Revisions & Prophecies

 

(^^^ edit: my Dad used to sing this song to me when I was small.)

For many of my adult years, I was estranged from my father.  It was not unusual for us to speak to each other only once or twice a year- and this was only among my brothers over the holidays.  It’s hard to explain how it happened, exactly, but it always troubled me deeply and solutions baffled and eluded me.  It took a long time, a lot of therapy, and some intense personal and spiritual work for me to really get the significance of my relationship with my Dad and how it was affecting my life.  For a long time I was pretty dismissive of it- I would say things like ‘yeah, yeah, I’ve got Daddy issues but who doesn’t’ which effectively minimized and distanced the sorrow and blame I was carrying.  A few years ago, I was working with a therapist that I really liked and she was trying to talk to me about my father when she met the horsemen of my defenses head on and was able to skillfully pass them.  Here is the conversation:

Therapist (T):  “You have a niece, right?”

Me (M): “Yep.”

T: “And how old is your niece?”

M:  “She’s 3 and a half.”

T: “Are you really close to her?”

M:  “Oh yes, I love her madly.  She is everything to me.”

T:  “And this is your brothers daughter?”

M: “Uh-huh, my oldest brother.”

T:  “I see.  And how old were you when your father left?”

M:  “I think I was 4 or 5, I don’t really remember.”

T:  “Tell me, do you think your niece would notice if your brother left?”

 

Something inside of me burst and I cried for days.  Because I was so close to my niece and I spent so much time with her, I knew how much she loved and depended on her Papa (and her Mama) and I could easily see that she would be devastated if one day he was gone and she didn’t know why.  Her beautiful little heart would just break.  Once I could imagine this for her, I understood what that must have been like for a little me and I was very, very sad.

So since that conversation 3 years ago, a lot has changed.  Maybe everything; and not just because of that conversation, but it definitely changed the way I saw myself and my relationships.  The other big thing that happened 3 years ago was that I went through a painful break up where I was pushed right into that wall of fire within.  Fire, the element of transformation and Shiva, the destroyer, met in the goddamn Tower; my whole life jerked a sharp left turn and I’m so so grateful.  Ultimately, thank God, right- I had to go through that- but holy shit, how we survive life sometimes is a total mystery.

A few months ago, I sent my father a letter because it was really clear to me that I had to get complete in that relationship before I would be able to move forward in my life.  In the letter, I explained to him that I would really do anything to get right with him, and I took responsibility for all the things in my life that I had been blaming him for.  I thanked him for all the things that were going well in my life and simply, for my life.  My sort of primary “issue” with him was abandonment and with this little word I had blamed my Dad for all of my failed relationships and my very unsuccessful manner of relating to men.  When I finally saw that my relationships were my responsibility, he was free to just be my Dad and I could have this new experience of him.  Profound.

So, here’s the thing about a letter like this, or these amends that I have been making: I have no idea what the ultimate outcome of the situation will be.  All I am doing is cleaning up my side of the street, as they say.  A gesture so large obviously will move the universe, as the laws of physics explain.  To be sure, my cells rearranged just as an act of seeing things so differently and clearly- which was enough.

My father was really receptive to my letter and he wrote me back a couple of weeks later.  First he sent me an email right away thanking me and just letting me know that he was choosing his words carefully in writing me back.  I came home late one night, mid December, to his typed letter.  He explained it was not impersonal to type it, he just feels that he has bad handwriting- I thought it was cute for him to clarify this.  This letter really rocked my world because he basically re-wrote the history of my life.  I had long believed that my Dad left my mom and us 3 babies because he didn’t want that life anymore.  What he told me in this letter was that it was my mother who left him because she had fallen in love with somebody else (my stepfather).  My Dad said that he did everything he could do to try to keep his wife and kids with him- including going to rehab and getting sober- but that my Mom was unyielding and served him with divorce papers.  He wrote something like ‘divorce is a single event that occurs in the context of many sad moments in a broken relationship’.  Really, my heart exploded with compassion for my Dad because I guess I could relate to his broken heart- he became so fragile and human to me.  This story gave voice to that chronic, unsettling feeling in my childhood that things were never as they seemed.  Even my love and compassion for my mother and step father expanded because I could see their humanity in a vastly different way, a way that I think they very carefully tried to prevent me from seeing.

I have not shared this story with my brothers, nor have I brought it up with my mother and stepfather- this in itself feels like evidence of a change in me.  That I am big enough to hold this truth and let it change me in a quiet and durable way.  I am thinking about this this morning because I had an experience the other day that called my ideologies about relationships into question.  I’m not sure I can tie this together in one well-crafted transition sentence…  but I can say that there is a spiritually balanced and cumulative quality to having had this experience with my father and the story of my family be essentially re-written, and whatever is unfolding in my life right now, the story that is being written as I am living it, in the now.

Love showed up in my life last year and I knew it as soon as I saw it but I couldn’t quite get my arms around it or draw it close to me in the way that I wanted and this really confused me.  I questioned what I was feeling and thought maybe my instincts had failed me in a major way.  A part of me held onto what I knew in my heart in spite of the conditions of life at the time.  Quietly, I just let it go.  I have a pretty powerful intuition, I always have- a good friend of mine referred to me as a tuning fork recently when I was describing my assessment of something- because I have come to understand the world, people, my place in all of it, based on this intuition, juju, that I trust completely.  Or that I should.  Sometimes, love comes into your life and it’s not in the exact form you would have wanted to find it but it is undeniably love.  I have so so many friends who, when they first met their partner, they were in a relationship with someone else, or their partner was, or there were some other conditions that made things a little more complicated than just declaring love and togetherness.  And it wasn’t like there was an affair or a clear longing to be somewhere else, it just took some time for things to unfold and open- then what was once unknown becomes the most obvious and natural thing on Earth.

For a long time, I have thought that my person was going to show up and be totally free, available, and ready upon arrival- and that if this wasn’t the case then it wasn’t my person.  A couple months ago I wrote about how I was afraid that maybe my person wasn’t here on Earth anymore, that something had happened to him; and then a couple of weeks ago I revisited this feeling because someone suggested to me that maybe my person was unavailable right now- like in a relationship with someone else but that he was surely on his way.  To be clear, I am not actively sabotaging someone’s relationship or even energetically wanting for one to end: I guess I have just caught a glimpse of a possibility that was not available to me before, that has clicked some things into place in a new way.  And to tie this all together the best I can, or maybe you have already done so effortlessly because you are really so much smarter than I am 😉 …  it seems that all these lessons of my life- with my Dad, the break up(s), moving to New York, the 100/100, finding my people- just ALL OF IT- have placed me in a position to be able to welcome and hold someone else, and all of the conditions he arrives with, unconditionally and completely.  And almost as important is that this person will recognize me, see me, and I won’t have to change a thing or be anything different than exactly me.

 

xxx

 

Day 47 & 48: From the Boudoir: Magic No. 8

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on Earth.

― Raymond Carver

 

Of the serious boyfriends of my life, I have met 3 of them on April 8th.  No lie.

My High-school Sweetheart: 4/8/1994

I was working at a popular roadside ice cream and burger stop.  It was a Friday night early in the season and I had plans with my girls to go to a party hosted by an older boy, I think he may have been in his second year of college.  I was 2 months shy of 16.  When I saw the white Honda Prelude pull up, my heart quickened, as I had seen this car before, and the guy who drove it was really, really hot.  He was tall and tan, had that long-ish skater punk hair, sea blue-green eyes,the straightest teeth and sweetest smile.  He did not go to my high school, I didn’t know him.  He and his friend got into the line at my window,looking at me and kind of whispering to each other.  They ordered, flirtatiously, and sat a table waiting for their order, still watching me.  I was blushing and showing off in the way 15 year old girls do.  I made sure that I, personally, called their order out over the speaker, they came up and his friend asked me if I had a boyfriend, which, at the time I did not.  I looked at my crush and asked them if they wanted to come back later when I got out to go to a party, they said sure.  Haha, I guess I had those instincts even at 15…  it’s true, I knew.

Sure enough, he and his friend came back to meet me.  My besties came to pick me up, and the boys got in the car with us and off we went.  I sat right on his lap in the back seat pile up- I think there were at least 4 or 5 of us squeeshed in.  We got high, we sang songs, laughing and radiating out into the night.  When we spilled out of the car, I whispered to him “Will you hold my hand, please?” and he smiled, reached out and took my hand and said “Of course.  Why?” and I replied, “Because I don’t want any of these other girls to think they can hit on you” and we walked into the house, laughing, holding hands.

There was a little drama upon arrival- I was part of a crew of boys, and one of those boys had his mark on me.  He did not like to see me walk in holding a strangers hand, and he made it known by being a total dick to my dude.  We got more high, more drunk- our high school parties always got stupid, people barfing and setting things on fire; standing in spontaneous circles spitting on each others shoes and laughing at the expense of someone else.

In a drunken heartbeat hallway, we were alone and we fell into someone’s bedroom.  I don’t remember when the first kiss happened but now we were moving, fast, beyond that.  Drunk and unexpected, I took him in my hands; he came quickly and I gasped ‘Ohhh I’m so sorry!’ because, well, the mess.  He burst out laughing and told me he had never heard of someone apologizing for making someone come, and I burst out laughing too.  We lay there laughing and kissing and smiling for a bit; cleaned up and made our way back out to the keg, where we split up to report back to our people, like we did way back then.

The next day, I saw him again, and by Sunday, he was my boyfriend.  He got me a kitten for my 16th birthday and we named the kitten Paco.  Inseparable and happy, we stayed together until midway through my first semester of college… Then one morning after tripping at a Violent Femmes show, I woke up and, without warning, smashed his heart into bits after breakfast.

 

The First One I Lived With: 4/8/2001

He worked at a pizza place up the hill from the youth center I was working in.  I went there often with the kids and sort of smoldered awkwardly in his presence, every time.  He was tall and thin with very trendy dark rimmed glasses, spiky black hair and white blue eyes.  So Weezer.  I loved his big Jewish nose and his little boy lips, giant hands, and the way he moved.  His movements were both exaggerated and deliberate but he was somehow floaty and soft, like sunny day clouds.

I loved him.

One night I was over there with 2 of the kids I was particularly close to- they were a couple and they were funny.  She knew I had a crush on him and totally embarrassed the SHIT out of me by asking him if he was single, telling him that I was and that I thought he was really hot.  He looked at me quizzically and I burned bright red, scrunched my face, shook my head and turned heel, walked right out.  The kids came after me laughing trying to drag me back but there was no way.  Humiliating.

Some time later, I was in a bar playing pool with some friends and he came up to the table, laid his quarters down for the next game.  Thump-thump.  Thump-thump.  I was a hella pool player as was my partner, so we won and up he came for the match.  He was a hella pool player as was his partner; I don’t remember who won, but I do know we flirted our way around that table!  He was UP on me and I was SO into it.  We talked away for the rest of the night, he was drinking Red Bull and vodkas and I could smell that faux strawberry Red Bull smell on his breath.  Just a sweet and happy drunkie, smoking his Marlboro lights, among a crew of friends who I could tell were all good people.  It was easy to see he was gold.  I asked him if he remembered me from the awkward incident in the pizza shop and he freaked out when he made the connection. That day, he had gotten his first real job as a graphic designer for a small Chinese appliance company in New York City. He took my number on the inside of his cigarette pack, kissed me before I left.  Exhilarated and turned out into the starry, sweet smelling New Paltz night, lovestruck; driving and singing my way over the mountain.

That was a Friday, and when he called me the next night Saturday Night Live was on and it was Coldplay’s first appearance.  They played the song ‘Yellow’ in the background of our call; he invited me over the next day for a grill and canoe in the afternoon.  I accepted.  He lived with a couple dudes in a cabin right on the Walkill River.  He bounced out to the car when I pulled up, took my hand and gave me a tour of the house and property.  He introduced me to his roomates and friends who were enjoying the afternoon, they were all super nice and everything was beautiful.

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” as Kurt Vonnegut said…

We had a fast and sweet 3 months, he was so thoughtful and fun to be with.  There was something that was a little off for me, I was uncomfortable and couldn’t really pinpoint what or why, but at the time I interpreted it as I wasn’t really into him.  We broke up, he did not take it well; I was sad and confused about it but it seemed like the right thing to do.  A couple months later I saw him in the bar and we ended up going home together.  Things kind of went like that for a few weeks- we were hanging out and sometimes having sleep overs, but we were not quite back together- you know.  Like that.

Then on September 11, 2001, I was driving home from my morning class at the college and I was listening to live radio of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  I stopped for a pack of smokes and got home quickly, tried to call him and his phone was busy.  I knew nothing of the geography of NYC at that time, but I knew his office was right in the middle of it and I was really really scared.  I was sitting on the floor of my apartment in my underwear taking bong hits, watching live as the second plane hit; my mother called and suggested I come home right away.  I kept trying to call him and could not reach him.  Emailed; no response.  I went to work and sat on the front porch steps consumed with worry.  I called his good buddy to ask if he had heard anything, and his friend said “Oh, he just got here- he was on the last bus they let out of the city- do you want to talk to him?” and I just hung up the phone, got into my car and drove to his friends apartment.

In all of my life, before and since, I have never been happier to see someone as I was to see him in that moment.  I jumped into his arms and we cried.  We smoked a bowl and played some video games, counted all of our ducks, made our way to the bar.  It struck me that my feelings for this person must have been much deeper than I understood and that night, I told him I loved him and wanted to get back together.  He agreed.  On our way home from the bar, we got jumped in the parking lot- it was a mess.  People got really hurt, and it was a hard awful day.  He managed only a black eye, I had a sore throat.

Two months later we moved in together and had the best time in our first apartment.  We painted every room and arranged all of our art, filled up our refrigerator and made love every night.  He had a home office but commuted an hour and 45 minutes to the city every day.  He loved me madly and was always funny and kind.

We lived in that apartment for 2 years and then moved closer to the city when I got a new job.  Simultaneously, I was really getting strange and disturbed from all of the drugs and alcohol I had been consuming for the past 10 years. Our home life was bittersweet; he was starting to get really concerned about my drinking.  One night he came home from work so so upset because that morning when he left, he could not wake me because I was so fucking trashed passed out wasted from the night before.  I was deeply ashamed and promised to get better but what I really did was started lying and hiding my alcohol and drug use.  It was a dark time.

We lost that apartment and he told me he thought I had a problem and needed to get help.  We moved back in with our respective parents to try to sort things out.  One evening I went down to visit him, he had prepared a picnic on his front lawn, purchased my favorite red wine.  As soon as he saw me he started to cry and asked me “You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?” I looked down and the blanket and nodded, huge tears falling from my face to my hands. He threw the wine bottle and the glasses, those big deliberate movements, floating thunderstorm clouds.  I left him there, on the lawn at his parents house, and drove 90 minutes home to a bar.  I woke up the next morning unsure of the night before, in the bed of a friend.

I spent the next 6 months in a black out, he and I did not see each other but would have sad sad conversations every now and then.  He wanted me to come back and I was not sure, I was really fucked up and trying to figure things out.  His life kept moving. Then one day he told me he met someone else and was going to date her- I needed to think hard and fast.  A month later, he called to tell me he had fallen in love with someone else and could not speak to me anymore.

In a way that I did not understand or see at the time, he was like my last life line, the only thing I had that was possibly going to tether me to myself or life as it had been and suddenly he was gone.  Forlorn and exhausted, I must have prayed; within days, I stopped drinking and using drugs and that was over 10 years ago.

The One I Never Really Had: 4/8/2006

In the early days of MySpace, one day a message came through from a local performer, inviting me to check out one of the shows he hosted at a local bar.  I kind of felt bad for him, and admired him for doing this kind of individual social networking recruitment (my, times have changed, huh?!) so I wrote him back to thank him and said I would be happy to come to a show.  He wrote me back, and suddenly we were in it- and IT was very cute- anticipating his messages, creepin on his pictures.

Within days, he asked me to meet him for tea at a local coffee shop that I hung out at a lot.  I remember exactly what I was wearing, and I remember clearly standing outside chatting with some friends when he walked up. I caught his elbow before he went inside, he smiled huge and kissed me on the cheek, introduced himself to my friends.  Led me by the arm as he held the door to go inside.  We ordered jasmine green teas and went up to the loft, where we stayed for hours. It was early and obvious, what was happening there.  He was not shy to reach down and touch my foot to say he liked my shoes; hook his finger on my shirt to pull it down and admire the tattoo on my chest; lean in to smell my perfume.  He wore Aqua di Gio and to this day I can’t think straight when I smell it.  He was/is Sicilian and unbearably gorgeous, with the deepest man voice on Earth, the softest brown eyes.  Goofy, easily worked up, loud, self-effacing, doped on me, sexy as hell.

Within the week, we met at the coffee shop 2 more times before I invited him over to my apartment for tea.  As I write this, my heart is swelling, in memory of that time in my life, the early days of him.  I have written other parts of this story here- Day 10, Days 28 & 29.

Sometimes I think all the bad karma I accumulated from the ways I hurt the first two was all payed up with this one.  Jesus, I hope so.

Um, not for nothing, I did just meet someone- who appears exceptionally great- the day before yesterday, or, 4/8.  Not that that means anything or anything, but it is a very sweet first date entrance story.  Briefly:  He asked me to meet him at a popular speak-easy downtown.  I arrived at the door and rang the bell.  A full minute later, a beautiful woman out of time opened the door and greeted me apathetically, asking if I had a reservation.  I said no and explained I was meeting someone here.  She asked my name, then looked at her list and said “Oh, you are here to meet ____, come in” and she closed the door and locked it behind me, telling the other people there that she would be with them in a minute.

She was bustling about the front area, a man came out and asked for his coat.  They had an exchange, she offered to take my coat- it was very warm and dark inside.  Whisky smoke jazz, low light, lacy wallpaper & gold rimmed mirrors.  Gatsby-esque. These are my people, this is my place.  She hangs my coat, I tousle my mane and step down into a room of velvet couches candles and close couples, the opening horn of ‘At Last’ by Etta James croons as I cross the room.  She tells me he is in the bar as we glide through the room , heads and eyes turning up to watch us.  Just as I cross the threshold to the back room bar, Etta begins… “At laaaaaasssssst…” The hostess introduces us by name, he looks at me with a brilliant smile and Etta booms, “… my looooove has come hoooome…”

(nose crinkle, wink! wink!)

This is his band covering “Angels” by the XX:

xxx

Day 27: Magic Numbers & Voice Mail Options

“Have you had many women?”

Oi vey, I don’t think this conversation usually goes as well as it did for Baby & Johnny.  The old magic number question.  Are people really having the conversation about magic numbers?  It’s been a while for me- I think the last time it came up was when I was in a long-term relationship and even then, the truth didn’t come out for over a year.  Not because we lied, but because we managed to evade the question- we had the sense to know that it had the potential to cause great harm. I don’t even really sit around with my girlfriends and share the quantitative data- any of it.  Does it matter?  It would be very unusual for me to ask a man this question.

I didn’t find much useful information when I consulted Googs on this one either. Mostly just people sharing their opinions on what number indicates sluttiness.  Total kidshit-bullshit. I did like this video from Carlin & Betty- they are doing great work in the sexual revolution!  Viva L’Orgasm!

We don’t talk about it because people are still shaming and judging each others sex behavior. We shame each other for who we choose to have sex with, the kind of sex we like to have, how often we like to do it, how/if we talk about it, the kinds of relationships we do or do not have with the people we are having sex with, and on and on. I say sex is free and it’s fun so have as much safe sex as you want to!  There is nothing revolutionary about this view point- and just because this is what I believe, this does not mean I am out bangin around or that I am incapable of having a happy, monogamous experience.  Just to prove a point: you don’t know if I have had sex or not since this project started but I bet you assume I have!  Well, let me tell you: only if laying around my hotel room and rubbing one out between episodes of Breaking Bad counts, darlings!

I just wish we could replace our judgmental criticism with accepting curiosity.

… bet you thought I was gonna reveal my magic number, didn’t you?  Tell you what: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours 😉

This is on my mind today because I have been thinking about the early dating taboo topics- you know, the stuff you’re “not supposed to talk about” when you first start dating someone.  As you might imagine, this is a short list for me- meaning, you can talk about whatever you want to- the deeper the better, as far as I am concerned.  I have learned to keep certain cards close to my chest- even if that seems hypocritical.  Contradiction makes me cute.

So I am still trying to figure out whyyyyy I had such a strong, visceral repulsion yesterday when the architect told me he was feeling heart-achy and disturbed because of something he had seen on Facespace regarding his ex. Actually it wasn’t just that, it was the whole conversation- asking me if I was into beefy Italian men (presumably because that’s who the ex is with now), inviting himself to come along with me to an art show, the sort of whiny-neediness of the conversation.  4 dates, maybe 5 dates in?  Upon reflection, I think I was on the fence about him and this conversation led me to fall on one side. To be clear, it’s not because I can’t relate or because I feel jealous or anything like that- I found his behavior generally emotionally unattractive and I’m just not up for being anyone’s bandaid or fix-it woman. The door isn’t slammed shut, but there has been a shift- he may still slide under the door…

I am all for a relationship where we can openly talk about past relationships- with love, without jealousy, without later using this information as a weapon.  There is so much to learn about someone based on intimate relationship history.   Not magic numbers, love stories.  Tell me your love stories.  I am listening.

I have had another shift which is that I am seeing the experience of running into The One Who Got Away on the train the other night quite differently.  The voices in my head have stopped shouting and the one steady, cold voice that remains is telling me ‘Now you just have further evidence that this man is not into you.  Leave him alone, let this go.’  That same voice has similar insights about my number one crush- with a sneering cruelty.  I hate this short cycle from elation to self reproach.  I prefer to stay neutral.  Actually that’s a lie, I’m built to stay high but that isn’t sustainable.  For the most part, this past month, I have been able to put these feelings aside and stay on point with this project.  REMEMBER THE GOAL WAS NOT TO FIND A BOYFRIEND, IT WAS TO ASK OUT 100 UNATTAINABLE MEN IN 100 DAYS. The rest is just my silly girl shit.

Last but hopefully worth the wait… On that, the silly girl shit- I had a funny (not funny haha, funny jeeesh) moment yesterday when I called The One Who Got Away to invite him to join me for this art show.  I was leaving him a voicemail (I know) and got a little distracted by something (shiny object, squirrel) so my message became a little ramble-y.  I took for granted that I would be able to ERASE AND RE-RECORD so I just went with the ramble and wouldn’t you know that upon pressing #, still recording.  *, still recording.  #*#*##* #*#*#** 1111*#**? nope still recording.  So, if this poor man listened to my stream-of-consciousness message, he then had the honor of listening to me try to play Ice Ice Baby for him on the number pad.

Wait, no, that was funny haha I just made myself cry trying to recount that story.  Snort.

Yo, VIP- let’s kick it xxx