweat the small stuff", to dive in face first, to relish it all.
This voice also delights me beyond belief.
It seems I have always only had one voice inside me: a strident, rather demanding, easily distractable voice. Tad's departure has left me with a new voice. A loving voice. Not permanently - I have to lean into it to really hear it. But it's there.
I can think of other departure's in my life where people left a negative voice in my head. These departures were mostly painful ones: separations, divorce. Then there are the many departures which have left no voice in my head at all.
Couples specialist Jonathon Gottman tells us it takes five positive bits of feedback from our beloved to balance out the damage done by one single negative message. Imagine the power our loved ones hold over us!
So perhaps it's possible that in the face of an incredible 18-month long human tragedy during which I received thousands of loving messages from my beloved that somehow I have been able to replace the harping voice from my childhood with a caring voice for my adulthood.
It's possible when we walk someone to the edge of the precipice with complete love that the gift we get in return is a loving voice whispering in our ear. I find myself wondering what I can do to maintain it - to keep it whispering til my own body stops functioning.
What if Tad and I had had a fight the day before? Would this all look different today? Is it possible that his last words sealed the deal somehow? When he looked at our friend Carl and slurred through the fog of what was probably a brain hemmorhage: "I am okay to die, where is Greg?" was he setting our love in stone?
It's almost as if I can finally hear the "loving voice of God" promised to me time and again by the elders of my childhood church. Only now God sounds vaguely like Tad on a good day.
I maintain a family plan with the atrocious AT&T until I can find a way to record Tad's voice mails for eternity (funny choice of words, right?). But ironically when I listen to them they don't really deliver on my hopes of rekindling something with him. They're rather disappointing.
The ashes don't really work for me either. I just assumed when the crematorium gave them back to me that I'd feel some kind of satisfaction like people on TV. After all I did give them a body - you'd think I could fetishize what is left of that body. But I can't seem to relate to these ashes in any way despite my efforts to keep them in a central place on my altar.
It seems the only thing that evokes Tad in me is a photo. I find I prefer the ones of him hiking in nature. I tend to reach out, to caress the surface of the photo when I walk by as if I were caressing his cheek and I say aloud, "Tad, I love you." In that moment he is there.
But finding Tadness is a tricky thing. I have been giving away a lot of his belongings, to his family, to neighbors, to Goodwill. I keep wondering at one point will I go over the edge and suddenly his world will disappear forever. Why is that sofa an important part of maintaining Tadness but not that chair? How is it I can't find anyone who wears size nine and half shoes - is this Tad telling me not to get rid of his abundant collection of sports shoes?
This kind of superstitious thinking can take me to strange uncomfortable places. A few days ago I was so altered by my thoughts and emotions that I ran into the car in front of me at a stop light. Fortunately the other driver was extremely compassionate. I felt a strong need to explain to her the reasons I couldn't stop crying had little to do with the fender bender- yet the words wouldn't come out; just sobbing. "My", "husband", "just", "died", "of", "cancer" got slowly pieced together and she put her arm around me lovingly. The strident voice immediately corrected in my head reminding me it had been five weeks and I should be more 'together' than this.
Ironically we had pulled over to exchange numbers onto the parking lot of the clinic where Tad once got his blood drawn. She had actually slammed on the brakes to avoid an emerging ambulance. I remember those.
After Tad died I thought my "job" was to:
1 - keep his belongings that are meaningful to me
2 - get rid of his belongings that aren't and
3 - start a private practice either in San Francisco, Santa Cruz or both.
I see now that this is far more complicated than I had ever imagined. Any task I engage in is potentially overwhelming if it happens to bring up emotional material. Needless to say just about everything in the above list brings up deeply emotional material. Some things I trudge through nonetheless but most of the time I simply stop and do something else, something not on my list.
Turning off Tad's telephone line, sorting through his office, redecorating his living room, repainting parts of the bathroom have all taken weeks. I went to see a clairvoyant who told me to let go of my goals for now so instead I decided to go get coddled in Bordeaux by my sweet friend Madina. Suddenly buying a plane ticket to take a break from my emotions was too emotional. It took me three weeks to decide on a date, an airlines and an itinerary!
I've begun attending a "grief group" (on top of grief counseling and therapy). One of the facilitators shared with me her impression that people grieving are doing an incredible amount of work, even when they are not working. This notion resonated strongly with me even though it was not clear what this "work" is.
Last weekend I attended a men's gathering - a gathering held in the very place Tad and I met and where this summer we had a beautiful commitment ceremony. While there I understood what this "work" is. It became clear while listening to a friend tell a story about getting lost with a GPS.
Imagine you've decided to take a month-long trip across country. Let's say you're driving from New York to Los Angeles. You don't have an exact itinerary but you have a pretty clear idea where you'll be each day for the next thirty days. But then, when you get to Missouri you suddenly discover for reasons beyond your control that you can't go any further. No matter how convincing you are, no matter who you know, no matter how smart you are - you are stuck all alone in Missouri. This notion in and of itself is overwhelming. Your whole relationship to Missouri begins to transform. But the more time you spend there the more the two end points take on a different meaning as well. New York becomes this place of memories; the sacred land of life events both happy and sad. And LA becomes the unattainable land of unrealized dreams.
Then the space between the two changes in significance. That nap in the rest stop in Ohio suddenly takes on new value as does that sweet Bed and Breakfast in Amish country.
The entire time your GPS keeps muttering "Recalculating", "recalculating". The poor one-chip computer keeps trying to figure out what the hell happened. Its sole purpose is to get you to LA.
And that is the "work" I'm doing even when I'm not doing any work: Recalculating.
The bunk bed in room one of cabin two at Saratoga Springs Retreat Center is no longer just a bunk bed - it has become a sacred temple built solely to celebrate the first time Tad and I made love. A ticket to Bordeaux isn't just a visit to my family on that side of the world - it's a bittersweet pilgrimage to what Tad called his "favorite memory ever". The garden he carefully constructed over six years now full of historical significance merits national park status - worthy of millions of visitors.
As I do all this recalculating work I wonder how long I need to stay in Missouri. At what point am I doing damage to myself just sitting and reminiscing on my years with Tad? How long should I stand staring at a photo of him? Was the timing right for me to have that sweet tryst over the weekend or was it too soon? Do I really love living in Santa Cruz or is it just a way for me to keep Tad's home intact a bit longer? Am I rushing back into the real world or am I lingering too long in the world of the dead?
I don't have answers to any of these questions. Actually I do have answers in my head but they keep changing. They are the subject of a gentle disagreement between the strident voice and Tad's voice. "Stay", "Go", "Linger", "Work".
But there is one thing I am dead certain of (another great choice of words): connecting with loving people always feels right, even if they can't talk about Tad or the events of the last year. The handsome guy at my favorite coffee shop, the gentle hug with my sweet neighbor who just got a cancer diagnosis - the same woman who told me I could call her day or night if I needed help moving Tad, lunch al fresco with my dear friend Carl, a support group of broken hearted widows...At times I find myself wishing it were the 1950's again so people could drop by unexpectedly with tuna casseroles or to refresh the water in the living room bouquet.
These encounters are the crumbs showing me the path out of Missouri and on to the next voyage. Actually let me recalculate: they are the bountiful, nutritious picnics laid out beautifully in pastures along the winding road that might take me back to my next departure point.
My "job" today is to feast and wander. And if I stop and listen to Tad-God Voice while I'm there, it's saying to me: "YES! Keep loving! Keep crying! Keep laughing!"
PS Apologies to my loving cousins in Missouri - it's not personal!
I vaguely remember the seizures that took him to the floor, the spontaneous bleeding here and there, the moments of exhaustion when I would struggle to move his 195 pound body from the bed to the toilet on his office chair with five little wheels as support.
I've been called "resilient" by many of my friends. I find myself wondering if this is simply a well-developed capacity to forget pain.
More and more what I do remember - actually it's not a memory, it's a new original thought each time. So let me start again: More and more what I hear in my head is Tad's loving voice encouraging me.
This pisses me off somewhat.
I always swore I would not turn someone into a demi-god just because they're dead. Death does not make us perfect; Tad was by no means perfect.
And yet what remains in my head is Tad's perfection. The voice that appears when I stop and listen is that of Tad so full of love that every word he utters is supportive and kind; reminding me not to "sweat the small stuff", to dive in face first, to relish it all.
This voice also delights me beyond belief.
It seems I have always only had one voice inside me: a strident, rather demanding, easily distractable voice. Tad's departure has left me with a new voice. A loving voice. Not permanently - I have to lean into it to really hear it. But it's there.
I can think of other departure's in my life where people left a negative voice in my head. These departures were mostly painful ones: separations, divorce. Then there are the many departures which have left no voice in my head at all.
Couples specialist Jonathon Gottman tells us it takes five positive bits of feedback from our beloved to balance out the damage done by one single negative message. Imagine the power our loved ones hold over us!
So perhaps it's possible that in the face of an incredible 18-month long human tragedy during which I received thousands of loving messages from my beloved that somehow I have been able to replace the harping voice from my childhood with a caring voice for my adulthood.
It's possible when we walk someone to the edge of the precipice with complete love that the gift we get in return is a loving voice whispering in our ear. I find myself wondering what I can do to maintain it - to keep it whispering til my own body stops functioning.
What if Tad and I had had a fight the day before? Would this all look different today? Is it possible that his last words sealed the deal somehow? When he looked at our friend Carl and slurred through the fog of what was probably a brain hemmorhage: "I am okay to die, where is Greg?" was he setting our love in stone?
It's almost as if I can finally hear the "loving voice of God" promised to me time and again by the elders of my childhood church. Only now God sounds vaguely like Tad on a good day.
I maintain a family plan with the atrocious AT&T until I can find a way to record Tad's voice mails for eternity (funny choice of words, right?). But ironically when I listen to them they don't really deliver on my hopes of rekindling something with him. They're rather disappointing.
The ashes don't really work for me either. I just assumed when the crematorium gave them back to me that I'd feel some kind of satisfaction like people on TV. After all I did give them a body - you'd think I could fetishize what is left of that body. But I can't seem to relate to these ashes in any way despite my efforts to keep them in a central place on my altar.
It seems the only thing that evokes Tad in me is a photo. I find I prefer the ones of him hiking in nature. I tend to reach out, to caress the surface of the photo when I walk by as if I were caressing his cheek and I say aloud, "Tad, I love you." In that moment he is there.
But finding Tadness is a tricky thing. I have been giving away a lot of his belongings, to his family, to neighbors, to Goodwill. I keep wondering at one point will I go over the edge and suddenly his world will disappear forever. Why is that sofa an important part of maintaining Tadness but not that chair? How is it I can't find anyone who wears size nine and half shoes - is this Tad telling me not to get rid of his abundant collection of sports shoes?
This kind of superstitious thinking can take me to strange uncomfortable places. A few days ago I was so altered by my thoughts and emotions that I ran into the car in front of me at a stop light. Fortunately the other driver was extremely compassionate. I felt a strong need to explain to her the reasons I couldn't stop crying had little to do with the fender bender- yet the words wouldn't come out; just sobbing. "My", "husband", "just", "died", "of", "cancer" got slowly pieced together and she put her arm around me lovingly. The strident voice immediately corrected in my head reminding me it had been five weeks and I should be more 'together' than this.
Ironically we had pulled over to exchange numbers onto the parking lot of the clinic where Tad once got his blood drawn. She had actually slammed on the brakes to avoid an emerging ambulance. I remember those.
After Tad died I thought my "job" was to:
1 - keep his belongings that are meaningful to me
2 - get rid of his belongings that aren't and
3 - start a private practice either in San Francisco, Santa Cruz or both.
I see now that this is far more complicated than I had ever imagined. Any task I engage in is potentially overwhelming if it happens to bring up emotional material. Needless to say just about everything in the above list brings up deeply emotional material. Some things I trudge through nonetheless but most of the time I simply stop and do something else, something not on my list.
Turning off Tad's telephone line, sorting through his office, redecorating his living room, repainting parts of the bathroom have all taken weeks. I went to see a clairvoyant who told me to let go of my goals for now so instead I decided to go get coddled in Bordeaux by my sweet friend Madina. Suddenly buying a plane ticket to take a break from my emotions was too emotional. It took me three weeks to decide on a date, an airlines and an itinerary!
I've begun attending a "grief group" (on top of grief counseling and therapy). One of the facilitators shared with me her impression that people grieving are doing an incredible amount of work, even when they are not working. This notion resonated strongly with me even though it was not clear what this "work" is.
Last weekend I attended a men's gathering - a gathering held in the very place Tad and I met and where this summer we had a beautiful commitment ceremony. While there I understood what this "work" is. It became clear while listening to a friend tell a story about getting lost with a GPS.
Imagine you've decided to take a month-long trip across country. Let's say you're driving from New York to Los Angeles. You don't have an exact itinerary but you have a pretty clear idea where you'll be each day for the next thirty days. But then, when you get to Missouri you suddenly discover for reasons beyond your control that you can't go any further. No matter how convincing you are, no matter who you know, no matter how smart you are - you are stuck all alone in Missouri. This notion in and of itself is overwhelming. Your whole relationship to Missouri begins to transform. But the more time you spend there the more the two end points take on a different meaning as well. New York becomes this place of memories; the sacred land of life events both happy and sad. And LA becomes the unattainable land of unrealized dreams.
Then the space between the two changes in significance. That nap in the rest stop in Ohio suddenly takes on new value as does that sweet Bed and Breakfast in Amish country.
The entire time your GPS keeps muttering "Recalculating", "recalculating". The poor one-chip computer keeps trying to figure out what the hell happened. Its sole purpose is to get you to LA.
And that is the "work" I'm doing even when I'm not doing any work: Recalculating.
The bunk bed in room one of cabin two at Saratoga Springs Retreat Center is no longer just a bunk bed - it has become a sacred temple built solely to celebrate the first time Tad and I made love. A ticket to Bordeaux isn't just a visit to my family on that side of the world - it's a bittersweet pilgrimage to what Tad called his "favorite memory ever". The garden he carefully constructed over six years now full of historical significance merits national park status - worthy of millions of visitors.
As I do all this recalculating work I wonder how long I need to stay in Missouri. At what point am I doing damage to myself just sitting and reminiscing on my years with Tad? How long should I stand staring at a photo of him? Was the timing right for me to have that sweet tryst over the weekend or was it too soon? Do I really love living in Santa Cruz or is it just a way for me to keep Tad's home intact a bit longer? Am I rushing back into the real world or am I lingering too long in the world of the dead?
I don't have answers to any of these questions. Actually I do have answers in my head but they keep changing. They are the subject of a gentle disagreement between the strident voice and Tad's voice. "Stay", "Go", "Linger", "Work".
But there is one thing I am dead certain of (another great choice of words): connecting with loving people always feels right, even if they can't talk about Tad or the events of the last year. The handsome guy at my favorite coffee shop, the gentle hug with my sweet neighbor who just got a cancer diagnosis - the same woman who told me I could call her day or night if I needed help moving Tad, lunch al fresco with my dear friend Carl, a support group of broken hearted widows...At times I find myself wishing it were the 1950's again so people could drop by unexpectedly with tuna casseroles or to refresh the water in the living room bouquet.
These encounters are the crumbs showing me the path out of Missouri and on to the next voyage. Actually let me recalculate: they are the bountiful, nutritious picnics laid out beautifully in pastures along the winding road that might take me back to my next departure point.
My "job" today is to feast and wander. And if I stop and listen to Tad-God Voice while I'm there, it's saying to me: "YES! Keep loving! Keep crying! Keep laughing!"
PS Apologies to my loving cousins in Missouri - it's not personal!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
the way, the truth, the life
This post is a continuation of my last one, a deepening of it. It is about mysterious concepts I struggle with now that Tad is dead. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings about this either in the comments or by email to me.
I woke up yesterday with a pounding thought: "There's no way he said that!! Just no way at all." For some reason I was thinking about the phrase "I am the way, the truth and the life" attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. And all I could think was "He did NOT say that!"
I am no expert on Jesus - in fact I'm not even sure if he existed. But if he did, it seems to me that he rarely made himself the center of attention. If this story of Jesus that changed the face of the world is a true one - then something tells me it's far more likely Jesus said: "LOVE is the way, the truth and the life."
I once found myself chatting with a Mormon farmer in a remote rural town in Southeastern Arizona, the kind of guy I rarely have the chance to encounter. Being the good Atheist-but-Seeking that I am I asked him about his Mormon god.
"My god is sitting on the edge of his chair just waiting for the opportunity to jump up and encourage me; to tell me what a good job I've done and how proud he is of me."
I was struck by this cheerleader version of a deity no doubt because it is so incredibly far from the one I was introduced to as a child.
The Reverend Lee Vandenburg of the First Baptist Church basically gave us an unwritten list of behaviors. Let's call them the "In" behaviors and the "Out" behaviors. If a congregant did the In Behaviors she had a ticket into heaven --and by extension the church community-- but if he or she (openly) engaged in those behaviors on the Out list she wouldn't make it into either circle. This seems like a simple, easy-to-understand formula - and not far from the beliefs of most religions.
As my childhood world became more and more chaotic - financial problems, marital conflict, separation and finally divorce - my family kept showing behaviors on the "Out" list. When the divorce was pronounced we were told we were not welcome in the community. Quickly though it seems divorce was struck from the "Out" list and we were allowed back - or did it have something to do with my grandfather, a church elder?
As I approached adolescence it became more and more apparent to me (and no doubt to others) that I was more romantically interested in my male friends than my female cohort. As the painful truth grew slowly less opaque - despite all my attempts to pray those thoughts out of my brain - I knew what I had to do. For years Rev VandenBurg had told us that homosexuals were an "abomination". If ever there was a bigger, more terrible "Out" list hiding somewhere in the wooden desk in his office I was sure my shamefully secret wet dreams were on it - no doubt along with murderers and criminals of the type that hung on either side of the crucified savior.
I wish I could believe in Jesus.
I wish I could feel his loving arms around me telling me that Tad is in a good place. I wish I could believe that God had arms and like the Dutch paintings that gave Jesus blue eyes or the American paintings that gave him a more Anglo-Saxon mien I wish I could see God as some big loving daddy sitting on the edge of his chair.
But I can't.
I also wish I could bring myself to believe in some heavenly place. I wish I were really certain that Tad is now sitting on a cloud up there feeling some divine mojo flow through him.
Not being able to locate Tad has been the most painful part of my experience of loss. I want to know where he is. I want to know he is safe. I want to know he is well-cared for. I want to know.
To locate: "to designate the site or place of, to define the limits of."
My logical brain, the one that was taught geometry and learned to scan maps and endless library catalogs and GPS screens, wants to pursue its old habit of situating. It wants to place Tad somewhere on an X axis then a Y axis then walk away serene.
But it's not that easy.
A few months before my beautiful grandmother died she expressed some worry about what might happen to her after death.
"I know I'm getting closer. I keep having more and more dreams of your grandpa. But I'm just not sure about things...", she said concerned.
When I gently prodded she explained she was afraid for her soul's future since she had not attended church in quite a long time. When asked why she said her experience of the various church communities in town was that the leaders were all hypocrites: "They all say one thing and do another," she said.
As a leader in our small community she had seen many things in her ninety-some years - and she was not prone to idle gossip. She was clearly speaking from observed experience.
"It just didn't make sense to me. So I stopped going. I found peace and love on my own."
That day I wondered aloud with my grandma if her life as a loving spouse, a caring teacher, a community leader, a responsible parent was perhaps a godly way to go through life. Perhaps her way --even though it didn't include adhering to all the behaviors on the lists -- was closer to god somehow. I saw that she felt some relief after this.
With hindsight it's safe for me to conclude from my conversation with her that the "In" lists these men drew up --yes they were all men-- were in fact unattainable even to themselves.
Carl Jung is said to have written: "The great religions of the world are mistaken in that the ask us to put faith before experience."
How could I believe in divine love if I had not experienced it?
Given the narrow-mindedness of my spiritual teachers it wasn't possible for me growing up to experience the love of god. I mostly felt critical scrutiny from God's messengers. If indeed this church community was "the hands and face of God" their gestures communicated something other than godly love, something more akin to intolerance, judgment, small-mindedness. Like a pining lonely heart on a first date - God held a checklist behind his back just waiting for a faux-pas that would allow him to reject me.
I didn't wait to be banished from the garden - I simply excommunicated myself.
One day Rev Vandenburg's daughter contacted me here in California where she too had moved. She offered to get together and talk. Having lived far from my childhood community of faith I was eager to sit down with another adult and talk about it, try to make sense of it. I also had some real questions I wanted to ask about her father's at times illogical behavior.
When she met me for lunch in a small eatery in San Francisco's hip South of Market, Dot.com alley I was excited to see she'd come with her husband and young daughter. As a general rule I enjoy the company of children and, I assumed, a triangular conversation would be that much more lively.
But once we sat down to lunch I saw the whole meal play out in a far different manner than what I had expected.
First she told me from the very beginning - quite tersely - that her father had died, that he was a GOOD man and his theology wasn't open for discussion.
Then I realized her husband was not going to participate in the conversation. He sat nearby mostly interacting with their four year old - allowing Anne and I to catch up.
As the meal moved along however it became clear even Anne was only partially engaged. She remained guarded never really opening up to me about her joys, her doubts, struggles or desert wanderings. Here I was sharing my wonderings aloud and she played her cards close to her chest. As the end of my lunch break approached I began to feel eager to leave; I felt uncomfortable like an elevator at rush hour.
After paying the check I got up to leave when Anne said to me, "Greg I want to know where you stand on your commitment to Jesus Christ."
Sideswiped! Her question opened up a slew of ideas - many of which I'd have been happy to discuss. I was just coming back to the US after living 20 years in a country vehement about the separation of church and state. I had traveled to Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist places and had loving friends from all those faiths; friends with whom I could have open discussions about life, love, fear and faith. I had just lost most of my community to the devastation of AIDS.
I mumbled something logical enough to cover my Good Boy-ass but open-ended enough to show her that I had expanded my idea of Jesus-ness.
As I escaped our lifeless encounter I felt the rage emerge. How dare she! Was this lunch no more than a notch in her Envagelical belt? I wondered if the church community she and her husband led in Southern California was paying her for those hours. Maybe I should have let her pick up the tab after all.
Fortunately as Tad got sicker and sicker we never had this kind of dynamic - with other people or between ourselves. Though we rarely talked about God or life after death we became less defended and more loving. As we got closer and closer to his death we became more open to love.
Our urges to find fault with one another (or to retaliate in the face of fault-finding) disappeared completely most likely brought on by the sudden leukemic fork in the road, the heretofore forgotten awareness that we are mortal. This constant painful reminder coupled with dire ongoing physical pain was enough for us to drop our human urges to bite back when we felt hurt and instead practice daily gentle kindness with one another.
During this time we noticed that other people's gestures of love and support - a hug, a card, a check, a tear - would open our hearts even more, setting off bouts of unusual tears, an inexplicable mix of sadness and joy.
Immediately after Tad died I felt an incredible love emerge. When everyone left me alone with him/it I actually made a short video of his body commenting on the various parts and my relationship to them. When I take the time to watch it I sob deeply but I also notice that in the film I'm laughing with such incredible love - a similar feeling I experienced after making love with Tad. Was Freud right? Was an orgasm just a smaller version of the incredible intimacy of dying together?
So from this long trek across a hot desert of deep sensitivity, of profound love and of excruciating loss - a voyage I began with my beloved and finished alone here is what I think I might understand:
1 - When my heart opens up tenderly -- with doubt, with fear, with love, with sorrow -- I can keep it hidden. But I also have the opportunity to share it, to divulge my vulnerability to others.
2 - When I am open and vulnerable with others and they respond with love, somehow I grow bigger, I open up more (and I have a hunch they do too).
3 - If I am around someone in my openness and they choose not to be open, I feel lonely, like an object instead of a full human being.
4 - If I stay open with someone and they stay open with me until the very end - after their death their voice joins the chorus of loving voices in my head.
In the same way I can close my eyes, touch myself erotically and suddenly find the very real wonderful smiling face of Tad; in the same way I can feel his very presence while climaxing, yelling his name, spouting love declarations to him (these are followed by long deep sobs), I can also feel him lovingly supporting me. I can feel him sitting on the edge of his chair eager to encourage me and cover me in praise.
Tad's voice has merged with that of my loving ancestors: my grandma's, Melanie's, Stephen's. It has joined the voice of angels.
I can't locate this voice through searching and thinking. Instead it comes to me when I sit quite still and let it permeate me from within.
What remains a mystery to me is whether this voice is just a composite of memories I simply store in my brain or whether it is somehow something coming to me from beyond these three dimensions. Like my ancestors who saw their crop suddenly ruined and - in order to make sense out of something so unpredictable and non-sensical - blamed the heavens, am I just finding a mental shortcut by attributing this to something meta-physical?
The truth is I have had many odd, inexplicable experiences in this lifetime - mostly around dying people. But those are stories I never tell anyone. They are so unusual and impossible to comprehend - in particular by the social scientist part of me - that my brain tells me people will think I'm crazy or better yet the eery events never really happened; they were just a dream I had.
But they weren't.
I woke up yesterday with a pounding thought: "There's no way he said that!! Just no way at all." For some reason I was thinking about the phrase "I am the way, the truth and the life" attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. And all I could think was "He did NOT say that!"
I am no expert on Jesus - in fact I'm not even sure if he existed. But if he did, it seems to me that he rarely made himself the center of attention. If this story of Jesus that changed the face of the world is a true one - then something tells me it's far more likely Jesus said: "LOVE is the way, the truth and the life."
I once found myself chatting with a Mormon farmer in a remote rural town in Southeastern Arizona, the kind of guy I rarely have the chance to encounter. Being the good Atheist-but-Seeking that I am I asked him about his Mormon god.
"My god is sitting on the edge of his chair just waiting for the opportunity to jump up and encourage me; to tell me what a good job I've done and how proud he is of me."
I was struck by this cheerleader version of a deity no doubt because it is so incredibly far from the one I was introduced to as a child.
The Reverend Lee Vandenburg of the First Baptist Church basically gave us an unwritten list of behaviors. Let's call them the "In" behaviors and the "Out" behaviors. If a congregant did the In Behaviors she had a ticket into heaven --and by extension the church community-- but if he or she (openly) engaged in those behaviors on the Out list she wouldn't make it into either circle. This seems like a simple, easy-to-understand formula - and not far from the beliefs of most religions.
As my childhood world became more and more chaotic - financial problems, marital conflict, separation and finally divorce - my family kept showing behaviors on the "Out" list. When the divorce was pronounced we were told we were not welcome in the community. Quickly though it seems divorce was struck from the "Out" list and we were allowed back - or did it have something to do with my grandfather, a church elder?
As I approached adolescence it became more and more apparent to me (and no doubt to others) that I was more romantically interested in my male friends than my female cohort. As the painful truth grew slowly less opaque - despite all my attempts to pray those thoughts out of my brain - I knew what I had to do. For years Rev VandenBurg had told us that homosexuals were an "abomination". If ever there was a bigger, more terrible "Out" list hiding somewhere in the wooden desk in his office I was sure my shamefully secret wet dreams were on it - no doubt along with murderers and criminals of the type that hung on either side of the crucified savior.
I wish I could believe in Jesus.
I wish I could feel his loving arms around me telling me that Tad is in a good place. I wish I could believe that God had arms and like the Dutch paintings that gave Jesus blue eyes or the American paintings that gave him a more Anglo-Saxon mien I wish I could see God as some big loving daddy sitting on the edge of his chair.
But I can't.
I also wish I could bring myself to believe in some heavenly place. I wish I were really certain that Tad is now sitting on a cloud up there feeling some divine mojo flow through him.
Not being able to locate Tad has been the most painful part of my experience of loss. I want to know where he is. I want to know he is safe. I want to know he is well-cared for. I want to know.
To locate: "to designate the site or place of, to define the limits of."
My logical brain, the one that was taught geometry and learned to scan maps and endless library catalogs and GPS screens, wants to pursue its old habit of situating. It wants to place Tad somewhere on an X axis then a Y axis then walk away serene.
But it's not that easy.
A few months before my beautiful grandmother died she expressed some worry about what might happen to her after death.
"I know I'm getting closer. I keep having more and more dreams of your grandpa. But I'm just not sure about things...", she said concerned.
When I gently prodded she explained she was afraid for her soul's future since she had not attended church in quite a long time. When asked why she said her experience of the various church communities in town was that the leaders were all hypocrites: "They all say one thing and do another," she said.
As a leader in our small community she had seen many things in her ninety-some years - and she was not prone to idle gossip. She was clearly speaking from observed experience.
"It just didn't make sense to me. So I stopped going. I found peace and love on my own."
That day I wondered aloud with my grandma if her life as a loving spouse, a caring teacher, a community leader, a responsible parent was perhaps a godly way to go through life. Perhaps her way --even though it didn't include adhering to all the behaviors on the lists -- was closer to god somehow. I saw that she felt some relief after this.
With hindsight it's safe for me to conclude from my conversation with her that the "In" lists these men drew up --yes they were all men-- were in fact unattainable even to themselves.
Carl Jung is said to have written: "The great religions of the world are mistaken in that the ask us to put faith before experience."
How could I believe in divine love if I had not experienced it?
Given the narrow-mindedness of my spiritual teachers it wasn't possible for me growing up to experience the love of god. I mostly felt critical scrutiny from God's messengers. If indeed this church community was "the hands and face of God" their gestures communicated something other than godly love, something more akin to intolerance, judgment, small-mindedness. Like a pining lonely heart on a first date - God held a checklist behind his back just waiting for a faux-pas that would allow him to reject me.
I didn't wait to be banished from the garden - I simply excommunicated myself.
One day Rev Vandenburg's daughter contacted me here in California where she too had moved. She offered to get together and talk. Having lived far from my childhood community of faith I was eager to sit down with another adult and talk about it, try to make sense of it. I also had some real questions I wanted to ask about her father's at times illogical behavior.
When she met me for lunch in a small eatery in San Francisco's hip South of Market, Dot.com alley I was excited to see she'd come with her husband and young daughter. As a general rule I enjoy the company of children and, I assumed, a triangular conversation would be that much more lively.
But once we sat down to lunch I saw the whole meal play out in a far different manner than what I had expected.
First she told me from the very beginning - quite tersely - that her father had died, that he was a GOOD man and his theology wasn't open for discussion.
Then I realized her husband was not going to participate in the conversation. He sat nearby mostly interacting with their four year old - allowing Anne and I to catch up.
As the meal moved along however it became clear even Anne was only partially engaged. She remained guarded never really opening up to me about her joys, her doubts, struggles or desert wanderings. Here I was sharing my wonderings aloud and she played her cards close to her chest. As the end of my lunch break approached I began to feel eager to leave; I felt uncomfortable like an elevator at rush hour.
After paying the check I got up to leave when Anne said to me, "Greg I want to know where you stand on your commitment to Jesus Christ."
Sideswiped! Her question opened up a slew of ideas - many of which I'd have been happy to discuss. I was just coming back to the US after living 20 years in a country vehement about the separation of church and state. I had traveled to Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist places and had loving friends from all those faiths; friends with whom I could have open discussions about life, love, fear and faith. I had just lost most of my community to the devastation of AIDS.
I mumbled something logical enough to cover my Good Boy-ass but open-ended enough to show her that I had expanded my idea of Jesus-ness.
As I escaped our lifeless encounter I felt the rage emerge. How dare she! Was this lunch no more than a notch in her Envagelical belt? I wondered if the church community she and her husband led in Southern California was paying her for those hours. Maybe I should have let her pick up the tab after all.
Fortunately as Tad got sicker and sicker we never had this kind of dynamic - with other people or between ourselves. Though we rarely talked about God or life after death we became less defended and more loving. As we got closer and closer to his death we became more open to love.
Our urges to find fault with one another (or to retaliate in the face of fault-finding) disappeared completely most likely brought on by the sudden leukemic fork in the road, the heretofore forgotten awareness that we are mortal. This constant painful reminder coupled with dire ongoing physical pain was enough for us to drop our human urges to bite back when we felt hurt and instead practice daily gentle kindness with one another.
During this time we noticed that other people's gestures of love and support - a hug, a card, a check, a tear - would open our hearts even more, setting off bouts of unusual tears, an inexplicable mix of sadness and joy.
Immediately after Tad died I felt an incredible love emerge. When everyone left me alone with him/it I actually made a short video of his body commenting on the various parts and my relationship to them. When I take the time to watch it I sob deeply but I also notice that in the film I'm laughing with such incredible love - a similar feeling I experienced after making love with Tad. Was Freud right? Was an orgasm just a smaller version of the incredible intimacy of dying together?
So from this long trek across a hot desert of deep sensitivity, of profound love and of excruciating loss - a voyage I began with my beloved and finished alone here is what I think I might understand:
1 - When my heart opens up tenderly -- with doubt, with fear, with love, with sorrow -- I can keep it hidden. But I also have the opportunity to share it, to divulge my vulnerability to others.
2 - When I am open and vulnerable with others and they respond with love, somehow I grow bigger, I open up more (and I have a hunch they do too).
3 - If I am around someone in my openness and they choose not to be open, I feel lonely, like an object instead of a full human being.
4 - If I stay open with someone and they stay open with me until the very end - after their death their voice joins the chorus of loving voices in my head.
In the same way I can close my eyes, touch myself erotically and suddenly find the very real wonderful smiling face of Tad; in the same way I can feel his very presence while climaxing, yelling his name, spouting love declarations to him (these are followed by long deep sobs), I can also feel him lovingly supporting me. I can feel him sitting on the edge of his chair eager to encourage me and cover me in praise.
Tad's voice has merged with that of my loving ancestors: my grandma's, Melanie's, Stephen's. It has joined the voice of angels.
I can't locate this voice through searching and thinking. Instead it comes to me when I sit quite still and let it permeate me from within.
What remains a mystery to me is whether this voice is just a composite of memories I simply store in my brain or whether it is somehow something coming to me from beyond these three dimensions. Like my ancestors who saw their crop suddenly ruined and - in order to make sense out of something so unpredictable and non-sensical - blamed the heavens, am I just finding a mental shortcut by attributing this to something meta-physical?
The truth is I have had many odd, inexplicable experiences in this lifetime - mostly around dying people. But those are stories I never tell anyone. They are so unusual and impossible to comprehend - in particular by the social scientist part of me - that my brain tells me people will think I'm crazy or better yet the eery events never really happened; they were just a dream I had.
But they weren't.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
finding home
When I was 18 years old - on the verge of breaking out, running away, blossoming into a bigger me -- I saw a Kalamazoo, Michigan version of the Broadway musical Pippin.
It's the fictional story of the son of Emperor Charlemagne who seeks happiness in sex, war, politics, money and power. At one point he collapses and wakes up to find himself in the care of a simple, loving widow who lives with her young son on a farm. As he regains strength he takes to her day-to-day life of milking cows, repairing the roof, tilling the garden, and raising her son. But after a time he decides he needs to get back to a more pulsating, glamorous life and leaves her.
Toward the end of the play, the narrator offers Pippin the opportunity to disappear into a glorious ball of light to never return, the envy of all who see OR he can choose to return to one of the phases of his life. Pippin chooses to go back to the farm.
The narrator is furious. He calls out to all the theater workers to take away the music, the decor, even the costumes. In the end the man, woman and child are standing in their underpants on a bare stage beneath a dangling single light bulb while the narrator defies them to find happiness without the dazzle and decor of life.
For years I walked the bustling streets of Paris on my way to school or work, singing the titular character's theme song:
"Everything has its season; everything has its time...
Cats fit on the window sill, children fit in the snow,
Why is it I don't fit in anywhere I go?
Rivers belong where they can ramble,
eagles belong where they can fly.
I've got to be where my spirit can run free.
I've got to find my corner of the sky."
And for years I followed in Pippin's footsteps. I wrote for famous magazines that adorned coffee tables in France, the UK and the US. I interviewed leaders of opinion in the arts, politics, business. I was flown here and there in first class by organizations who were impressed by the magazine titles I wrote for and whom I assumed had no idea how very un-important I really was. When the AIDS epidemic started taking potshots at my friends I created a non-profit and brought unconventional programs into hospitals, sat with Ministers of Health from various countries to influence policy, offered support to dying people who suffered extraordinarily. Back in the US I surfed the dotcom wave and helped change legislation nationally to protect people with disabilities.
And then Tad Crandall asked me to step into his yard (but not too far).
He asked me to cuddle his cat, to help him weed his garden, to wander in the garden shop to find the next addition to his yard. To sit and watch TV. He asked me to slow down, to stop fighting. I railed against his world. I thought it was pedestrian and narrow-minded, stifling and claustrophobic. But he never once criticized mine. Not once. He just stood by the gate and held it open for me with a generous smile.
On the other hand Tad was adamant we mustn't live together right away. He knew that too much of one person in his personal sphere made him irritable and unpleasant. He insisted we spend time apart on a regular basis. This allowed me to keep a foot in my turn-of-the-century San Francisco cottage and another in his sweet Santa Cruz trailer.
Despite all my ambivalence, I woke up every day and chose Tad. As months and years went by I continued to choose Tad. I chose Tad because no matter what issues I had with his sleepy, predictable day-to-day pace I saw that what flowed between us was simple, humble love.
No one had ever offered it to me this purely.
A few days ago a lovely friend visited me from San Francisco and I didn't know how to be with her. It was "one of those days" which I've discovered come and go where I can't seem to stay focused on the living and my mind wanders off to the dead, to the past, to the pain of loss. Being in my body is cloying and I find myself saying and doing things thoughtlessly in order to make the pain stop.
We went for a delicious walk to visit Tad's and my vegetable plot where I suddenly became aware of how un-present I was. I apologized and suggested we ride back up to San Francisco together so she could beat the evening traffic and I could sleep in my own bed. I offered this not because I had anything there to do but simply because staying where I was felt so painful.
This was my second time in San Francisco since Tad's death and unlike the previous trip it was actually soothing for me to find myself in my own apartment, with my own furniture, my art, my books...all mirroring my story back to me. I met with friends and we caught up, had a good laugh and dinner in some trendy new hotspot surrounded by fashionable twenty-somethings.
I walked back to my place smiling, thinking Tad would completely support me if I moved back to San Francisco - which at that moment felt like home.
But during my short stay I got to see just how much my mind loves the stimulation of the City - in particular the possibilities hidden behind each thought:
As I walk to breakfast I see the tramway go by and my mind knows that it could take me to the international airport. The idea that I can easily access planes to take me to different parts of the world is stimulating. Getting to airports is complicated from Santa Cruz. For years I've always looked at big-ticket items in terms of how many plane tickets they are worth: a four thousand dollar used car = three and a half trips to Paris.
The waiter in my morning neighborhood restaurant is handsome and nicely built and slightly flirty. Not overtly so - just enough to transform our mundane interactions about eggs and bacon into something a little playful with just a hint of possibility - setting up what a friend of mine calls "mental rainchecks".
The same goes for the posters I see of museums, plays and films.
The truth is I almost never go to see them - except perhaps when friends are visiting from out of town. But the possibility I may go is immensely important to me somehow. Just outside my door something exciting is happening and if I want to -- and I don't really want to right now thank you very much but but just in case I might want to -- I could go outside and take it in.
I live in San Francisco the way most people live in Santa Cruz. I walk or bike to most places. I shop and dine within a few blocks of my house. I spend evenings in local eateries with friends or quietly at home watching a movie. On very rare occasions I hop on the trolley and adventure downtown.
The major difference between Pippin and me is that he chooses to go back to the woman and her son. He doesn't say, "I'll take the slow-paced farm but give the woman leukemia and let her die." Santa Cruz would be a lovely place to move with someone, well, someone like Tad. Without him it feels frightening, like the quiet cul-de-sac that it is.
The beauty of Buddhism is it reminds me to slow down my mind, to let in serenity. The beauty of Christianity is it encourages me to always follow the path of love, to eschew all the do's and don'ts and just come back to love.
The Christian legend suggests Jesus came back to life after his physical death. Though I don't believe this I do believe that people who loved him deeply saw him. They felt him.
Now that Tad is physically dead I yearn to locate him, to find where he is and make sure everything is alright.
If I stop and settle into deep Buddhist serenity Tad resurrects. He comes back to me with his healthy body and gorgeous smile. He glows with love, the same way I've seen holy men glow in some exotic monasteries. He is pure love. And all he does is encourage me and love me and assure me that love is all there is. No matter where I am.
It's the fictional story of the son of Emperor Charlemagne who seeks happiness in sex, war, politics, money and power. At one point he collapses and wakes up to find himself in the care of a simple, loving widow who lives with her young son on a farm. As he regains strength he takes to her day-to-day life of milking cows, repairing the roof, tilling the garden, and raising her son. But after a time he decides he needs to get back to a more pulsating, glamorous life and leaves her.
Toward the end of the play, the narrator offers Pippin the opportunity to disappear into a glorious ball of light to never return, the envy of all who see OR he can choose to return to one of the phases of his life. Pippin chooses to go back to the farm.
The narrator is furious. He calls out to all the theater workers to take away the music, the decor, even the costumes. In the end the man, woman and child are standing in their underpants on a bare stage beneath a dangling single light bulb while the narrator defies them to find happiness without the dazzle and decor of life.
For years I walked the bustling streets of Paris on my way to school or work, singing the titular character's theme song:
"Everything has its season; everything has its time...
Cats fit on the window sill, children fit in the snow,
Why is it I don't fit in anywhere I go?
Rivers belong where they can ramble,
eagles belong where they can fly.
I've got to be where my spirit can run free.
I've got to find my corner of the sky."
And for years I followed in Pippin's footsteps. I wrote for famous magazines that adorned coffee tables in France, the UK and the US. I interviewed leaders of opinion in the arts, politics, business. I was flown here and there in first class by organizations who were impressed by the magazine titles I wrote for and whom I assumed had no idea how very un-important I really was. When the AIDS epidemic started taking potshots at my friends I created a non-profit and brought unconventional programs into hospitals, sat with Ministers of Health from various countries to influence policy, offered support to dying people who suffered extraordinarily. Back in the US I surfed the dotcom wave and helped change legislation nationally to protect people with disabilities.
And then Tad Crandall asked me to step into his yard (but not too far).
He asked me to cuddle his cat, to help him weed his garden, to wander in the garden shop to find the next addition to his yard. To sit and watch TV. He asked me to slow down, to stop fighting. I railed against his world. I thought it was pedestrian and narrow-minded, stifling and claustrophobic. But he never once criticized mine. Not once. He just stood by the gate and held it open for me with a generous smile.
On the other hand Tad was adamant we mustn't live together right away. He knew that too much of one person in his personal sphere made him irritable and unpleasant. He insisted we spend time apart on a regular basis. This allowed me to keep a foot in my turn-of-the-century San Francisco cottage and another in his sweet Santa Cruz trailer.
Despite all my ambivalence, I woke up every day and chose Tad. As months and years went by I continued to choose Tad. I chose Tad because no matter what issues I had with his sleepy, predictable day-to-day pace I saw that what flowed between us was simple, humble love.
No one had ever offered it to me this purely.
A few days ago a lovely friend visited me from San Francisco and I didn't know how to be with her. It was "one of those days" which I've discovered come and go where I can't seem to stay focused on the living and my mind wanders off to the dead, to the past, to the pain of loss. Being in my body is cloying and I find myself saying and doing things thoughtlessly in order to make the pain stop.
We went for a delicious walk to visit Tad's and my vegetable plot where I suddenly became aware of how un-present I was. I apologized and suggested we ride back up to San Francisco together so she could beat the evening traffic and I could sleep in my own bed. I offered this not because I had anything there to do but simply because staying where I was felt so painful.
This was my second time in San Francisco since Tad's death and unlike the previous trip it was actually soothing for me to find myself in my own apartment, with my own furniture, my art, my books...all mirroring my story back to me. I met with friends and we caught up, had a good laugh and dinner in some trendy new hotspot surrounded by fashionable twenty-somethings.
I walked back to my place smiling, thinking Tad would completely support me if I moved back to San Francisco - which at that moment felt like home.
But during my short stay I got to see just how much my mind loves the stimulation of the City - in particular the possibilities hidden behind each thought:
As I walk to breakfast I see the tramway go by and my mind knows that it could take me to the international airport. The idea that I can easily access planes to take me to different parts of the world is stimulating. Getting to airports is complicated from Santa Cruz. For years I've always looked at big-ticket items in terms of how many plane tickets they are worth: a four thousand dollar used car = three and a half trips to Paris.
The waiter in my morning neighborhood restaurant is handsome and nicely built and slightly flirty. Not overtly so - just enough to transform our mundane interactions about eggs and bacon into something a little playful with just a hint of possibility - setting up what a friend of mine calls "mental rainchecks".
The same goes for the posters I see of museums, plays and films.
The truth is I almost never go to see them - except perhaps when friends are visiting from out of town. But the possibility I may go is immensely important to me somehow. Just outside my door something exciting is happening and if I want to -- and I don't really want to right now thank you very much but but just in case I might want to -- I could go outside and take it in.
I live in San Francisco the way most people live in Santa Cruz. I walk or bike to most places. I shop and dine within a few blocks of my house. I spend evenings in local eateries with friends or quietly at home watching a movie. On very rare occasions I hop on the trolley and adventure downtown.
The major difference between Pippin and me is that he chooses to go back to the woman and her son. He doesn't say, "I'll take the slow-paced farm but give the woman leukemia and let her die." Santa Cruz would be a lovely place to move with someone, well, someone like Tad. Without him it feels frightening, like the quiet cul-de-sac that it is.
The beauty of Buddhism is it reminds me to slow down my mind, to let in serenity. The beauty of Christianity is it encourages me to always follow the path of love, to eschew all the do's and don'ts and just come back to love.
The Christian legend suggests Jesus came back to life after his physical death. Though I don't believe this I do believe that people who loved him deeply saw him. They felt him.
Now that Tad is physically dead I yearn to locate him, to find where he is and make sure everything is alright.
If I stop and settle into deep Buddhist serenity Tad resurrects. He comes back to me with his healthy body and gorgeous smile. He glows with love, the same way I've seen holy men glow in some exotic monasteries. He is pure love. And all he does is encourage me and love me and assure me that love is all there is. No matter where I am.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
home from war
I'm told there's a Tarot card that shows a man in a field about to plant a crop. Legend has it he is a soldier just home from war. Victorious he has been given a bag of seeds to plant as his reward. With the shadow of death on his face, he searches alone for his field, the place he will settle and begin to cultivate his crop; the place he will make a living despite everything he knows about death and destruction.
Since Tad's memorial where people came together and shared loving stories of his life my brain races with thoughts. Most of them give voice to the broken heart of that soldier:
"How is it possible I am still alive?! How can it be that kind loving people were killed in this battle and that I am left here to take in the beauty of the world!? How dare the Gods! "
"What kind of victory is this? I am left here alone with a few belongings and my memories. This is my reward? There was far more reward in fighting battles even if we lost one or two. Even if there is no more reason to fight."
"How can I possibly sit still when I have seen such horrors? I want to scream out at the inequities, the inefficiencies, the incompetencies I've seen. I want to warn the world of what's happening around them. I've seen the inside of a powerful ugly machine and it needs transformation."
"Who am I now that I am not a soldier? How can I sit and do something as mundane as planting seeds after I've visited the depths of pain and the heights of hope? How can I possibly find solace in something as simple as a seed when just moments ago I was saving a fellow soldier? Why wouldn't I prefer to be fighting other fights or simply numbing my brain with drink and food and sex so the excruciating scenes lingering there have less of a sting?"
"How can I know what I need from a field? They all seem appealing and yet none of them does. This one is near a city with the distractions of bright lights, money and power plays. That one is far from the crowd with the painfully beautiful silence of soothing trees and waterfalls. There is another in a completely different kingdom where the people speak another language and fight for different causes. I could go there."
"But I don't want to plant seeds. I don't want to grow a crop to have an income. I don't want to think about the future. I want one thing: to return to the battle field and lie down next to my beloved friend. I want to hold his head in my hands and breathe life into his lungs. I want to feel his heart beat one more time beneath my hand. I want to see his eyes flutter so I may catch one more glimpse of their green depths. I want to hear his laughter bubble up from some unknown place reminding me that the pain, the loss and the devastation were all worth it."
"I want to lie down beside him in the mud with my eyes closed while the wind covers us with Autumn leaves. I will lie perfectly still and no one will ask anything of me. My body will rest, my heart will mend and the dark memories will lose their poison. I will sleep through the long nights of Winter til Spring arrives and the crocuses and jonquils gently nudge me awake."
Since Tad's memorial where people came together and shared loving stories of his life my brain races with thoughts. Most of them give voice to the broken heart of that soldier:
"How is it possible I am still alive?! How can it be that kind loving people were killed in this battle and that I am left here to take in the beauty of the world!? How dare the Gods! "
"What kind of victory is this? I am left here alone with a few belongings and my memories. This is my reward? There was far more reward in fighting battles even if we lost one or two. Even if there is no more reason to fight."
"How can I possibly sit still when I have seen such horrors? I want to scream out at the inequities, the inefficiencies, the incompetencies I've seen. I want to warn the world of what's happening around them. I've seen the inside of a powerful ugly machine and it needs transformation."
"Who am I now that I am not a soldier? How can I sit and do something as mundane as planting seeds after I've visited the depths of pain and the heights of hope? How can I possibly find solace in something as simple as a seed when just moments ago I was saving a fellow soldier? Why wouldn't I prefer to be fighting other fights or simply numbing my brain with drink and food and sex so the excruciating scenes lingering there have less of a sting?"
"How can I know what I need from a field? They all seem appealing and yet none of them does. This one is near a city with the distractions of bright lights, money and power plays. That one is far from the crowd with the painfully beautiful silence of soothing trees and waterfalls. There is another in a completely different kingdom where the people speak another language and fight for different causes. I could go there."
"But I don't want to plant seeds. I don't want to grow a crop to have an income. I don't want to think about the future. I want one thing: to return to the battle field and lie down next to my beloved friend. I want to hold his head in my hands and breathe life into his lungs. I want to feel his heart beat one more time beneath my hand. I want to see his eyes flutter so I may catch one more glimpse of their green depths. I want to hear his laughter bubble up from some unknown place reminding me that the pain, the loss and the devastation were all worth it."
"I want to lie down beside him in the mud with my eyes closed while the wind covers us with Autumn leaves. I will lie perfectly still and no one will ask anything of me. My body will rest, my heart will mend and the dark memories will lose their poison. I will sleep through the long nights of Winter til Spring arrives and the crocuses and jonquils gently nudge me awake."
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
hearing voices
A few days ago I looked around at all of the belongings in this house, I felt the incredible attachment Tad had to this place, his center. How could I possibly walk away from a world that was so carefully constructed and with so much love? I felt overwhelmed.
Yesterday it occurred to me for the first time that I could indeed put Tad's belongings in storage, that I could move back into my San Francisco apartment and that one day, alone or with someone else, I might have a weekend house somewhere full of his belongings.
Now this morning I find myself wondering if I am being too cold. Am I just shutting down? Shielding myself from the pain of sorrow, from the yearning?
I once saw a mare give birth to a foal with some a physical deformity. Rather than moving in to lick the spindly animal and offer her nipple she covered it with hay then moved to the farthest side of the stable as if they had not just spent 11 months inhabiting the same body. The gesture felt so cold to me but the Farm Hand assured me this was commonplace if the life of the foal was hopeless.
Last weekend I insisted on being registered for a two-day meditation retreat high in the hill's above Tad's house. It's a Buddhist group I am loosely affiliated with and they lovingly agreed to have me join in at the last minute. I spent hours in silence, then just as many hours sharing open-heartedly and weeping with other folks. We ate tasty vegetarian meals and spent lots of time outdoors in the trees, a mixture of soaring redwoods and craggly live oaks.
When I returned to Tad's house on Sunday - despite my pain of separating from this delicious moment and my anxiety at being back in his house alone - I became aware that something had shifted.
I have entered a new level of acceptance.
Part of it has to do with recognizing that my anger at the nurse the morning of his death had little to do with the nurse and wanting him to be comfortable. It mostly had to do with the fact that - despite the months of preparing for Tad's death - I really did not want him to go. In those last minutes of Tad's life he and I were indeed at odds despite all of the words of reassurance I had given him over the months. Tad had been quite preoccupied by the idea that if he died I would somehow be disappointed. He had mentioned how much people talked about "keeping up the fight" and how hard it was to speak honestly about wanting to let go. Again and again I assured him I supported him either way.
And yet that morning when he said numerous times and in a variety of ways that the gig was up and he was ready to die, I in fact wasn't ready for it. I did not want to stop our painful but familiar fight. I did not want to be hurled into a world surrounded by his belongings but not him, a world where suddenly I need to decide what is best for me.
I began grief counseling yesterday. I met with a woman from hospice who purposely asked questions to evoke Tad, to talk about the history of our relationship. She said the goal of short-term grief counseling is for us to work on the four main "tasks" of grieving:
- Accept the reality of the loss
- Experience the pain of the grief
- Adjusting to an environment where the dead are missing
- Emotionally relocate the deceased and reinvest in life
The first three made sense to me and felt like part of the process but the final task suddenly had me bursting into tears. Where is Tad? How is Tad? Why is he not communicating with me? Why doesn't he let me know how he's doing?
I know this is magical thinking - in the same way that I saw the face of my dead cousin tragically killed on the first day of hunting season- in the crowded halls of my junior high when I was 12 years old.
The truth is that during the first night of the retreat - a night of tossing and turning, sleeping and waking as I slept away from our bed for the first time - I did have a dream of Tad. I believe it is another reason why I am feeling ready to step more into my world and leave his behind.
In this dream Tad had his beautiful masculine body back, his broad muscular shoulders and his torso shaped like an upside down Eiffel Tower. He was behind me, pushing me on one of those rug-like mats that we used as children to go down giant plastic slides at the fun-fairs. His hands on my shoulders, he was laughing as he pushed me quickly making me a bit uncomfortable. The funny thing is we were not about to go down a giant plastic slide; we were racing across the parking lot of the supermarket of my childhood: Bueche's Groceries in Flushing, Michigan home of my father's father's father's father.
At one point in his playfulness Tad made a sexual comment insisting he wanted to do something right then and there. I blushed and insisted he couldn't do it in public: "People are watching!!" I said. He simply laughed and kept pushing. He pushed me right out onto Main Street then took a right turn up the hill leading to the house where I spent the bulk of my childhood years. The dream ended there as someone's cough in the dormitory woke me yet again.
Tad's and my relationship was constructed a lot around my learning to trust him. In appearance I was better skilled than he was for navigating the real world. I had lived abroad, created organizations, been self employed, graduated from grad school, navigated social circles that are far-distant from those of my childhood. I helped him get his first passport then took him to my beloved Southwestern France
( I once tried to distract him from pain asking him about favorite shared memories. He actually shared with me that his was a long summer evening strolling through the streets of old Bordeaux where I used to live and work, having dinner outdoors with my best girlfriend and her daughter then wandering along the quais in the moonlight. As he retold the evening I waited for the "punch line" - ie the dramatic moment which I had possibly forgotten. But there was none. This gentle evening walking, chatting, eating outdoors in public spaces -- a pleasure I had indulged in hundreds of times before meeting him-- was indeed his favorite memory of our time together.)
Tad took me down a path of serenity. He took me into a garden maze of minimal words, of deep intuition, of strong ethical boundaries. He had a keen sense of right and wrong and often raised an eyebrow or simply said "I'm not sure that's a good idea". That was enough for me. I know that sounds over-arching and a bit unbearable. But he did it so sparingly and from a place of deep wisdom and love - that I couldn't help but stop in my tracks.
Yesterday I took flyers of Tad's memorial to the local hospital then to the oncology office where we would go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to get a blood test and then blood products when necessary (the fact that he was kept alive by other people's blood donated out of kindness did not go unnoticed). The nurses and other staff greeted me with love, generously gave me hugs, offered heartfelt compliments and concern about the way we walked through cancer with grace.
The most powerful of these was one of the nurse practitioner's who had been an ally for a long time. She always knew how to hold a professional container but fill it with visible affection. She helped make our visits to the oncologists more meaningful.
She took the time in the middle of her busy morning to come and see me in the waiting room where she said to me (more or less): "What I loved about Tad was his powerful voice. The way he spoke up and said his truth. Even in his pain and weakness he would speak powerfully - at times overriding what other people said and he did it with so much love. I love him."
(As I write these words Tad's sweet cat keeps climbing onto my lap and the keyboard, pushing her way into my world - refusing to take no for an answer.)
I knew what she meant. I used to call this Tad's divine voice - this deep wisdom that he tapped into and spoke from, one that cut through all my muddledness.
If today I stopped to listen to Tad's wisdom, if I just stop and let him push me on the mat across the asphalt and up the hill, I believe he is saying:
Love your life Greg. Take risks. Love others. I believe he is telling me that all these belongings that he loved to accumulate were just things. Now that he belongs to the ethers he sees they were just another way to cling.
Today Tad's voice is telling me above all else to love life and live love.
Yesterday it occurred to me for the first time that I could indeed put Tad's belongings in storage, that I could move back into my San Francisco apartment and that one day, alone or with someone else, I might have a weekend house somewhere full of his belongings.
Now this morning I find myself wondering if I am being too cold. Am I just shutting down? Shielding myself from the pain of sorrow, from the yearning?
I once saw a mare give birth to a foal with some a physical deformity. Rather than moving in to lick the spindly animal and offer her nipple she covered it with hay then moved to the farthest side of the stable as if they had not just spent 11 months inhabiting the same body. The gesture felt so cold to me but the Farm Hand assured me this was commonplace if the life of the foal was hopeless.
Last weekend I insisted on being registered for a two-day meditation retreat high in the hill's above Tad's house. It's a Buddhist group I am loosely affiliated with and they lovingly agreed to have me join in at the last minute. I spent hours in silence, then just as many hours sharing open-heartedly and weeping with other folks. We ate tasty vegetarian meals and spent lots of time outdoors in the trees, a mixture of soaring redwoods and craggly live oaks.
When I returned to Tad's house on Sunday - despite my pain of separating from this delicious moment and my anxiety at being back in his house alone - I became aware that something had shifted.
I have entered a new level of acceptance.
Part of it has to do with recognizing that my anger at the nurse the morning of his death had little to do with the nurse and wanting him to be comfortable. It mostly had to do with the fact that - despite the months of preparing for Tad's death - I really did not want him to go. In those last minutes of Tad's life he and I were indeed at odds despite all of the words of reassurance I had given him over the months. Tad had been quite preoccupied by the idea that if he died I would somehow be disappointed. He had mentioned how much people talked about "keeping up the fight" and how hard it was to speak honestly about wanting to let go. Again and again I assured him I supported him either way.
And yet that morning when he said numerous times and in a variety of ways that the gig was up and he was ready to die, I in fact wasn't ready for it. I did not want to stop our painful but familiar fight. I did not want to be hurled into a world surrounded by his belongings but not him, a world where suddenly I need to decide what is best for me.
I began grief counseling yesterday. I met with a woman from hospice who purposely asked questions to evoke Tad, to talk about the history of our relationship. She said the goal of short-term grief counseling is for us to work on the four main "tasks" of grieving:
- Accept the reality of the loss
- Experience the pain of the grief
- Adjusting to an environment where the dead are missing
- Emotionally relocate the deceased and reinvest in life
The first three made sense to me and felt like part of the process but the final task suddenly had me bursting into tears. Where is Tad? How is Tad? Why is he not communicating with me? Why doesn't he let me know how he's doing?
I know this is magical thinking - in the same way that I saw the face of my dead cousin tragically killed on the first day of hunting season- in the crowded halls of my junior high when I was 12 years old.
The truth is that during the first night of the retreat - a night of tossing and turning, sleeping and waking as I slept away from our bed for the first time - I did have a dream of Tad. I believe it is another reason why I am feeling ready to step more into my world and leave his behind.
In this dream Tad had his beautiful masculine body back, his broad muscular shoulders and his torso shaped like an upside down Eiffel Tower. He was behind me, pushing me on one of those rug-like mats that we used as children to go down giant plastic slides at the fun-fairs. His hands on my shoulders, he was laughing as he pushed me quickly making me a bit uncomfortable. The funny thing is we were not about to go down a giant plastic slide; we were racing across the parking lot of the supermarket of my childhood: Bueche's Groceries in Flushing, Michigan home of my father's father's father's father.
At one point in his playfulness Tad made a sexual comment insisting he wanted to do something right then and there. I blushed and insisted he couldn't do it in public: "People are watching!!" I said. He simply laughed and kept pushing. He pushed me right out onto Main Street then took a right turn up the hill leading to the house where I spent the bulk of my childhood years. The dream ended there as someone's cough in the dormitory woke me yet again.
Tad's and my relationship was constructed a lot around my learning to trust him. In appearance I was better skilled than he was for navigating the real world. I had lived abroad, created organizations, been self employed, graduated from grad school, navigated social circles that are far-distant from those of my childhood. I helped him get his first passport then took him to my beloved Southwestern France
( I once tried to distract him from pain asking him about favorite shared memories. He actually shared with me that his was a long summer evening strolling through the streets of old Bordeaux where I used to live and work, having dinner outdoors with my best girlfriend and her daughter then wandering along the quais in the moonlight. As he retold the evening I waited for the "punch line" - ie the dramatic moment which I had possibly forgotten. But there was none. This gentle evening walking, chatting, eating outdoors in public spaces -- a pleasure I had indulged in hundreds of times before meeting him-- was indeed his favorite memory of our time together.)
Tad took me down a path of serenity. He took me into a garden maze of minimal words, of deep intuition, of strong ethical boundaries. He had a keen sense of right and wrong and often raised an eyebrow or simply said "I'm not sure that's a good idea". That was enough for me. I know that sounds over-arching and a bit unbearable. But he did it so sparingly and from a place of deep wisdom and love - that I couldn't help but stop in my tracks.
Yesterday I took flyers of Tad's memorial to the local hospital then to the oncology office where we would go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to get a blood test and then blood products when necessary (the fact that he was kept alive by other people's blood donated out of kindness did not go unnoticed). The nurses and other staff greeted me with love, generously gave me hugs, offered heartfelt compliments and concern about the way we walked through cancer with grace.
The most powerful of these was one of the nurse practitioner's who had been an ally for a long time. She always knew how to hold a professional container but fill it with visible affection. She helped make our visits to the oncologists more meaningful.
She took the time in the middle of her busy morning to come and see me in the waiting room where she said to me (more or less): "What I loved about Tad was his powerful voice. The way he spoke up and said his truth. Even in his pain and weakness he would speak powerfully - at times overriding what other people said and he did it with so much love. I love him."
(As I write these words Tad's sweet cat keeps climbing onto my lap and the keyboard, pushing her way into my world - refusing to take no for an answer.)
I knew what she meant. I used to call this Tad's divine voice - this deep wisdom that he tapped into and spoke from, one that cut through all my muddledness.
If today I stopped to listen to Tad's wisdom, if I just stop and let him push me on the mat across the asphalt and up the hill, I believe he is saying:
Love your life Greg. Take risks. Love others. I believe he is telling me that all these belongings that he loved to accumulate were just things. Now that he belongs to the ethers he sees they were just another way to cling.
Today Tad's voice is telling me above all else to love life and live love.
Friday, September 16, 2011
snake or rope?
As each day goes by I sob with less frequency. Yesterday I only sobbed three times. Actually they were more like gentle cries - none of the big moaning sounds that were present just a few days ago and often made me wonder if I was disturbing the neighbors.
I am getting beyond the sorrow of Tad's death and slowly entering into the murky painful waters of his absence.
The first phase was more like a mild version of PTSD. For days I had flashbacks of his last few minutes, of him being carted out. I replayed those last 90 minutes of panic, then anger, then calm. Yesterday at the dentist's office I saw someone gag on one of those plastic sucking things they use to hose out fluids and suddenly felt a jolt as I remembered Tad coughing in my arms. At the doctor's office (yesterday was my big self-care health day) I saw an elderly man in a wheelchair struggle to get to the lab and remembered getting Tad onto the plane bound for Seattle.
The second wave of emotions is more of a longing ache, a gentle yearning. I find myself asking him out loud: "Tad where did I put my keys?" or "Tad help me understand why the cat is making that funny noise. What does she want?" or just looking at a photo of him and thinking "God I love you!".
With the ache also comes an element of relief. On my way back to his house in Santa Cruz after a full day in San Francisco I stopped to buy some take-away food in Silicon Valley at a market I know from Tad's Stanford days. I took a taste of the chicken Tikka Masala and had to have some. I found a spicy mandarin chutney to go with it. As I walked to the car I was aware that had Tad been there he would have turned his nose up and I probably wouldn't have bought it.
Perhaps this was co-dependency on my part. Perhaps I should have just eaten what I wanted whenever I wanted while he was still on the planet. But the more I thought about it the more it felt like the healthy concessions we make in order to nurture loving relationship. For us, marriage (or in our case non-marriage) was about knowing when to stick to our guns and when to find middle ground or simply let go entirely.
In the middle of my doctor-dentist day in San Francisco I suddenly felt absolutely and utterly exhausted. I felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. My dentist who is used to bubbly Greg couldn't get a word out of me.
It seems that right now the gentle slow pace of small-town Santa Cruz is more appropriate for my emotional and physical state.
My biggest struggle however is to not let my sadness be drowned out by fears about the future (the oldest neurosis in human history I do believe!).
In essence Tad's house is a sweet rental that is owned by a cooperative. All of the neighbors are homeowners and Tad was their tenant (imagine 90 landlords!!). Among Tad's many accomplishments is he managed to domesticate me! Over the years I agreed to get a vegetable plot through the city, a ginormous flat screen TV for the tiny living room, a water fountain for the precious flower-filled yard. As our love for one another deepened - then complicated by disease, caregiving and fear of death -- I spent more and more time in domestic Santa Cruz and less time in urban San Francisco. I literally go out back, lean over a picket fence and chat in the evenings with Ana, the sweet neighbor behind us.
Now that all the framework is still here but he is not I find myself in a terrible conundrum that haunts my sleep: how can I walk away from this beautiful nest we created? how can I put this carefully-designed, color-coordinated, heartfully-cherished household into a twelve by twelve storage unit until I have a better place for it all?
In an ideal world I would love to have both places. I would love to continue sharing my time between the urban stimulation of San Francisco and the sweet seaside sleepiness of Santa Cruz.
When I share this with friends the reply is systematic: Now is not the time to make big decisions. But at $1000 per month (or $33 per day) I feel like time is running out. Or rather, money is running out.
Part of me tells myself that this is just a game my brain is engaging in to play tricks on me. I've seen friends lose a parent and suddenly all they can talk about is money - far more than what is necessary. I can tell accounting is the best coping skill they can summon.
So is this whole thing a story I tell myself? Is this just another way for me to combat fear? Fear of the void? Fear of letting go completely? Fear of my own death perhaps?
I once heard a prayer I believe attributed to Rumi that reads something like this: "God help me to see that the snake I fear is simply a coil of rope and the treasure I seek is the necklace already hanging around my neck."
I woke in the middle of last night in a moment of calm and had the following thought: "Who doesn't dream of dying in his own bed while his beloved holds him tight whispering love to him through every pore of his body?"
I know I do.
I am getting beyond the sorrow of Tad's death and slowly entering into the murky painful waters of his absence.
The first phase was more like a mild version of PTSD. For days I had flashbacks of his last few minutes, of him being carted out. I replayed those last 90 minutes of panic, then anger, then calm. Yesterday at the dentist's office I saw someone gag on one of those plastic sucking things they use to hose out fluids and suddenly felt a jolt as I remembered Tad coughing in my arms. At the doctor's office (yesterday was my big self-care health day) I saw an elderly man in a wheelchair struggle to get to the lab and remembered getting Tad onto the plane bound for Seattle.
The second wave of emotions is more of a longing ache, a gentle yearning. I find myself asking him out loud: "Tad where did I put my keys?" or "Tad help me understand why the cat is making that funny noise. What does she want?" or just looking at a photo of him and thinking "God I love you!".
With the ache also comes an element of relief. On my way back to his house in Santa Cruz after a full day in San Francisco I stopped to buy some take-away food in Silicon Valley at a market I know from Tad's Stanford days. I took a taste of the chicken Tikka Masala and had to have some. I found a spicy mandarin chutney to go with it. As I walked to the car I was aware that had Tad been there he would have turned his nose up and I probably wouldn't have bought it.
Perhaps this was co-dependency on my part. Perhaps I should have just eaten what I wanted whenever I wanted while he was still on the planet. But the more I thought about it the more it felt like the healthy concessions we make in order to nurture loving relationship. For us, marriage (or in our case non-marriage) was about knowing when to stick to our guns and when to find middle ground or simply let go entirely.
In the middle of my doctor-dentist day in San Francisco I suddenly felt absolutely and utterly exhausted. I felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. My dentist who is used to bubbly Greg couldn't get a word out of me.
It seems that right now the gentle slow pace of small-town Santa Cruz is more appropriate for my emotional and physical state.
My biggest struggle however is to not let my sadness be drowned out by fears about the future (the oldest neurosis in human history I do believe!).
In essence Tad's house is a sweet rental that is owned by a cooperative. All of the neighbors are homeowners and Tad was their tenant (imagine 90 landlords!!). Among Tad's many accomplishments is he managed to domesticate me! Over the years I agreed to get a vegetable plot through the city, a ginormous flat screen TV for the tiny living room, a water fountain for the precious flower-filled yard. As our love for one another deepened - then complicated by disease, caregiving and fear of death -- I spent more and more time in domestic Santa Cruz and less time in urban San Francisco. I literally go out back, lean over a picket fence and chat in the evenings with Ana, the sweet neighbor behind us.
Now that all the framework is still here but he is not I find myself in a terrible conundrum that haunts my sleep: how can I walk away from this beautiful nest we created? how can I put this carefully-designed, color-coordinated, heartfully-cherished household into a twelve by twelve storage unit until I have a better place for it all?
In an ideal world I would love to have both places. I would love to continue sharing my time between the urban stimulation of San Francisco and the sweet seaside sleepiness of Santa Cruz.
When I share this with friends the reply is systematic: Now is not the time to make big decisions. But at $1000 per month (or $33 per day) I feel like time is running out. Or rather, money is running out.
Part of me tells myself that this is just a game my brain is engaging in to play tricks on me. I've seen friends lose a parent and suddenly all they can talk about is money - far more than what is necessary. I can tell accounting is the best coping skill they can summon.
So is this whole thing a story I tell myself? Is this just another way for me to combat fear? Fear of the void? Fear of letting go completely? Fear of my own death perhaps?
I once heard a prayer I believe attributed to Rumi that reads something like this: "God help me to see that the snake I fear is simply a coil of rope and the treasure I seek is the necklace already hanging around my neck."
I woke in the middle of last night in a moment of calm and had the following thought: "Who doesn't dream of dying in his own bed while his beloved holds him tight whispering love to him through every pore of his body?"
I know I do.
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