A Rock and a Dive

SAM_08301.jpg There’s a spot about 20 minutes paddle from shore, where the Sound pushes into and out-of the natural harbor between two islands. Depending on the tide, we sometimes get buffeted in a crash of waves. Pulling our paddles in, we gleefully surrender to the splashing. If the tide is low, we yank the boat across the crunch of shell and stones to the other side. We like to pause here and stare alternately at the horizon and into the surf. Sometimes we pick up treasures. On Sunday, this rock caught my eye.

photo-43 Doesn’t it look like it’s part of something much bigger, like a chunk of a cliff or something? I reached down and lifted it away from the round stones surrounding it and said to R, “I wonder if anyone has ever touched this before – and will anyone again?” I held it a moment longer, thinking about time and wondering how it ended up where the waves meet, then let it go torpedoing in slow motion down to the bottom. I waded on, thinking I might swim.

I’m not a big swimmer. Last summer I barely got wet. But the place and moment seemed magical, the water crystal-clear, inviting. Wading up to my torso, I flinched as the water lapped against my belly – so cold. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back to the sky enjoying the warmth of the sun cooled by a breeze. I didn’t really want to get wet – this felt too good. But I imagined myself floating-in rather than just looking at the water and the part of my body already submerged, felt invigorated. I opened my eyes. Looking at the surface of the water, I willed myself to dive in – and didn’t.

Why? I wondered at my reluctance. Why not duck in for a swim? Because I felt comfortable and warm and safe, my hair was dry and I didn’t have a towel. I hesitated because I knew I’d be shocked by the cold. Even though my discomfort would quickly pass into pleasure, I did not move.

Have I become a hobbled by comfort? I wasn’t always this way – I have lived on the edge — traveled alone, moving to other countries, a war zone, marrying an addict. Okay, I didn’t really know I was doing that last one. And perhaps that’s what happened. Maybe I lost trust in my judgement about risk, became hyper-aware of the repercussions of launching willy-nilly into adventures. Perhaps the years of hanging onto the roller coaster of my life took its toll, making me staid. Or is this just an expected symptom of getting older like grey hair and wrinkles? I know, I should, I want to – resist.

My mental chatter grew noisier than the churning of water until I stepped deeper and, feeling like I was being gently pushed, dove beneath the surface. A frozen blanket of silence enveloped me as I pushed myself through the current, finally coming up for air with a gasp. Laying back into the gentle waves, I floated.

The next morning, the stone was atop my computer. R had retrieved it from where I’d dropped it back into the sea. There it was, a reminder of time, of going beneath the surface and something bigger than itself.

The Grace of Ten Years

The calendars of our lives become checkered over time, marked by anniversaries of wonderful joys or terrible sorrows. A certain day, once just another measure of 24-hours is ever-after associated with the thing that happened. May 1st is such a day for me. It was ten years ago on a cloudless, strangely bright morning, that I found my husband dead. This year, May 1st was shrouded in fog and I was glad for one less trigger.

Grieving after suicide is complex. Rarely do people kill themselves completely out of the blue. Addiction and depression lived with us in our little house for years. After his death, mixed in with my shock, anger and anguish was also profound relief. “It’s over.” I said to myself even as I doubled-over in sobs as the policeman confirmed what I knew – that he was gone.

My daughter and I were recently discussing the awkwardness of telling people what happened, how we feel we must reassure them after they say, “Oh, I’m so sorry” with dismay, maybe a little horror. Sorry to have upset them we answer, “No, it’s okay, really!” And of course, that’s a weird thing to say – it’s not okay and it was terrible, and it’s still sad. But we remember how frightened we were as addiction swallowed him. Our day-to-day lives were so unstable and his behavior so erratic, that we could not help but feel released from a terrible insanity. We have made our peace and now, we remember mostly the good. Ten years of healthy love and a peaceful home have given us that grace.

The anger gripping me for years has been replaced by forgiveness and a desire to understand what damaged him. His military experience – about which he was uncharacteristically mum? Surely almost 20 years of cocaine use destroyed much of his brain, but I am certain he was self-medicating – for what? Every mental health professional he encountered failed him – and us. Even as the years pass, I want to understand what destroyed this good man.

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As I look at photos, I remember the early days when I first met him in that crazy war zone. There he is standing amidst the ruins in Bosnia, making children laugh. Wasn’t he handsome?  His personality filled the room, always the center of attention, he made sure of that with well-told (if rude) jokes and crazy antics. What amends was he making, what demons were kept at bay as he helped to save rather than to kill people in a terrible war? Being in this role in the center of constant crisis worked like a fix for him for awhile. He thrived on what traumatized me, seizing every opportunity to save someone – and in doing so, for those years, he saved himself. He was at his best there.

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I am glad for the grace of ten years – to feel a simple sadness, for the chance to remember him so, on a date I can never forget.

Making Space for Light

2014-04-12 13.30.43Yesterday we chopped a tree down. There were 5 Maple trees all growing out of one small spot – so we took this one out to give the rest a better chance to thrive. Plus, our vegetable garden will get more sun. And we’ll have firewood for next season. And R will build a charming little reading nook nestled into the other trunks.  Okay, it’s this that really sold me on taking it down – imagining this sweet place to read.

Still, it took some time for me to agree, to let go, to get ready to – well… grieve a little. I’ve lived in this house for 17 years so of course there are memories attached to everything.

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I held a rope taut ready to guide the wood away from the hedge and road as R cut a wedge of trunk first on one side, then the other. With a huge crack, the tree fell to the lawn as if it was shot. Prone, it appeared more massive, a daunting crush of wood.  We spent most of the day cutting branches and logs, turning our tree into pieces. “We need to have a ritual bonfire.” I said. We cannot simply trash these twigs, bundle them off to the town brush dump. We’ll burn them in our fire-pit, perhaps with neighbors or just the two of us will raise a glass and stare into the flames recalling years of shade, the different voices of wind and rain channeled through foliage and fractals. These branches were visible from our bedroom window – a best seat to watch squirrels scramble between limbs, Woodpeckers banging, Chickadees tweeting. We need to herald this wood off with a blessing.

2014-04-12 13.30.50Now a weird emptiness lingers in that space. Perhaps it’s like Phantom Leaf Effect – when a part of a leaf is cut off, it is still visible using a special photo technique that captures energy. Amputees experience this too, feeling sensation and even pain long after losing their limb. So the energy remains, some essence invisible to the naked eye. I’m anxious for the remaining trees to leaf, perhaps easing this sense of nakedness in our garden. How can I not be mourning a little, the absence of this tree. Or to think about death?

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I cannot avoid it, especially in Spring even as everything around us promises new life. For me, the sweet scents, the vivid morning light, remind me of a terrible morning on May 1st. This year is the 10th anniversary of my husband’s suicide. Enough time has passed that I mostly remember the man I loved, my daughter’s father, rather than the often frightening shell he’d become at the end. The mourning of possibility never goes away when someone dies too young – like a phantom limb, sometimes, inexplicably calling to us.  Grief brings such darkness in the early days of loss, yet I’ve heard from others and experienced myself, there comes a light like we’ve never seen before, made all the brighter by the shadows.

Cleaning up this downed tree on an impossibly brilliant Spring day, I honor darkness and make space for light.

Denial at the Dentist

“Anything been bothering you?” my dentist asks every 6 months. I am a diligent brusher and flosser and the good result is that I have been cavity-free for years. Since the dentist usually has her hands in my mouth when she asks the question, I simply answer in a guttural negative.

The fact is I’m lying. One of my lower molars on the left side of my mouth is sensitive and sometimes aches. I chew mostly on my right side and often worry my ancient filling with my tongue. This has been the case for years. And years ago, she pointed out that this tooth had a slight crack and I’d probably eventually need a crown. Money was tight then, so when she told me the probable cost I balked.

This news, along with once enduring an excruciating “scaling” procedure, has made me ultra-vigilant when it comes to my mouth. I am also determined not to be like my mother whose teeth were a mess because of her lack of  mouth-maintenance. She claimed she had a phobia of the dentist. I vow to not ever let my mouth get the way hers was in the last years of her life. Besides, research indicates a link between gum disease and heart disease.

And yet, there I go, lying to the dentist. And it’s no longer because of money. I feel dismay at a big bill from the car mechanic but I still fix the car. This is my body we’re talking about. But I also have dentist-fear. I hate the image of what I vaguely understand they do to your tooth: grinding it down to a nub and attaching the fake bit on, right? Ugh. No, I lie about my discomfort because I’m chicken and it doesn’t hurt quite enough.

But recently, I’ve decided I better act now. One day, it might be the money again. Bless Barnes & Noble, I currently have great coverage – including dental. A good chunk (oh, my poor tooth!) of the cost would be covered. And so I am prepping myself to bite the bullet (!) at my next visit and answer the call of my molar.

Acknowledging my dental-denial has reminded me of how I behaved for years; my avoidance of dealing with the painful truth. I convinced myself things weren’t really that bad and surely they’d get better. If distress was not perpetual – day-in and day-out – I ignored it. I am an easy mark and could be distracted by sweet talk and what proved to be only hollow promises. Anything to avoid conflict and anything rather than give up on the illusion of the happy family.  This used to be me. It’s not uncommon – mostly women do it – dismiss our pain insisting we’re okay, really we are. Excuses, rationalizing reasons for other’s bad behavior. Anything to avoid giving up on the one we love. Chewing on the other side to avoid confronting and dealing with the pain of taking the steps to end it.

But I’ve learned over the years, that even after the most terrible pain can come incredible serenity and bliss.

And at the dentist office, I’ll just ask for lots of Novocaine.

Who do you lie to?

The Light of Venus on a February Dawn

There is a bright glow in the dawn sky on this cold morning. At first I think it is the light of a plane passing and I imagine the sleeping passengers heading home to loved ones or departing on adventures. I watch, waiting for the plane’s glow to disappear across the sky but instead the light remains, slowly rising away from the horizon as the earth turns towards the sun and fading only as the morning light moves in. Venus.

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The planet Venus, named for the goddess of love, after the Sun and the Moon, is the brightest planet in the sky. Only slightly smaller than Earth, and with densities and chemical compositions similar to ours, Venus’ surface is so windy and hot, speculation is that any water once there, all boiled away. Venus is sometimes called the morning star. That’s what I thought, this early morning when I realized I wasn’t looking at a plane. Maybe it’s a Nova – one of those stars that burn so hot they explode. Like people sometimes do.

It’s Philip Seymour Hoffman’s kids I can’t stop thinking about. The older two are about the same age Molly was when her father died. A tough memory from that nightmare blur of a morning, when I told her that her father, who she’d been watching a movie with before she fell asleep, was dead. How? She wanted to know. Rather than tell her that he’d put a noose around his neck, I said: drugs. She knew about his drug problem – we’d been living with that struggle for years and she’d known for at least this last one. Tough stuff for an 8 year old. That morning it seemed liked ‘drugs’ inferred an element of accident rather than stating the truth of his intention to die.

Besides, I wasn’t lying. His addiction did destroy him. It took me years to finally step away, to stop trying to find a way to fix him. Eventually, to even let go of hope. That was the hardest. I rode that roller coaster of hope and disappointment until it was one too many times. Yet even in deciding to finish the marriage, I harbored a touch of magical thinking that in doing so, I was giving him the ‘bottom’ – the wake up call he needed to finally get clean. I still deluded myself I might possess that kind of power. I still hoped.

So I look at those kids and I think of mine. And, I think of their mother, his partner, and remember myself. I remember the dark months, weeks and days leading up to my husband’s end. I lived for so many years with lies, sometimes even knowing I was making a choice to believe them, as if that might make them true. Did she do that? What ultimatums did she give him? Did she feel relieved when he moved out of their home, feeling that bitter relief of not having the risk of drugs in the house, of being better able to protect their children from being with him when he was high?  Of, while heartbroken, relieved not to have to wonder why he wasn’t coming to bed yet? Or worry why he was still in the bathroom? The not-knowing. Ever.

After all, if this can happen after 23 years of sobriety. Once there, even if for a glimpse, how can we ever trust our addict is clean? Our addict. We all have at least one addict that is ‘ours’ because we love them. They can never really be ours.

And we wonder why? Why our love, why the love of our children provides no cure? As much as I learn about addiction and accept that it’s a disease, there will always be that tormenting truth that nothing I ever did was enough. So yes, as the death of yet another celebrity throws a spotlight on addiction, I welcome the attention being paid to this complicated issue, although there are no answers here, we have to keep asking the questions. The heartbreak continues, with only a terrible comfort in the knowledge we are not alone. The loss of this great actor and good man saddens me too, but it’s those kids and their mother that I think of as I watch the morning star of love fade away at the break of another day.

Musings on Love

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I have a front row seat to holidays thanks to my job in a bookstore. I track the changing seasons by displays with holiday relevant books and gewgaws almost as much as I do by observing nature. Christmas hoopla, we all agree, starts way too early. The arrival of merry product the retail cue for imminent insanity, makes me groan when it shows up in September. St. Patrick’s Day stuff of dubious Irish humor books and clover chotchkis, is pretty lame but the sight of it still makes me happy. Like sandals displayed in the shoe store next door even though snow still blankets the ground, the green of St. Patrick’s day signals that the end of winter is near. Of course Easter and Passover bring with it lovely garden books, so what’s not to love?

But Valentine’s Day is my favorite. Vibrant red blankets and boxes of chocolate, heart shaped candles, stones and French milled soaps, pocket sized Pablo Nerudo Love Sonnets, gorgeous displays celebrating the warmth of love to get us through frigid-February. I am almost as much a sucker for this Valentine stuff as I am for love.

I think, it’s why we are here.

Pete Seeger died this week at 94, only months after the death of his wife of 70 years. Toshi Ota was Pete’s anchor throughout his well-lived life, so off he floated after her, following the love of his life. Moving stories of devoted couples dying months, days, minutes apart, abound.

Not all of us are lucky enough to discover and keep such a love. Sometimes it takes decades and many, many false starts to find ‘the one’, if we ever do at all. While I now blissfully share my life, I had plenty of false starts. (In fact, my guy and I reunited 20 years after such a start – but another time for that story.)

I’ve always been love-crazy, maybe even a little obsessive. When I began writing this post, I thought love might be a nice break from my usual musings on addiction and grief. But then it dawned on me that for most of my life I was a romance-junkie, pursuing impossible notions of true love across the country, even around the globe. Plenty of grief got mixed into the soup.

My addiction started in early adolescence with serious crushes on my older brothers’ and sister’s friends, unattainable because they were either oblivious to my 13 year old designs or just decent guys. My best friend Rita (who shared my affliction) and I spent long hours sprawled across the bed in her purple bedroom listening to Cat Stevens after strategically prowling the streets, hoping to encounter our current obsessions. That sense of pining with an edge of pain stayed with me through high school where my most serious romantic episode could have landed the guy in jail. Early on, I associated the thrill of love with an element of danger.

There is danger. We risk getting very seriously hurt. Perhaps that was the thrill for me. My version of psychic cliff-jumping, the madly intense feelings, the brew of first attraction that I was convinced was love.  Of course, in a healthier person this is where things start – and go somewhere or nowhere. For me, it was that very intoxication of questions, hopes, dreams swirling in a crazy alchemy of beginnings where I got stuck.

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I can conjure the weird drop in my stomach still. Will this be the one? With no roadmap to what a healthy relationship with a man might be, I regularly got lost, mistaking those mixes of passion, wine, fantasy for something that might last. And mostly, they didn’t.

But I never stopped hoping. Finally, I discovered what the gift of real time together means and that after that first rolling boil of love slows — a delicious, long-burning simmer begins.

How does a first encounter turn into 70 years? What a mystery! While we no longer have a chance at 70, R and I are shooting for 30.

The Not-So-Small Club: Children Left Behind by Suicide

I drove Molly back to college on Friday. We laughed much of the drive, happy to be on this road trip on a fine, bright day, enjoying the landscape and each other’s company with a soundtrack acceptable to both of us (Amy Winehouse Pandora station). Occasionally I turned the music down to better hear Molly’s stories about friends and random school anecdotes including this one that put a lump in my throat.

A buddy recently asked her advice – cautiously – with the caveat that Molly needn’t answer if she didn’t feel comfortable. Oh, no, Molly thought, what weirdness will this be about? The friend wanted to know what she could do for a friend whose father had just died. She said, “I just feel so awful!” Molly, relieved not to hear anything weird, and not in the slightest bit uncomfortable, gave her friend great advice.

“Remember that this isn’t about YOU. It doesn’t matter that you feel awful or that you’re sorry. It made me mad when people told me they were sorry. Why were they sorry? It wasn’t their fault – why should they say they are sorry? What was I supposed to say to that? There is nothing you can say that will make it better for someone. Just let them know you are there. That’s it. Just don’t make it about you. And don’t tell them about when your hamster died!”

Molly’s understanding of grief impresses me – although it will always make me sad she acquired it so young. She gets it that grief is a place unto itself. There is no rescue possible – not at first. I credit her understanding and the roadmap to peace, largely to The Den for Grieving Kids where she realized that there were plenty of other kids her age who’d lost their parents, some, also by suicide. She learned early that she wasn’t alone and how it is possible to talk – or sometimes not – about loss. (More about The Den in this post.)

Today’s New York Times Magazine has is this fine piece by a woman whose mother committed suicide. The author was just 2.  Unfortunately, she lacked Molly’s support system and instead lived unnecessarily with her sad secret until now. Imagining the child she was breaks my heart. Here from Jessica Lamb-Shapiro’s lovely essay: “...I’ve told this story a few times since then. Sometimes I like to entertain the grandiose notion that I’m doing something noble by telling it, teaching the world’s silent orphans an important lesson about openness and connecting with others. But the real reason I tell the story is that I still need to hear it.

Yes, we must let the light in on secrets. We need to tell and hear each other’s stories because there is comfort in knowing we are not alone.

Time Makes Room for Joy

This year marks a decade since my husband killed himself. My daughter was a month shy of 9. At the time Molly was convinced that all of her friends’ lives were perfect. Why did this happen to her. I agreed it wasn’t fair. But, I explained, no one’s life is ever perfect, certainly not forever. Her friends too, would experience sadness and loss. In her world she may be the first – but would not be the last. Extremely empathetic even as a toddler, Molly soon absorbed this and was a happy kid, offering comfort to her friends in their tough times.

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These days, our shared memories of N usually make us laugh. For years he held off the black ocean of darkness that destroyed him in the end, by being outrageously funny. A genuinely warm and generous man, for a time he effectively channeled his craziness into endearing antics and even acts of heroism. For Molly and I, those good memories of him are now stronger than the frightening, bitter ones.

Our perception of our story has changed over this decade. Time makes room for joy. 

My Hazardous Driving Condition

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On days like yesterday, when the roads are a mess of icy-slush, there is always that car that just seems to be inching along.  Annoying, right? That person should have just stayed home. Well… I hate to admit it but that’s me hunched over the steering wheel, staring wide-eyed at the road. Okay, maybe I’m not quite that bad. But I can’t help it – driving in lousy weather terrifies me. I promise you, when I can, I avoid it. But I’m a diligent employee and live closer than almost anyone else to the store.  It feels wrong to call out because I’m afraid to get behind the wheel.

Every winter I am determined to be brave. After all, other people drive in the snow and don’t seem traumatized. But my hands cramp from squeezing the steering wheel. I need to remind myself to breathe, I shrug my shoulders to release the tension that threatens to paralyze me. Plotting my route carefully – I go for the roads most likely to be clear – although I stay off the highway – the less speed the better for me and I certainly don’t want the additional terror of 16 wheeler trucks barreling alongside me. Usually I head for the Post Road – although equally frightening can be those crazy-huge SUVs with names like “ENVOY” disdainfully spraying me with slush as they speed by.

Honestly, I’m really a little embarrassed by this crazy fear of mine. Even more so because I drive a Subaru Forester with excellent tires. I mean, you can’t get much better than that for great snow driving. It’s me. I lack physical confidence and weirdly, I feel like even my car knows it, as if it were a horse. As a 12 year old, I tried horseback riding. After a summer of lessons, I finally admitted that I didn’t believe the massive creature I sat upon would ever think I was in charge. I certainly didn’t think so.

In other ways, I am not a coward. I’ll travel the world by myself without a thought. I willingly went to live in a war zone – and was not fearful. Public speaking feels completely natural for me – something many of my bravest friends are terrified of. But physically, I am a complete chicken. I don’t like adrenaline rushes brought on by physical thrills. I’ve never ridden a roller coaster and never intend to, in fact, amusement parks are a waste for me – I’m not going to willingly get jerked and tossed around.  I got as far as the swimming pool part of scuba diving training and bagged it.  The last time (and I mean, the last time) I took a ski lift ride I kept my eyes closed the entire time.

I think my dread relates to control — of my lack of it. That terrifies me. During those last years with my husband as he slid faster and faster down the steep slope of addiction, I felt like I was spinning across an icy highway full of traffic. Through the chaos, I tried to hang on, sliding along on the scariest, slipperiest slopes, flailing about for stability. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I kept trying. Until I didn’t. And then he died.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this. But a decade later, it’s only on those messy roads full of fearless, or maybe reckless drivers, that I get that same sick-to-my-stomach feeling. It’s a familiar horror as the steering wheel becomes useless in my hands as I slip on an icy road — even if only in my imagination.

What am I afraid of? Crashing the car? Injury? Death – either mine or someone else’s? Yes. I am afraid of all of those things. I should stay home.

No Solace in a Secret

I’m not one for secrets. (Don’t worry, if you’ve told me yours I’ll keep it.) But I prefer to not shut troubles away in the dark. Light brings clarity and that’s where, having lived with my share of shadows in the past, I choose to be. Thus, David Sheff’s passage, “The Peril of Anonymity” from his chapter on Alcoholic Anonymous in his book Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedyresonated with me.

Sheff acknowledges that the proliferation of AA is partly, given the stigma of addiction, because of the promise of anonymity. He agrees privacy should always remain a choice but points out that this very requirement reinforces shame and isolation for the addict. But Sheff makes the point that “The history of other diseases shows dramatically how closely linked openness and health are.” He cites the power of AIDS activists and ACT UP’s Silence = Death slogan in so effectively drawing attention, funding and research to AIDS that an HIV diagnosis became, in a remarkably short time, no longer a death sentence. Until addiction is brought out of the shadows, choices and solutions will continue to elude us. Dangerous failures like “The War on Drugs” will persist.

In Japan in the 1980s, I used to meet doctors at a hospital for English conversation classes. One evening, a young woman doctor choked back tears as she told me she had broken a rule of the Japanese medical profession by telling a patient they had cancer. At least at that time, (I suspect this has changed) it was believed that to tell the patient the truth about their cancer diagnosis was equivalent to a death sentence – that knowing their disease would destroy their will to live.  And (this always got me) that they would feel ashamed. Seems archaic, doesn’t it?  But think about it — how is this so different from our attitude toward addiction?

Some will say, “it’s a choice!” To my very core, I know all sides of this debate as does anyone who has lived with an addict. We have all wondered why they do not stop? Why do they risk everything – job, friends, family, their very life – for a drink, a pill, a line?  It’s difficult to understand and accept that it’s not about ‘choice’.

Do you know a family, do you know anyone who has not been affected by alcoholism, by addiction? Tell me readers, that you cannot speak to at least one experience of struggle with this disease first hand or with a loved one? Still, like the unspoken cloud of fear and shame that hovered over cancer not so long ago, secrecy remains sacrosanct by the very groups offering up hope and successful stories of sobriety. I agree with Sheff that it’s time to open up, let the light in and reject, to rail against the stigma. Perhaps fewer will then end like my husband — never finding a way out.

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