When Fires Burn

I’d like to think my respect for Mother Nature and Providence is healthy.  What I know for sure is that as I’ve lived and breathed and experienced my life, this respect has only grown.

In recent months and days, fire has abruptly changed the lives of many in the Western United States and is on the minds of even more.  I myself have been feeling its burn pretty intensely in recent days, though by no means in the way so many have been directly impacted.

See, there’s this ex-boyfriend.  I’ll call him Joe.  I ended the relationship and moved out in October of 2009, four months after my father’s death after a long-term illness (interesting, I know).  Our five years together was an emotionally intense roller coaster ride due to several factors, two of which were alcohol addiction and depression.  And while I come with my own baggage, these happened to be his carry-ons.

One of the few highlights of the relationship was Harbin Hot Springs in Middletown, Lake County, California, which we visited frequently over a four-year period.  Words really can’t describe the wonder of this place.  But those who have experienced it understand.  And this blog post is not about Harbin, after all.  At least not directly.

We both moved on, each embarking on new relationships.  There was an attempt at friendship, if that’s what you call it with an ex with whom you endured a lot of emotional pain.

In May of 2012, within a week’s time, Joe’s apartment burned (the one he and I had shared) and he received a prostate cancer diagnosis.  These events prompted him to move to Middletown, near Harbin, which was something he had been talking about wanting to do for years.  Providence works in mysterious ways.   

He established a stable life for himself with a disability income, good medical treatment in nearby St. Helena, his girlfriend, and their dog and cat.  I was his apartment referral.

A week ago, three years after Joe’s arrival to Middletown, the Lake County Fire changed all that.

And that’s when the fire began to lick my heels.

While he got out safely with his girlfriend and their animals, they lost everything except the papers and his car that they drove out in.  Her car burned.  And Harbin burned.

The girlfriend turned him out within two days of reaching a safe haven at her gal friend’s place in Sonoma County.  He landed at the Napa Valley Fairgrounds in Calistoga with many of the other evacuees.

He’s reached out.  I offered money.  I asked my family and a friend to contribute as well.  But he expects something else – he calls it friendship; I don’t -- which is impossible for me to give.  His increasingly emotional and vitriolic entreaties have made my stomach turn.  Guilt and anger oozed from my old wounds breaking open. 

I won’t burden or bore you with the details of the text exchanges, but they aren’t pretty.  But what I will say is that the qualities that prompted me to leave Joe are on stunning – and understandable – display during this time.   

This morning he texted me to never contact him again, which I haven’t done all along.  He’s contacted me, and I’ve responded.

I am making a deposit to his account today, unfriending him on Facebook, and will move on with an even greater respect for Mother Nature and Providence.

Why did I share this story, so raw and recent and personal?   Because I just can’t carry it alone anymore.  Thank you for reading.  

The Names of Racehorses and Boats

The names of racehorses and boats

Are kind acts of randomness. 

Foghorns, Urban Fruit, Walking the Cemetery, 

Shadow Dancer, True Dat.

I am an island, a memory catcher 

Closing the book on flowers

Pressed between its pages.

A nomad in situ

Firmly on the spectrum

Drowning in the metadata.

A writer on the storm

Golfing tennis balls

At the driving range.

Once upon a time

I smoked pot

On the banks

Of Walden Pond

And slipped into its waters.

Trash, recycling, compost.

Champagne problems.

Burritos for dinner,

Tattoos for dessert.

Focus, People.

Let us commence

The pilgrimage

To find

The holy algorithm.

And as we tap into the madness,

Let us all write love letters

To each other.

From "Duck, Duck, Goose," to "Musical Chairs," and Beyond

I miss “herd outings.”  Those pre-adolescent, raging hormone-free occasions in my young life when guys and girls hung out, watched or played sports together, mixed in playground games like Gutter and kickball, threw water balloons at each other at school picnics, joked around.  Yeah, we had our crushes.  But feelings were a tad more benign, playful, democratic.  The herd reigned. 

This was the period I dub the “Duck, Duck, Goose” days.

Eventually, inevitably, everything changed.  For me, it began in the 7^th grade. Being the late bloomer that I ultimately was, I felt like a deer in the headlights as two by two, I watched friends and classmates “hook up.”  Choices were made in rapid fashion.  Hands were held.

This was the beginning of the time I refer to as “Musical Chairs.”  And back then, like so many, I felt like one of those left standing without a chair.  Then again -- looking back on that whole scene now -- standing had its perks.

Of course, coupling, as we all know, fits the ticket for so many things a lot of us want that make life interesting and worthwhile:  Sex, children, family, intimacy, companionship, growth, etc.  Yet now that I am a tad north of the age of 50, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the prevailing pairing paradigm could use a bit of tweaking in these “second act” years, in these social media-driven times.  Let’s face it:  Before and after kids are grown – and under lots of other circumstances – relationships change.  People change.  They change in different ways and often come to want different things from life and/or from partnership.  Some people slow down, others speed up.  Our lives’ GPS's recalculate. 

The thing is, it’s all good.

Yet from where I sit (and it’s not in one of those musical chairs), our culture does not allow for graceful transition when it comes to relationship.  Instead, it holds steadfastly to a very limited view of coupledom that engenders fear, guilt, victimhood, jealousy, loss, apathy, judgment, rigid role-playing, and even loneliness.  In my Pollyanna world, I’d like to think that every individual as he or she matures through life has the right to engage in joyful and meaningful social connection without stigma.  I am not espousing careless philandering, intentional harm, or betrayal.  But what I am suggesting is that perhaps there is a latent yet strong desire within many mature adults to engage in more fluid social play.  Believe you me, I understand and empathize with that desire for “the right one.”  But isn’t it possible that this desire is heavily influenced by a myth perpetrated and perpetuated by cumbersome religious values that are, in fact, not “one size fits all”?  Big words, I know.  Bottom line?  Maybe it really is about loving the one you’re with, as Stephen Stills so melodically chimed back in the early ‘70s.

I don’t quite know how it all could look, but I definitely know how when I have thought something like, “Wouldn’t it be nice to play tennis with So-and-So” – So-and-So being a tennis-playing man in a relationship with another woman – I would immediately shut the idea down because of the social stigma of its appearance.  Or because I felt guilty about feelings I did harbor.  Our Puritan-infused sexual mores are laden with guilt, secrecy, and taboo which engenders attendant human behavior and reaction.

What’s missing, you ask?  Transparency, honesty, clear communication, a claim of personal responsibility, ritual that honors and acknowledges such social transition, and the promotion of choice as a value.  Just sayin’.