Many of you knew Kristi as an accomplished educator, administrator and as an advocate for medical research. Over the years, she had gained the respect of friends, family and colleagues. She was thought of far and wide as a wise counselor and trustworthy confidant and was a mother and friend who had the capacity for unconditional love. She lived her life with her head held high, deservedly proud of all she had accomplished through her independence and fortitude. I’d like to share with you what I knew my sister to be and how she became the person that you knew.

Kristi sprang to life on September 18, 1950… 2 years and 5 days after I was born. Mom said that when she was little she had big violet eyes, from which she could turn on the tears in order to get what she wanted. From an early age, Kristi lived according to two simple principals: I will do what I want and I will do what needs to be done. Kristi tore through life at break neck speed and didn’t need or seek the approval of anyone. She was a gambler and lived on the bleeding edge all of her life.

When Kristi was growing up she was cute with big eyes, she was always quick to laugh, she had strong athletic legs, thick straight hair, a steel trap mind and a zest for life. She gathered friends and dragged them along in her wake. Many of those old friends she was still in touch with when she died.  While I had polio, other than a bout with pneumonia at the age of two, that nearly took her life, Kristi was too fast and agile for health problems to plague her childhood. But because she was healthy and I had polio, Kristi grew up helping me. She buttoned my buttons, hooked my garters, and carried the bulk of the heavy load of being sisters. We were close. We slept in the same double bed until we were in high school. We shared clothes and secrets and a past.

By the time she was 15, Kristi was pregnant. By the time she was 21, she had four children. She didn’t listen to my advice about how not to pregnant while still in high school. In fact, she looked at me as if to say, “Who are you to try to tell me how to live my life. You’re not doing such a good job yourself”.  Kristi was choosing to live her life as she wanted. She never once asked or cared about my approval. She was choosing her own way through life.

Kristi, for all intents and purposes, had 5 husbands. She married the first one twice; that was Mark, the father of her first four children. Mom and dad tried their damndest to stop their baby from having a child and from marrying at the age of 15, but Kristi did exactly as she pleased. Then there was Tom, then Randy, then Don and finally Rocky. With Randy, she had three more children, that’s seven children altogether. All she ever needed or asked was that we also loved each one of these men in turn and all of these children.

Kristi lived up and down the I5 corridor as far as northern California and out Highway 30 as far as Rainier and out on the coast a couple of times. Moving and raising and loving a growing family were what she did. From the age of 15 until she was in her 60’s, Kristi was either moving from house to house or from town to town. She would find a place and fix it up to make a home, casting all care to the wind. She lived in a school bus, in motels, in apartments and in houses. In all this time, she never asked for approval. She didn’t need it.

This type of life was not easy for Kristi and she wasn’t always happy. She always hoped that she would find forever love, a love that cared enough to provide the bare necessities of life:  love and sustenance for her and her children. And though she loved with all of her heart, she never found that forever love; because of that, Kristi struggled to keep her family clothed and fed, but she never lost her zest for life. She danced on tables, laughed at the top of her voice and built community where ever she went; she loved her children, taught them to love and to depend on one another and never lost touch with the extended family. Her house was open and she dispensed love and advice freely. This was advice not learned from books, which was to come later, but it was guidance based on what she had learned about life from her own hard experiences. Every man, every child and ever y town was a gamble that she was willing to take with gusto.

Kristi’s children know that they caused her to worry, as all kids do. As they struggled to find their way, she had countless sleepless nights filled with tears and anguish, but never did she withdraw her love nor did she stop offering the advice that she so often rejected as she was growing up. She wanted them to learn from her mistakes.

Kristi never had a new or newer car and yet she tore up and down the highways to see and care for her friends and family however wide apart they lived. She often would leave my house very late and I knew that she would not get home for many hours, sometimes not until the sun was rising. Usually she would be leaving because she would have some other long drive to make the following day to see one of her kids or pick up a grandchild to take home for the weekend or a week.

On the way to the beach a few weeks ago, I asked her if she wasn’t afraid of driving old cars all over the place, because I always worried about her. At the time we were in my air conditioned car. She had driven to Clackamas to meet me in her ’93 Honda in near 90 degree weather. Only one window would roll down and it had no AC. I turned the air on full blast and she adjusted all of the vents to point in her direction. Her face was flushed and she had beads of sweat on her upper lip. She talked how she was hoping to buy a “new to her” car in the next week or so. In answer to my question, she simply said, “If it starts, I’m going”. Every trip was a gamble, but she was fearless. Just months ago, when the new baby John was born, she called late at night from the parking lot of the hospital where he was clinging to life, and her car wouldn’t start. We talked long while she waited for someone to come and pick her up. She worried that this car, clinging to its life, might be towed while she could not afford to get it out of hock if she left it there. But she was not scared. She was right where she wanted to be, doing what needed to be done regardless of the risk.

All of her life, Kristi did what she wanted to do. You might say that she sacrificed for her children. Instead of buying new clothes for herself or a decent car, Kristi loaned money to those in need or bought a Christmas or birthday gift for a child or bought extra food for people coming to stay with her. This was not a sacrifice for Kristi. This was exactly what she wanted to do. She didn’t ask what people thought of the risks that she took to show up at all of the family gatherings, sometimes attending a grandson’s or granddaughter’s game, then dashing to make another child’s birthday party, then coming to my house to spend the night on the way to a meeting.

Kristi might have sought your advice or your opinion, but she never once looked for yours or anyone else’s approval. She was not open to acting upon what you might have thought was good for her. You might have thought that she was sacrificing for you or for others, but if so, you were wrong.

The day she died was probably a typical day for her. She had dressed Emma and Bella; given them breakfast, packed them up in the car and driven the round trip of many miles to take Emma to school. She had gone home and might have worked on her Sarcoid Network responsibilities; she had fed Bella, and laid her down for a nap, done dishes, probably put some laundry in, tidied the house, and started preparing dinner or a snack for the girls after school. She had probably called or texted at least one if not more of her children or friends and sometime around 2:00, she buckled Bella into her car seat and headed to school to get Emma again in her ’93 Honda. At 2:35, Kristi came to the end of her life in a car.

In order to believe that she had really died, I had to see her body, I had to know what I was doing when she passed, and I had to see where she died. So Hannah and I went to the crash site. It is right at the entrance of a pristine home, with a perfectly manicured green lawn with a large fountain in the center surrounded by pastures. Down a long lane horses were grazing and across the road cows were peacefully chewing their cud. At the door of the house, two peacocks were perched at the entrance. In the field on the other side of the lane, peacocks were walking and poking at the ground.

We were so struck by the peacocks that Hannah looked up what might be the meaning of their presence at the crash site. Gregory Wilbur, of the Parish Presbyterian Church and Dean of the Chapel at New College Franklin, Tennessee, has a deep interest in how symbolism reveals the nature and character of God. He says: The peacock has been seen since ancient times as guardians of the gates of paradise. And because they lose and gain their feathers annually, just as the phoenix rises out of the ashes, they represent immortality, renewal and resurrection. As well, the peacock often appears among the animals in the stable in Christ’s nativity. Oft seen images of two peacocks drinking from a chalice symbolize rebirth and angels are often depicted with four wings of peacock feathers.

Many have described Kristi in their messages over the last week as an angel on earth. She was truly an angel because you said so. But as a sister, I knew her as a gambler, someone who would take chances and seize opportunities regardless of anyone’s concern. I knew her as someone who did exactly as she pleased.

Kristi tore through life and tore through to the other side. I don’t have her anymore and I wonder what I will do without her. I loved her so much and I will miss her forever.

Karen
“Tannis, do you remember eating coconut cake at 28th and Ankeny and the delicious coffee that we drank there? Oh! My God! That was the best coconut cake in the world. I just drove by that bakery after eating a wonderful, beautiful, fresh, delicious, raw salad because I don’t eat the best coconut cake anywhere, anymore because… because I’m getting old, and I don’t want to drag around this big ass butt anymore. But Oh! My God! Just going by that place and thinking about that coconut cake and spending time out with you. Oh! My God!”

Tannis
“It was yummy. That is Joe’s favorite cake. I don’t crave sweet things at all but the memory of that and the wonderful days of talking and drinking good coffee… I want it back.”

Karen
“Me too, honey.

I don’t know… but regardless of how the kids complain about the way that they were raised, they… and me and you have had wonderful lives. And once the kids were gone, we still had fun together and after our divorces we still had fun. Oh, how we enjoyed going out for coffee and talking and talking and talking. I don’t think we could even count how many wonderful turkey sandwiches we ate… how many pieces of coconut cake. We cried until our eyes ached; we laughed at nothing… at ourselves, at each other; we grumbled about injustice, inequality and inequities and stuff we could not change; we rejoiced at small victories and told innumerable secrets and kept them secret by our promises.

You were and still are my treasure, my most precious friend. My memories are full of you and oh, how we kept each other strong when we thought we might die of anguish. What patience we had and forgiveness we gave so freely, though rare but deep were the offenses. We healed, with profound love, the too painful wounds of broken hearts. We helped each other to stand when we most wished to die in the gutter of our sorrows.

And now dear friend, we age. And though our images do not reflect the beauty of yesterday, our eyes shine like hard, glassy obsidian… razor sharp, indestructable because we have survived fire, ice and time and have done so together.

We still have years my lovely friend to love each other until death do us part from this earth. I lay me down tonight grateful for the unbelievable love, never-ending compassion and pure empathy that you have given me during these past 40+ years.

Tannis Hanson, McKee, Henry, you mean more to me than gold and even my life. Our memories will last forever… as long as our souls shall live.”

I left in the gloaming; my favorite time of a summer’s eve. There is that in the glowing sun already hidden behind the horizon turning the hills before it into black silhouettes… this, before the sky turns dark.

The that for me is a deep and  unsettling yearning. This, feels like there is something that I am missing. This, feels lonely. And it always has. So I walked.

The heat of the day lingered as a strong breeze sang through the grand chestnut, maple and walnut trees that line block upon block of this historic neighborhood. This is a neighborhood of homes that were built to hold a family of twelve and staff and some, only some, of more modest design.

I thought, as I wandered, that I would see folks on their wide, spreading porches, couples walking, children reluctantly returning home.

But doors and windows were shut tight, the streets and yards were empty, the only sound was the whirring of air conditioners nestled beneath windows and tucked behind bushes. Only two doors stood open of the many that I passed. Only two couples walked by. Only two people sat on their porch.

The trees, bushes and plants gave up their fragrance as I walked by, some so heady and alluring, I buried my face in their blossoms. Walnut shells, cracked open by squirrels, crunched under my feet.

The sky was turning the darkest of night blue and stars began to appear. I turned towards home still enveloped in this strange yearning that comes with the gloaming of summer’s eve. This is that.

 

OK. So I’m starting to feel stupid. Maybe it’s stupid to feel stupid; I don’t know. I’m just trying to correct a mistake that I made, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

If you read my last post, To Create the Man of My Dreams, you already know that I met a man named Joe at a café a week ago last Sunday. After he asked me several times,  I gave him what I thought was my correct phone number.  But since he has not called in over a week now, I am assuming that I made an error… a typo. I am also trusting my intuition that the guy was sincere and that he really did want to talk to me and he even thought that maybe this chance meeting might be the beginning of something meaningful.

You also would know from the last post that I thought he was ideal… ideal for me. Right age, intellect, looks, etc. The problem is that I now have introduced a new anxiety into my life that makes me think and act like a foolish teenager. You know. You’ve been there too. All of those silly little imaginings: “He didn’t really like me. He doesn’t really want to talk to me.” And then, worse yet, to embarrass myself by talking about our meeting incessantly as if there’s anything significant to say. And asking stupid questions like, “Do you think he will call? What should I do?”  I’m a bit embarrassed to admit to all of this and me at this advanced age and all. Blech! Do I really need this?

But 99% of the responses I received to the post said “Go back to the café. If you can find him, see if there was anything there.” I have to say that you have given me courage but also fear that I will make a fool out of myself in front of you and him. But should I leave you hanging? After all, I am the one who started this. As they say, “Curious minds want to know.”

I’ve been back to the café . Granted it was nearly 10:00 pm, but nonetheless, I went. Actually, it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t go at a time that the chances that Joe might be there were greater. My plan was to go at 5:00 and I was there at 5:00, though I was parked outside, I didn’t go in.. I still maintain that it wasn’t my fault..

So my only recourse, I thought at the time, was to leave a note on a receipt tablet with the baristas, that read:

Joe

(red round glasses)

please call

Karen Peterson

503-309-5501

And even this makes me cringe a little as I think back on it. I don’t want to seem like a stalker or some desperate middle aged woman. But I only want to make right what I may have done wrong. One person said, “Oh, the old give the wrong number trick.”  You know, when you really don’t want someone to call, so you give them a phony number? I’ve done it a bunch of times.

So, that’s it. I’m done. I’ve done what I could short of hanging out at the café all day everyday, but that’s not my way. Maybe this is how it will end. I’ve been through enough in my life that I have learned not to struggle too hard to remedy something that is not meant to be, and to relax in the idea that if it is meant to be, it will happen. And what have I lost… really? Nothing. My encounter with Joe and his sister-in-law was pleasant and stimulating, but in reality, I am not losing a great deal except the hope of something that might happen in the future. There is nothing certain about the future, anyway.

My dad and my sister were taken out of my life suddenly. My mother has passed on. Relationships have come and gone. As far back as I can remember are the people I have loved, my grandpa, my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins, and many of them are gone. All I have left are photographs and vague recollections. The past no longer exists except in memory and the future never really comes. What we do have, and it slips through our fingers, is right now, this moment.

My life is short and when I am gone there will be just two generations who will remember my face and will recall what I did in my brief time here. My photographs will mean nothing to my grand children’s children. “Oh, that was Grammy”, Ancel and Enora will say. But what will they know of me. All I will leave them  are images and my writings; but how long will those things lie around gathering dust and taking up space until one day while cleaning their files, the closet and the attic, out they will go and all signs of me will be gone forever.

We are stardust. Beautiful, beautiful stardust. We know nothing of what will become of us when these lovely bodies return to dust. But for now, we have life. And we can live well or we can live unwell. I choose well. For now I will sleep in the moonlight. I will listen to the sounds all around me and marvel at sight. I will cry for those suffering. I will always long for love and look for it around every corner. Perhaps it is looking for me, too.

Rain. Windy. Trees blowing. It’s getting dark. Tears. Sad. Cement and green grass.

Protestors. TV cashed in. All of us were sold out.

Love is all there is.

Wrinkles. Rhythm. Dance over him. Go slow. Get in love. Let it down. Get high.

Feel what you will. It’s not too late.

It’s wet. It’s cold. It’s too much. I can’t feel and I can’t stop.

I want to sleep. I don’t want to eat.

Clouds. The moon’s still out there? The sun will still come up? Confident to plant.

To have babies. To believe in god. To see yellow and purple and green and blue and every shade of red.

To write.

Wine. I need wine. I want wine. I want coffee at a cafe looking at them passing by on the sidewalk. To read poetry.

To have him touch me. To wipe a babies bottom and kiss his sweet lips.

To believe that there is good in the world.

To listen to music and have it touch way down inside to the place where it hurts the most.

To hear words that stretch your heart strings to the breaking point.

To know what it is to hurt. To really hurt. For all of us to have the chance to love and be loved and lose it and still get up crying, bleeding, singing at the stars.

Knowing that you are energy incarnate no different than the universe. Ghosts and the dead at your heels. Screaming in your head… “you’re not alone; you’re not alone”.

Tired backs. Tired bones. Sick at heart. Sick in the head. Sick of it all. Tired to the bone. Splitting headache. Broken heart.

Smelling pleasure. Rocking inside. Splitting wide open it feels so good. Groaning, it hurts so bad.

Scared. Brave. Blind. Alone. Lonely.

Um. Life. Shit. Shit. Goddamn it.

Me. You. Them. Us. We. Him. Her. Mine. Yours. Theirs.

Oh… Listen. Listen. Listen. We are crying. Can you hear it? Are you listening? I hope so.

I love you so much. I’ll always be here.

Karen –  12/16/2012

Tonight nature drove me nearly mad and speechless. Scott and I went to Rocky Butte so he could capture the sunset for a project he’s working on. We climbed the stone stairs to Joseph Hill Park. Lovers lay in the soft clover scented grass; some embraced, kissing on the surrounding rock walls. And a man had set up his camera pointing east.

From Rocky Butte one has a near 360° view. I knew that the sunset would be spectacular but I did not know that the full moon would rise as though out of the south side of Mt. Hood as the earth turned. At 7:50 something, it’s ghostly paleness appeared.

I have a friend, Scott. He’s a very good friend. He is a thinker, a writer, a reader, a lover of conversation. He will engage anyone in conversation… in deep philosophical conversation, political discussions, speculative “fantasmic” discourse, historical, fact-based ideology and events, a compliment on a tattoo, hair-color or the menu and quality of food and drink being served. No subject is out of range, no person is out of bounds if within hearing distance and even slightly receptive. He makes friends out of acquaintances and acquaintances out of strangers. He is no intellectual lightweight. He is educated and holds two degrees, one in English literature and another in Library and Information Science. He is an academic who is no longer at university but studies incessantly, nonetheless.

Scott can speak intelligently and knowledgeably on apparently any subject, be it concrete or the ethereal, yet he does not shy away from what he does not know. Though he has extensive volumes of information that he accesses without difficulty, he is also a very good listener. In some ways, he may at times appear to lack insight into his own humorous faux pas, particularly when he is briefly enamored with a pretty girl on the street or in a café. In that, he is a normal male. I will call him on it when I hear sexism slip into our conversation but he is always willing to admit the unintentional gaffe.

Scott just turned 40 years old, yet if the hours that we spend drinking and conversing in cafes are any indication, he enjoys hanging out with this soon to turn 68-year-old hippy. He is as happy as I am to while away the afternoon deep in enjoyable tête-à-tête. Regardless of my myriad of mindsets on any given day or his mood created by any given interaction with self or others, we engage in free-flow contemplative conversation that digs deep and wide. My soul longs for this interaction and always has. I don’t pretend to have the knowledge that he has… nor the memory to call upon all that I have learned in my years at university. But our conversations stir the deep recesses and open new horizons.

My interests today are varied and numerous and travel across a vast plain of philosophies. I am deeply interested in the ideas expressed by Alan Watts, Rumi, Sadhguru, the Buddha, Carl Jung, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and many other big thinkers both dead and alive. These folks offer big ideas, be they religious or secular (I doubt that these two ways of thinking are separable) and they excite me and yet I have found, offer no solution to my questioning. Questions, in my mind, require no answers and never have. I sincerely do not harbor any expectations. I am satisfied that my mind/soul is stirred and that there are people ten thousand times more bright than me who have the same questions. To be a skeptic and not a believer, is to be open to learning.

So, perhaps that is enough about me and my friend for now, though knowing these tidbits as a prelude will go a long way in understanding the title of this post.

Our last late afternoon meeting was on, what I would call, a perfect, sunny and warm day with a strong breeze blowing. We were sitting in a café with our usual drinks, a mocha in his hand and a green tea in mine. We had come to a place new to me. It was beautiful; windows surrounding the entirety of the front and sides of the building with fully glass doors, so it was open to the gardens peeking into the softly lit interior. Folks were on their laptops and it was nearly silent with the exception of a few folks at one table speaking softly. Laden bookshelves surrounded the interior walls. It was clearly a place of inward pursuit. There was one table available just a little too close to the couple sitting just behind. I say too close because my dear friend has a voice that is resonate but at times can be construed as loud. I have noticed that at times it is in an effort to pull others into his conversation and other times it is simply his rich reverberate tones. I knew this day would be no different.

I pushed the table away from the couple engrossed in writing and saw that the man moved from where he was sitting, nearest to our table, to the far side of the table. Before he moved, I noticed that written on his computer screen was the word Milwaukee. I miss read it as Mil wau kee and thought he might be writing about the native American tribes of the area known as Milwaukee. “Interesting”, I thought, but nothing more. The table rocked and my beautiful tea rocked with it spilling creamy goodness across the table. Dismayed, I cleaned it up, lamenting that I would be missing a sip or two of the tea. Damn, I hate it when that happens.

Scott got his drink and bagel and sat down and we began to chat. I so look forward to our time together. I never know where our conversation will take us but I am assured that it will be stimulating. I know that I will leave our time together enriched. After years of conversing, I have come to a point in our relationship where I feel comfortable to challenge his assumptions. We got onto the subject of whether he should pursue his PhD., of which I am favorable. He is so smart and can reiterate just about anything that he has learned in the decade he spent in school, as well as the decades of learning on his own. But I know that he would thrive in a pursuit of his own arguments. From any conversation, this one included, we often approach the futility of discourse.

If I were to label my leanings it would be postmodernism. This skeptic embrace of the everything saturates my thinking, therefore my writing. I won’t go into it now but suffice it to say, one can run into many a cul-de-sac and even dead ends in trying to discuss anything at all. And I have to say that it is half the joy of conversation with Scott… getting to this point. We ventured into many notions of reality and non-reality bringing into the conversation, Derrida, Nietzsche, Sartre, as well as others, Stoics, Materialists, Idealists, all of whom Scott is much more on speaking terms with than myself. And soon, Scott invited Hegel into the discussion.

Hegel piqued the interest of the man sitting behind us. “I heard you speak of Hegel”, he said. “Not many speak of Hegel these days”, he continued. I turned to encounter a man who immediately caught my interest. His bright eyes were helped by round, red, spectacles. He had an engaging smile, with one missing tooth. His slight build seemed healthy. His hair, a curly salt and pepper. In our defense, I said, “We’re talking about how little we know about anything and how hard to is to talk about anything if we are even able to say anything at all.” He said, “No, go on. I’m curious and if you don’t mind, I will just eavesdrop on your conversation. Go on.”  This was an invitation to Scott to talk about what he has learned over the years, which he does very well. And finally, I said, “What do you know about Hegel; what are you thinking about what we are saying?”

This brought him to our table and the conversation continued venturing into the history of Russia, Stalin, Hitler and WWII… what fascinating men were sitting at our table. I was entranced by such illuminating stories. I did little but listen for at least an hour with small interjections… Scott and Joe (he later introduced himself simply as Joe) carried the discourse. Scott mentioned that I had been through some difficult times of which I had suffered greatly. Joe turned to me with sincere interest and asked about what difficult times I had suffered. I listed only polio and cancer. Joe said, “Do you think often of suicide?” My answer was, “Yes, of course.” It seems that this did not surprise him. I often quote Albert Camus, the French essayist, novelist, and playwright, from the opening line of the Myth of Sisyphus, “The only serious philosophical problem is suicide. Deciding whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.”

This idea of suicide is not new to me but is especially relevant since I retired. I have, statistically, another 20+ years to live barring a terrible accident or illness. My aunts on both sides of my family have lived long. But I know that if I were unable to live a full life, I would not want to go on living… in a wheelchair, hooked up to any kind of a machine or dealing with chronic pain.

As a child, I was placed in an iron lung. The view of the world from this perspective is through a mirror above one’s head. Fortunate for me, my body rejected the iron lung and I began to recuperate from paralysis within one very long day. As an adult, I have wondered about the love of a mother for a child. To what use is it for the child to be kept alive, to spend a life, barely alive inside of a metal tube that will compress the child rhythmically to imitate natural breathing. What love is this? Is it not the ultimate selfishness?

As an adult, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. After surgery, I suffered through eight months of terrible chemotherapy. I was sick beyond sick. I was sick to death and daily thought I would die of the chemo drugs alone. I turned the infusions into a fantasy of sitting under a shaman’s tree while poison dripped into my veins. I was drugged so as not to run screaming from the room. I was sick until the next treatment that tore out my hair, ripped at my nervous system, screwed with my everything. I would not do it again… no, not under any circumstances.

What I said to Joe, as I have said to Scott a hundred times is, it would not be hard for me to die. At this point Joe invited his companion to join us. He said, “Tell her what you have told me.” So I did. What I found out from them is that Margaret (I’m not sure this is her real name) is the twin sister of Joe’s wife. His wife/her sister died of cancer less than two years before. This woman meant everything to these two people. Joe said that daily life with her thrilled him. She was his soulmate. Margaret was devastated by this loss but what was worse, was that she also lost her husband about the same time. She often thought of suicide. Life without these two people was meaningless to her. We had many things in common besides the understanding that living another twenty years or so had no special appeal. I asked her if having a partner gave meaning and made a difference. Her answer was an affirmative, adamant, yes!

From here, we had many words among the four of us. Joe turned to me and looked me in the eyes as we discussed love, soul partners, psychedelics and their meaning for us at this time of life, what things made our lives joyous, what we do with our time, in what do we find pleasure. We found that we were very compatible. He asked if he could call me. He asked many more times and I typed my phone number into his phone. As he stood up to leave, he held my hand and said he would call. Margaret stood up to leave and we hugged one another. There was magic happening. As Joe walked out the door, he turned and said, “I will call you”.

When I left the café with Scott, I felt a sensation that had long been dead in me. I was almost giddy. Had I met someone who would be meaningful to me? Would this person be someone to make life worth living? Those who know me well, know that I had given up on ever finding someone to spend my time with. I had always said that I had been well loved three times and that was enough for me, but there was still that sense of aloneness that lingers. There is that, that I feel deeply, that I do, to accept where I am right now right here. But this encounter with Joe and Margaret stirred me.

My first feelings were insecurities. I am an older woman with the scars of life written on my body. I no longer fit tightly and smoothly in my skin. But would a man of his age, being with a woman of my age expect me to appear 20, 30, 40 or even 50… In the course of the afternoon, I found that he was 64. A man of ideal age, intellect and interests. I had always doubted that I would find an older man of interest to me. I was not interested in young men either but particularly doubtful that I would be attracted to a man of my age. But here I was, all dreamy, all soft and fluttery, hopeful that something might come of this.

I called Tannis excited, nervous. I told Hannah about the encounter, trepidation creeping into my story. I waited a day for the phone call. O.K. He’s not a teenager, he’s got a life, he’s busy, he writes, he reads, he has friends and family. I would wait I told myself, but I couldn’t help the great anticipation. Days have passed now, in fact a week has gone by and I still think about the awaited call but no longer do I believe it will come. My thought is that I typed in the wrong number. I am a magnanimous typo artist. I generously throw around letters and words that have hilarious and sometimes disastrous results. I won’t share any of my most embarrassing errors in order to save myself from ridicule. This, to say that I believe that Joe was being sincere and really intended to call me. But I haven’t ruled out that there could be many other reasons: he and Margaret talked and decided that I wasn’t the person to pursue. He had seconds thoughts and decided that he had jumped to conclusions about wanting to see me, talk to me. Most likely, I will never know why he hasn’t called.

This is not a sad ending, though it’s not the one I had projected. Through this experience, I have learned many things about myself. First and foremost is that there is a possibility that I might love and be loved again. At this age, I was convinced that I would never be attractive or be attracted again. Boy, was I wrong. All of the right things stood at attention… and I mean all of the right things.

I have had a revelation about my past relationships. Jack and I met at the age of 16. Though we divorced at the age of 46, I had never grown up. Growing up often requires being with yourself, to learn about yourself, to pursue your dream. Meeting so young and staying together for that many years, means for me, that I had never really grown into the person I might have been. I was never able to give myself in a way that I might have if I had known myself. Our ending, without intervention, was inevitable under those circumstances.

My relationship with Ramiro was meant only to show me that I was a happy, joyous, celebratory, funny, adventurous woman. I danced through those three years with him and shed copious tears at our demise. But our relationship was not meant to be long term.  I learned volumes about Cuban culture, which included everything from Santeria to Latin dancing and learned to speak fluent Spanish. But, I brought only my childish, emotional self to the table.

The thirteen years spent with Dhillon should only have lasted as long as his first lie. But my philosophy then was, “Stay as long as you can. Leave when you have to”. How sad is that? But I lived by that credo. Those thirteen years took a toll on me. I wish I could say that I learned a lot from this non-relationship, but I can’t. To be perfectly honest, I mostly just tolerated my time with him. And if I want to continue to be honest, it wasn’t his fault. It lay totally at my feet. He was just being him and I was not being true to myself. What else could come of it but a certain ending.

So those are my three great loves. I was not great at all in any of them. I was wholly absent. With Jack, I was clueless. With Ramiro and Dhillon, I have no excuse.

Just at the thought of maybe being in a new relationship brought a lot to the surface. I am glad to have more of me out in the light. I am a better person for my brief and serendipitous encounter with Joe and Margaret, even if nothing more comes of it.

Scott drew the interest of a truly deep man to our table, perhaps my ideal man. Scott, I’m so glad we’re friends for so many reasons.

Joe, if you’re out there and somehow the universe provides a way for you to read this… and if I did give you the wrong number, I am the sorry one.

 

 

 

 

Just thinking this morning… as you display the American flag for the 4th of July… contemplate for just a moment about what that flag really represents.

Think about being of a global mentality, not nationalistic, not patriotic, not about building walls to shut people out, not about killing people who are not like you, not about who’s stealing your jobs, not about robbing other people of their natural resources and occupying land that we are not invited into.

Think about, just for a moment, how our country was founded on the usurping of land that was already occupied and the mass murder of native peoples already living on this continent for our (that’s you, white people) own gain.

Think about the Black people who were brought here as slaves, not paid, not free, not welcomed, not loved, not equal. Thnk about the new Jim Crow. Think about, still, how they are singled out for failure and are still not accepted as equals… equal in anyway.

Think for a moment about your heritage… where your people came from… if you are not native. How did your people get here? Weren’t they immigrants?

Think about our young men and women who have been sacrificed because our military and corporate government commands them to war. Think about the making of more and more disillusioned and suicidal veterans every day, every year, every decade, every century.

Think about how, instead of us being the salvation of the world… a great country that others can look up to, we are becoming more and more feared and hated and becoming a political laughing stock in the world.

Think about how worried you are about corporate greed and the destruction of the environment for economic gain for a few. Think about how hard it is for us to find well paying jobs, affordable housing, affordable health care, a decent and an equitable education for all. Think about the failing infrastructure, not just in your city but, nation-wide.

Think about big pharma and the drugging of America. Think about GMO and the poisoning of our food and water and how we don’t seem to have any control over how our sustenance has been usurped by Monsanto and other large corporate chemical companies.

Think about a lot more as you raise that American flag in the next couple of weeks. Think about whether you are really proud of what we have become. Think about the future of our children and our grand children and future generations. Think about whether we can heal the wounds of the American people inflicted by the wealthy and powerful.

Think about what you might do to change this; change this with your neighbor, your colleague, your co-workers, your family, your friends… Think about how you might help to open a few eyes, to open a few arms, to open a few hearts.

Think about speaking up when you hear hate talk. Speak up when you see injustice. Speak up when more war is begun and more war continues. Speak up when sick people want to rule America.

Think about what you are saying when you fly that flag. Think about what our flag means to the other… the disenfranchised, those who stand at the end of a loaded weapon held by an American on their own soil… in their own houses, those who are suffering war at our hands. Think about what the other might think that we deserve…

Think about it..

Last night, late… in the deepest part of night, in quiet reverie, I was listening to Alan Watts. Earlier in the evening, I had a fairly dogmatic conversation in which I denounced all language, belief and thought, and even life itself, as meaningless,  valueless and useless. I wondered if I had come on too strong and maybe offended a tender soul.

So, here I was, awake… looking to Watts to sooth my soul. Since he is a profound thinker with a  broad perspective and wide knowledge, I can count on him to help me find my way out of my darkest contemplation. These are not dark in the sense that they are negative but come when looking at things squarely without fear no matter how far from comfort I go. Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of wisdom emanating from a very wise heart with my conscience greatly assuaged.

I woke up thinking: so this life we’re living is an illusion. it is just a dream. I can live with that. I have found that this idea resonates somewhere within me. I have no idea whether it is a/the truth or not. Being very post-post modernist leaning, truth and such words hold little meaning for me.

My lifetime of experience in this body, in this place, at this time, began almost 68 years ago… longer if I count from the time Dad’s sperm penetrated Mom’s specific egg that made me. Since that time, moment by moment, I’ve been subject to the experiences of this dream, the pain, the pleasure, be it physical, mental and/or psychological.

There exists within me memory of my life (this I know because they are a part of my experience) and each and every memory affects the present (whether or not my past experience affects my future, I am yet to confirm since I never get to the future). The physical part of my existence is the most obvious because of the evidence; these are things I can prove. These, neither you nor I can deny: my weight, (heredity, too much food?), my weak arm (the consequence of polio), the scars speak to the life I have lived. Harder to reach, confirm or prove are the memories that are  ephemeral; not concrete… emotional and psychological but show up unwarranted, like it or not. This can be shown by asking at least two people to share their experience of the same event. Often the memories vary in a broad range. Some of our memories are good and bring joy and contentment and some are bad and continue to weigh us down until the day that we lay down for good; even what happened to us five minutes ago continues on with us until the desintegration of this form,  beginning point: conception, end point: the complete dissipation of this physical form.

Now, we don’t… can’t know what happens to the energy, or call it spirit if you will, after we are no longer in a shape to contain that energy. But, while we’re here, we are this one person in this one body with identifying memory of ourselves. This is all we have. Who we are in this present moment, in this physical form, is the accumulation of all that we have been and done from inception… the sounds and feelings in the womb, the abundance or lack of familial closeness, friendships and loneliness, hatred, fear, jealousy, excitement, intoxication,  fullness and emptiness, joy, sexual pleasure or pain, even bliss.

Because of technology, we have been increasingly able to record memory that endures for longer and longer periods of time. Beginning with drawing in dirt, in sand, on stone, in clay, on wood and leaves and paper and so forth and eventually on to the development of recorded language,  writing and the ability to read, and later still, to photography and moving images, film, animation… until we come up to the present day where there is a camera and/or audio device in practically every hand.

So what I’m thinking is…  so what if it is all a dream? Yesterday is gone, the very last minute is gone, the last breath we took is over… it’s all slipping by at a rapid rate… it seems like an increasingly rapid rate but the memories remain in our bodies, our minds, our psyches and they affect profoundly the present moment, how we face or are incapable of facing fear, whether or not we are communicative or are withdrawn in relationships, whether or not we have physical capacity or are disabled, whether or not we can reproduce one of our own kind and raise another conscious human being… all of this we carry with us until the end.

It is only our ability  to see or to awaken to the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, there is something that exists before  this form is created by the coming together of the parts of two other forms like ourselves. Does it exist after this one  body, made of not very durable stuff, disintegrates into the earth? Suppose then that the memories, be they pleasant or painful, do not have to negatively affect our time here in the physical and perhaps we don’t need to forget our experiences in order to live an enlightened existence. Imagine then that we can embrace our experiences to date and continue to live daily, enhanced by the pain and pleasure, knowing how transient life in this one body of water and dust is.

So trying to reject the memories seems fruitless. It seems right to live fully, embracing the entire experience from beginning to end. What does it matter that we are living a dream? It is our dream for now and soon will end. Really, what difference does any of it make?