Continue reading “Life Library”
Tag: divorce
what?? you’re leaving me? us? huh? REALLY?
omg. but we moved here to start our new life!
omg. what now. what now……. Really??
Bug at Home
Guess I have today whatever bug Elihu had yesterday. In an uncomfortable sort of limbo. Not quite sick enough to throw up, but I feel each minute as if I should. Have had a constant headache since the morning. As evening falls I realize I’m quite hungry, but nothing appeals. For a brief window popcorn sounds ok. So I made a bag. Huge mistake. Not only did it not work (the chickens will thank me) but it made the whole house smell like popcorn. Yukk. I mean really yukk. I’d opened all the windows earlier today to air out the place and so I’ve kept them open to get rid of the smell. It’s getting pretty chilly now as it’s dropped to the lower forties outside again, so I need to close them up again. In what feels like a good measure of decadence, I turn the heat in the bedroom up to seventy. Usually I cut corners on the heat, but not tonite.
So here I am, hunkering down in my comfy chair, feeling a lot less than comfy, but at least I’m toasty now. Think I’ll give in and take something for this headache. If I had a bit more oomph I’d drive out to get some ginger ale, but I’ll forgo it now, as I’m dug in. I’m watching House Hunters International on HGTV, following the maps of each property search on my laptop. Thankfully, this is something that can pull me in enough to distract me from my discomfort.
I’ve always marveled at how many different ways there are in which to live. From my own travels – from Indonesia to Italy, I’ve seen so many corners of the world. But rather than give me a better idea of what my ideal home should be, it’s in fact done the opposite. I can never seem to identify what might feel like the perfect home. Really, for me, there is no such thing. This afternoon, as I felt so physically uncomfortable, I found myself longing for home. Silly, I know – I am home, right? Aside from the fact that I’ve been wrestling with the idea of this tiny, rural, upstate New York house feeling like home for the past three years (since I came here) there is yet another conflict inside me regarding true home. In that one moment today where I yearned for ‘home’, I paused to consider all the homes I’ve known. Which one was ‘the’ one? I played them all in my head, from the first I remember in New Haven, Connecticut to the Wilmette, Illinois home in which I lived in most of my life – and really, none was definitively home. (The closest one to my heart was still my beloved mid-century home in Evanston.)
I have nothing to complain about. Visitors take a breath when they first see the view here. There’s virtually nothing to be seen for a full three hundred and sixty degrees but trees, sky or field. And the house itself, while small, is just perfect for the two of us. My complaints might be that it’s drafty (there’s virtually no R rating to any of these fifty year old windows) and the obvious lack of landscaping in the immediate vicinity of the house (thanks to mud season, a lack of a driveway and the chickens) makes the place a little sketchy looking at first glance. And I like beautiful, not sketchy. Also, having lived all my life within spitting distance of other humans, I’m still just not used to being so alone. I’m thankful for my piano students and the families they bring along with them.
I wouldn’t mind being able to see my neighbors through the windows right now. But I think I feel like this because I’m sick. Feeling a little adrift, too, without Elihu. And since he’s with Jill and the boys in some hotel room in Indianapolis while Fareed plays a gig there (I only just learned these plans last night) it’s likely he won’t be calling me tonight. So that’s part of it.
Tomorrow this bug will be gone, and I’m sure I’ll feel more at home then.
Travel Plans
It was to have been Elihu’s last day at Greenfield Elementary School today, but he awoke feeling sick. At first I’d wondered if this was real or exaggerated. But it turned out he really was sick. At least in the beginning of the day. Thankfully, he was feeling good by the time afternoon came, and he was fine when I drove him to the train this evening to meet his dad.
I had some errands to do in the early afternoon, and he came along with me, sitting in the back seat, quiet, patient, eager to be done. I ran in to his school to pick up the entries from the kids who want to be in the talent show, and on my way out was greeted by a couple of girls whom I’ve given piano lessons. They ran up to me and wrapped their arms around my waist – eager as much to hug me as to have their friends see them doing so. As I said goodbye to the kids (more of whom had now learned I was there and called out to me to be recognized), the principal caught me. “Is it true?” she said, eyes wide in search of the story. She spoke in a tone more like a fellow mother than an administrator. She didn’t need to finish her question, as her face told me she’d heard about Waldorf. “I’d wanted to talk to you – I didn’t mean to seem like we were just skipping out on you!” I answered. I went on to explain that it just happened so fast – it had gone from a dream to a possibility to a certain thing in what seemed to be a flash. I sputtered my best explanation as to why Elihu had chosen to attend Waldorf – the best I could do in the situation; kids were lining up to leave the noisy cafeteria, while other classes lined up to enter. Too much going on. I assured her I’d be there for the talent show – and that I hadn’t forgotten her ‘bit’, that I would coach her through it all. She laughed, and expressed her relief. (I’m planning on creating a rhythm line in which she, the school principal, plays the cowbell – the cornerstone of the ensemble – as others then add their part on top. A slight comic nod to Christopher Walken’s ‘fever for the cowbell’ bit on SNL). It was all I could do for now. Suffice to say we haven’t completely closed this chapter of our lives quite yet.
Elihu wasn’t that sentimental about missing the day either. He said he might easily have been, but he didn’t want to feel sad, so he was choosing not to dwell on it. That kid. Always so much more grown-up about things than I would be in his shoes. Or than I am in mine. ! I was kinda nostalgic all day. Glad I’d written a quick note of thanks and given it to his bus driver the day before. I’d really wanted to thank him for taking care of my son. He had a kind demeanor – evident from his simple wave good-bye as the bus departed each day, and I was grateful my child was in his charge. Glad I’d done that. Glad also that I’d be able to go back and make more thank yous and goodbyes over the next few weeks, because I truly do appreciate that place for giving Elihu his start in the world. From his kindergarten teacher we learned “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset”. Almost seems to me that it might have been the most important lesson of all that he learned there! I look back on the past four years, and realize that’s the length of a high school career, or college. Seems a good time to move on.
We two enjoyed a relaxed afternoon doing laundry, packing, setting up the incubator (which I must fill with eggs this week so that they’ll hatch in time for his upcoming 9th birthday party) and just enjoying each other in our last bit of time together before he leaves for Spring break. Elihu and I were tired today; it made both of us weak and silly. We sat in my bedroom’s cozy chair, he in my lap, making jokes and laughing over nothing at all. Finally I needed to lie down, so I did, and he got on the bed next to me with his little diji game. It’s like a Nintendo DS, only it requires math problems be solved in order to make progress (in addition to shooting little alien guys and gobbling up point-scoring icons along the way). As I lay there watching him, I noticed the shape of his face and something rang familiar. Then immediately I flashed on an image of him as a mere babe of only a few months, and how his mouth had that same profile, that very same look – it was strange, but I could just picture him as a baby, yet at the same time I could still see him as he was. It was as if two moments in time had come together in some rare window of perception. Don’t know how to explain it better than that. It was a strangely poignant moment, one in which I felt how fleeting each moment is, and how quickly childhood becomes a memory. I lay there just looking at my beautiful child, just watching him, loving him, wishing all the most wonderful things for him in the life that lay yet ahead.
They sun was sinking, casting that warm, orange-tinged light on the neighboring fields and reminding us that we needed to get going. Elihu asked if he had time for just five minutes with his flock. I nodded, and he ran off through the trees towards them. He came back chasing the big rooster, Bald Mountain. It was comic as the boy ran after the bird, who dodged Elihu’s every lunge, leading the kid around in a fruitless chase. As I was pulling the car down the driveway, I saw the final, stop-frame moment: Elihu dove for the bird, grabbing just the very last of his tail feathers, and held on. Like a water skier pulling on a tow rope, he pulled himself along the tail, closer and closer to the prize. Finally he wrapped his arms around the bird. He had hoped I’d seen the catch, and eagerly brought the rooster to my open car window. “Awesome grab!” I said as he laughed with triumph. (That bird has attacked both of us so many times that it’s kinda nice to see the tables turned.) We smooch him, apologize for the rough treatment, then set him down. He shakes himself out, regains his composure and runs back to join his ladies. Finally we’re off to say goodbye to grandma and grandpa before we go to meet his father at the train.
The drive to Schenectady always seems so goddam long. I don’t know why it is, but the drives one has to make around this part of the world – to get anywhere other than where you currently are – all seem to take forever. When I think of the commutes I made in Chicago, I guess they were pretty similar in length, and Lord knows there are exponentially more traffic lights to deal with there, so I can’t really say why the commutes here feel so much more tedious. I don’t know why. Can’t explain it. But every single drive seems to take forever. And I never like the return trip after dropping Elihu off at the train. With Elihu suddenly gone, everything quiet, a kind of emptiness comes over me which makes the drive even more of a drag than it already is.
In spite of the drive, and in spite of the fact that part of me still can’t believe the situation which has me driving there in the first place (when, oh when will this feel like my ‘real’ life?) – I do look forward to seeing Fareed – more specifically, to seeing Elihu see Fareed. Our routine has us meeting at a dark little restaurant and bar across the street from the Amtrak station called the Grog Shoppe. Fareed is always there before us, Guinness on the table, phone to his ear. We always try to surprise his father – Elihu loves to sneak up on him as he sits waiting, unawares – yet it doesn’t always work. But today it worked! It was fun to watch from around the corner as Elihu appeared from nowhere and Fareed jumped up at the sight. It was a joyful reunion. Elihu was one very happy boy.
In no time, we three are laughing, having fun and sharing our own private jokes. This poor kid can’t escape all the classic comic references Fareed and I have tossed back and forth for the past two decades, and we throw out first lines of bits, hoping our child will answer back with the following line. (Caddyshack gets a good amount of air play.) We’ve ordered our food, but have over an hour. Plenty of time to relax. I decide it’s time to discuss my desire to take Elihu on an east-coast trip this summer to meet some Conant relatives. I’m hoping that mom can help with the cost, because it won’t be cheap, but it feels like an important trip to make. My Uncle Paul is 84, and there’s some urgency that the trip happen soon. Fareed understands, and I relax when I see that he won’t be battling me on this. He says this is good that we’re discussing plans, because he wants to figure out when Elihu can make the trip to Chile with his folks. Huh?! “I thought I emailed you on this” Fareed said unconvincingly. Apparently not. He knew my feelings about this. I’d made my conditions about Elihu and international travel plain. NO trips out of the country without me along. I wasn’t going to let Elihu go to Pakistan or Chile without me. Period. “You’ll have to talk to my folks about that” Fareed says. I say I’ll call tonite when I get home. “You can’t.” he says. “They’re in Spain.” Again, huh?? “At their age? They’ve gone to Europe?!” I can’t believe it. Seems Elizabeth, my mother-in-law’s neice, has traveled from Chile to New York to accompany them. Wow. And I literally don’t have enough money to buy milk, let alone gas. I don’t dwell on it. It’s just part of the crazy world of Fareed. I know, I’ve lived in it for twenty five years now. You just gotta shake your head and roll with it.
If it’s that important to them, they’ll take me. They’ll take us both. As it looks from this very moment, it seems quite likely that Elihu and I will be going to South America this summer. Looks like it might be a year of travel. No one’s getting any younger, and there’s family to be met around the globe. At nine, Elihu is a good age to travel, as he’ll remember his experience and learn a lot from it. I myself remember a trip to Switzerland at the age of six. In fact, it is a bright, vivid memory full of color and details. I know this kind of an adventure will help shape Elihu’s life in a profound way. Deep down, I am glad for this sudden news. I sense the possibility of wonderful things to come.
We’ve had our meal and need to pay. Fareed has just realized that we’ve relaxed perhaps a little too much; we have under ten minutes to make the train. Thankfully, we’ve just gotten the bill. The restaurant is packed, and our poor waitress is alone on the floor. I remember those days well. I want to share her stress as if it might lighten her load somehow, but it won’t, so I cast it off. It’s her drama, I can’t share it, I don’t need it. I have my own. Fareed pays while Elihu and I gather up his guitar and bag and head out. The train is literally pulling into the station as we arrive.
On the platform we hug, and Elihu says to me what he now says to all his family upon departing or saying goodbye: “Love you so much”. It’s a sweet little phrase that he just started using one day. It conveys his intense and sincere feelings so well, and it’s always touching to hear him say it, no matter to whom. I say “Goodbye, love you” as he turns away, and then when Fareed hugs me and turns to leave, I have to edit my impulse to say the same to him. I shouldn’t say I love him, right? I mean, after the way he’s treated me, the absence of real concern for me – how can I still feel any tenderness for this man? Yet seeing him go still tugs a little. Ok. It tugs a little less. I guess that’s progress.
This time, I don’t linger on the platform, following them through the cars, waving as they glide off. I head back to the doors. One lone traveler is told by the conductor he must go back downstairs to the ticket booth and get a paper ticket before he can board. I hear the hissing of the train and see the panic in the man’s face as he runs back to the stairway. I’ve been there too. I feel his stress, and I want to share it, to lessen his load. But I can’t, so I let it go too. I have my own load.
I do end up using my cell phone as a high-end walkie talkie, calling them to see if they can see me standing on the corner, waving. No, this time they don’t. So without fanfare, we say goodbye. For the first time ever, I get in my car and leave before the train does. I guess this is progress too.
The drive is still a little empty, but the full moon helps distract me from dwelling on it. Soon I’m pulling alongside my house, the vast expanse of hills before me, stars and moon bright and crisp above me. I look up and out at the infinite. I sense the space, the possibility… Tonight I will put off til tomorrow the chores that I might otherwise set to right away. I won’t bother with the dishes, or the post-packing mess in Elihu’s bedroom. Maybe I’ll write a post, get this crazy ‘trip to Chile out of nowhere’ bomb off my chest. I don’t know. But the wonderful thing is – I am free to do that if I please. I am also free to do absolutely nothing if I please. Truly, I am free. How lucky am I? Very lucky. And very grateful too. I love being a mother, but it sure feels good to have a moment alone every now and then. Nothing like having the house all to yourself.
Just now there was a small interruption in my first night alone, but it’s a welcome one: the phone rang. Elihu said he was calling to say goodnight. That was it. Then he said “Love you so much” and hung up. Love you too, Elihu. Sweet dreams.
One story ends, another begins. Greenfield Elementary to Waldorf of Saratoga. Cape Cod to Chile. On with the adventure…
Dad, Here, Now.
It feels surreal and foreign, yet it feels mundane and everyday. At once it is rare, at once it is common. Fareed is here, right now, at nine o’clock at night, helping Elihu assemble a model airplane. Right now it feels as if he lived here with us, as if it he was here every night, having supper, wrestling on the bed with his son in a prehistoric reenactment of dinosaurs colliding, assembling an airplane of balsa wood on the kitchen table. I can’t really remember when he was last here. But I think it’s been awhile. I think. A couple months maybe, not quite sure. Sometimes, on nights like this, when Fareed is here, when Elihu is laughing and at his very happiest to have his mother and father together, it seems the greatest shame of all that Fareed does not, in fact, live here with us, his family. I know I should let this whole thing go, but still, I keep wondering why, how… How could it have come to this – where we three are not a family living under one roof but separated by a thousand miles. I know many reasons why we aren’t, but I think a small part of me will forever lament our current reality. I sigh, shake myself awake and out of my longing, and try to make friends with things as they are.
It was a very dramatic day. Fareed’s train was six hours behind schedule due to a derailment on the track. He therefore had to hop off in Cleveland, get on a plane and then be driven from Albany to our tiny town, all in time for a 6:30 curtain. Luck was with him today. I was amazed. With one logistic hitch after another, Fareed finally entered the school’s parking lot at the very same moment we did, for a bizarre but exciting reunion of father and son.
While I’d been so excited for the surprise reunion of father and son, it was not to be as Fareed had come clean to Elihu last night about his plans. However, seeing him pull up at the very same moment as we did was indeed surprising in of itself. We weren’t quite sure Fareed would even make it. But he did. And the show was sweet. Elihu had a speaking part which he nailed. He delivered it clearly and unrushed, unlike most of his classmates. Parents of his friends were there, my folks were there, my brother, my son’s father. And many of the folks in our life here got to meet Fareed, and Elihu got to see his father witness his own world, and it was good. My parents hadn’t seen Fareed for a few years – not since he revealed his new family situation and his desire for a divorce. If my father hadn’t been so frail and aged he might have been more upset. But he wasn’t. And that was good. My mom too, she seemed more comfortable seeing him than I might have guessed. Maybe time does help dull the emotional impact. I was glad to see all aspects of my son’s life happily merging together tonite.
Fareed naps right now, Elihu snuggled beside him. Any minute my brother Andrew will be here to take him to the airport, and Fareed will quietly get up, gather his things and tiptoe out of the house. Elihu will awake tomorrow morning, and his father will be gone once again. It’s made a little easier this time knowing that Easter break is right around the corner, and they’ll see each other again soon. So this time it’s not as hard.
Whatever may yet be, it’s so good to see Elihu with his dad, right here, right now.
Surprise Visit
My son will be visiting his father in Illinois for the Easter break. We know this, but we just don’t know the exact plans, as Fareed will likely do a fair amount of juggling and cancelling of things to make it happen. We’re never sure until about a week before what the exact plans will be. But we know that Elihu will see his father soon. Didn’t know just how soon til a couple of minutes ago…
I got an email from my almost-ex saying that he arrives at the train station tomorrow at 2 pm, can I please pick him up, then he departs from the Albany airport at around 6 am the next morning. Huh?? Why this crazy, last-minute, unexpected overnight visit that comes with no more than a 24 hour warning?? Well, mostly because Fareed is being Fareed. He is living fast, making up rules on the fly, changing plans and pissing people off along the way, and doing it all with the charm of a super slick salesman.
Ultimately, he is being a good dad. And honestly, I’m pretty happy for Elihu. He will friggin flip to see his father, unannounced, show up in time to attend his third grade concert “Of Mice and Mozart” in which he plays a mouse with a small speaking role – one he memorized the very first time he read it. Elihu sings his Mozart tunes constantly as he moves about the house, busying himself with airplane-related projects. (He’s taken a new and ultra-keen interest in all contraptions that fly; it’s as obsessive and all-encompassing as his love of birds.) So just imagine the moment when an unsuspecting kid gets off the bus to find his father waiting there – the father who lives a thousand miles away and isn’t due to be here for another week yet. Elihu will FLIP OUT. Really, I can’t wait. But first, I gotta process a little exasperation here.
You see, I do have a life. I have appointments, things to do, obligations and such. Tomorrow I need to be at school at 3:30, as I have a meeting about the upcoming talent show. I’m running it this year along with two other friends who, like me, haven’t the foggiest what this whole project entails. So tomorrow we will be tutored by the women who ran it last year. But I cannot make the meeting on time if Fareed’s train is late – which it may well be. Plus I have to drive my mother to have cataract surgery – and drive her back. And I’d planned on visiting my bankruptcy attorney somewhere in the mix too. I just don’t see how the hell I can do it all.
I called my mother to vent, but she wasn’t as fazed by it as I’d thought. It’s usually she who fans the flame and gets all worked up by Fareed’s craziness… But she was calm and collected and just suggested that maybe my brother Andrew could go get him. Or get her. Whatever. Not a big deal. ?? A little frustrated by my lack of a good audience, I said goodbye to Mom and then re-checked my email. Fareed had responded. Said he’d been talking to Elihu about these plans. But let’s remember, they’ve got a scheduled visit coming up next week – why should Elihu expect his dad to come out any sooner? Elihu probably thought his father was referencing the upcoming Easter visit. And, uh, ahem, how about telling me your plans ahead of time? Maybe a quick email to the mother of the child being visited? Whatever. I guess I’ll have to take my mom’s uncharacteristically chill attitude. Fareed even says in his message that he doesn’t want me to miss anything. Hookay. Maybe I’m making too big a deal of this. As long as my mom can get to and from her cataract surgery comfortably, and as long as I get to my after school meeting, then I guess it’s all ok. But still, why couldn’t he have told me his plans just a couple days ago? Sheesh.
I’m not going to tell Elihu. I’m just going to savor that moment when I come to meet him after school and Fareed is magically there beside me. I think the poor kid’s head might explode. I can’t wait.
Here One Year
Although I can hardly boast any appreciable new technical skills after having been a blogger for one complete calendar year, I can report that I’ve had a full and robust year – one in which I began to find my voice and become more fluent in its expression. Yup, it’s been an interesting year for me, and this blog has helped me through some difficult episodes. (Although the entries may show to have been written earlier, my first true post was March 1st of last year.)
I’d hoped to perhaps have a more sophisticated handle on this forum by now, but I still find myself merely hanging on to the simplest tools. I can insert a photo by the skin of my teeth, a video still eludes me as this platform doesn’t like the form my the vids from my camera arrive in – and inserting an interactive guest book here is as confounding to me now as it was six months ago, in spite of hours spent researching it. In view of the much more visually interesting blogs to choose from in the world, I’ve found myself wondering what I have to offer here. This was a question I’d not even begun to consider even a few months ago, but with a growing readership, it has me thinking about this differently. Might I consider a little marketing? A little upgrade in my presentation? There’s certainly room for that. But in the end, in that I’m not selling anything, in that I’m so very grateful that I have people at all with whom to share my life, in that this has all been a lovely adventure – I think I’m going to let it be as it is for the time being. One day I may rally my efforts towards ramping this humble blog up a notch, but not right now.
Let me make no mistake about it; I began this blog simply as a means to keep myself from despair. I had been treated badly by my husband in this cruel divorce, and after several years of going it alone, I wanted a witness to the unfair way in which my marriage was ending. I was outraged, hurt and angry, and I felt it was time that someone else felt the outrage too. I was hoping that this public platform might help me to conclude my divorce – if by no other way than by shaming my husband into treating me better (i.e. giving Elihu and me enough money to live on as was entirely possible given his own personal financial reality) by giving our story a wider audience. In that Fareed has seen little more of this blog than the photo of this three kids by three different mothers (and, enraged by this, told me to remove it ‘or else’), and in that he lives in a world of his own concerns (and I am not one of them), this blog did not in the end serve to shame him nor cause him to reflect on the inequity of the situation. But while it may not have done what so selfishly I’d hoped in the beginning, it did end up taking a different course which proved to lead into happier new territory. Entries became more about our own personal adventures and struggles, and much less about the divorce and its lack of parity. I’ve never been one to keep a scrapbook or record personal events in a diary, and so this blog has been a nice way to not only record things that have happened in our lives, but it’s also given me a place in which to work out my thoughts on life as it happens. Honestly, I’ve forgotten so much of my life; I’m glad to have this past year down on paper (as it were). And I can’t help but wonder how Elihu himself may one day value this window into his younger years, this window into the thoughts of his own mother. I can’t begin to imagine having such a document of my own mother’s, or of my own early years. Really, what a great tool. What a lucky time to be alive.
It’s been through this blog that I’ve met many new friends, reconnected with old ones, and heard the stories that others have had to tell too. And because of it all I’ve come to feel a lot less alone. I had no idea anyone other than a handful of friends would come to read my posts. I may feel so isolated some times, but I’m reminded, through this magic little oasis in the ether, that you’re here with me too. In the end, I suppose that’s been more important to me than anything else, although a year ago I had no idea.
A little ‘by the way’ for you: Fareed and I will indeed be legally divorced as of 9 am this coming Friday. This was the very thing I sought with my first desperate plea one year ago this week on my virgin blog. “Letter to All…. I cannot get divorced…” And so here I am, one year later, my goal met by week’s end. Thank you so much for being with me through this difficult year. I so appreciate your friendship and support. Elihu and I both are aware that we’re not alone; we both know that you’re sharing our life with us. It makes us happy to know. It makes us grateful, too. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Happy Birthday, Hillhouse!
Bad Bug
Was really sick yesterday. Really sick. Good timing, though. I’d just finished organizing and cleaning out the basement the night before. I’m a tad embarrassed to admit that after I was finished, as a reward for my dozens of hours at the thankless and grueling challenge, I took myself to the movies. To see ‘Wanderlust’ of all things. I was in the mood for some white bread, some frivolity. Nothing else that was playing appealed. I knew that it wouldn’t be worth the ticket price and that I’d probably regret it halfway through. But in fact, having gone with the assumption that the script would be kinda lame and it would undoubtedly pander to the lowest common denominator (and learning later that my assumption for the most part was true), I was in the end happily surprised if, for no other reason, than to see Alan Alda and Linda Lavin (peers, remember the 70s sitcom ‘Alice’?). I also dug a scene in which the very pretty Paul Rudd has a pep talk with himself in a mirror – something I’m guessing was probably him just blowing. It was refreshing to see some improv make it into a movie. The scene even made me actually laugh out loud. Something I realized – mid laugh – that I hadn’t done in a long time. Thanks Paul.
Got home, into bed and realized I wasn’t right. I’d been battling a persistent, pill-resistant headache for hours and was now getting flushed. I considered anaphylactic attack but no, it wasn’t a match, so I just went to sleep hoping it would right itself overnight. I awoke in the middle of the night with a miserable nausea. I don’t like discomfort – who does? – but I’ve always cited nausea and sore throats the worst. I don’t know why – but a sick gut has always trumped everything else. And I’ve broken my neck as well as several other bones so I do have something to compare it to (oh, yeah, and childbirth too). So what to do? Pepto seemed the only proactive thing. I downed some and waited. Discomfort grabbed me no matter what position I took; all I could do was wait for the inevitable. And it came. Throughout the next twelve hours my system rid itself of everything and then some. My diaphragm wrung itself like a mad sponge until my eyes were bloodshot, my head wet with sweat, and my temples pounding with headache.
This was also the day that my son was coming home, and he and Fareed were at the train station several towns away needing to be picked up. I could hardly move much less get in a car and drive. To make things worse, Elihu had left his precious dark glasses in Chicago and was without any protection. I was too out of it to dwell on it. I took the glass half full attitude. It would be really hard for him to manage being out in the world nearly blind, but it might well be a good, hard lesson for him – of how all-important his glasses are and of how important it is to always, always make sure to have them. I let this one go, and had to let Fareed figure the rest out himself. It cost him some change (the taxi alone from town was $27, to say nothing of the bus tickets here from the Amtrak station) but in the end it was ok.
Shortly after they got in (or maybe a week later, I was out of it and couldn’t tell) I smelled food cooking in the kitchen and pulled a pillow over my head to block it out. As I felt then, it smelled simply atrocious. But my next thought was one of comfort, of relief. Dare I say it? I was relieved that my ‘husband’ and son were home. The smell of food being cooked in my home said love, it said caring, it said ‘don’t worry, I got this one’… I know it isn’t logical given the reality of the situation, but our tiny house felt more like a home with Fareed there. With someone other than me keeping it together. I love my life here with Elihu, but man, when someone else is here it kinda highlights how lonely it can be sometimes.
I’m glad that my body still ached with flu when my brother came to pick Fareed up and drive him to the airport late last night. It softened the mood. The reality. How seventh grade girl of me is this? – it took the edge off knowing that this was the last time Fareed and I would be together as ‘legal’ spouses. The deal closes on March 7th, so technically, we’re still a ‘we’ til then. We hugged, and then I stood in the open door a moment watching him and Andrew walk off into the darkness. He turned around and nodded goodbye.
Fareed is back in his routine, Elihu is back in school, I am well. And my basement is both organized and clean. I mean clean. Not only do I now know where everything is, but also there is no more grunge on the floor, no more damp, decomposing old boxes, mouse turds or soggy piles of pink insulation laying about. The whole place is well-lit and inviting. I even have a work space for my new sewing machine! My goodness, seems yet another metaphor of transition. Fits and starts is this life’s progress, and most gratefully I’m feeling fit to start it all over yet again.
Stuff and More Stuff
I’d thought the battle was won. But no. I am still overrun with stuff.
Elihu is in Dekalb with his father this week for winter break, and so I’ve turned once again to the job of housecleaning. Taking stock, assessing my mess. How is it, I wonder, in a life so simple, that I still have so much goddam stuff? I have no idea.
While I made a good start putting my house in some kind of order this past fall, I realized that many boxes were still unpacked from my moving here three years ago. Having recently helped some friends in their own unpacking and mess assessing, I thought it finally time to see what lay in those yet-unpacked boxes. In my excavation I find the mice have long beat me to it. Cardboard is no barrier, nor are plastic bags, for the relentless onslaught of diligent rodents. I have revisited many artifacts of my past tonight, most of which have been rendered garbage due to my tiny roommates. Once again, I renew my campaign to take back my home.
I’m completely overwhelmed. I find bags of boys clothes, given to us by kind friends whose own sons are a size ahead of Elihu, all needing to be sorted through. I find hastily stashed remnants of holiday decorations, party favors, wrapping paper and craft items – all mangled and tossed together in plastic tubs, my intention having been to tend to them one day. All of the clothing has become a tangled mess, seasons and sizes have long lost their proper places. Winter hats we’ve meant to wear but never have, single gloves which I’ve kept in hopes of finding their lost mates – all these things and more co-mingle in large plastic bins awaiting some serious inventory-taking.
I only wish it were but a day’s job. This may take me all week. It took me a while to get going tonight as I didn’t quite know how to begin. There’s just so much crap. I did finally get into a groove, and for the most part it was easy to decide what should stay and what should go. But then things got a little trickier for me as I began to uncover pieces that still hold meaning for me. Of all the many things I own, I have just a few favorite things. I find most destroyed by mice. A scarf brings me back to a day long ago when Fareed and I spent an afternoon Christmas shopping at Marshall Field’s. I’d picked up the scarf and wrapped it around my neck, asking him how I looked. “Like a princess” he’d said. Although the few other scarves I’d saved lay undisturbed, my princess scarf had been pulled apart and made into a nest. It was hopeless. There was no saving it. I wonder, if Fareed were still in my life, would I have been so moved, so saddened to find it destroyed? I have also kept a blouse – too small for me to wear these days – only because he’d once said how lovely I’d looked in it. Is not the memory alone enough? In spite of my desire to live a simpler life, free of things I no longer use, I find myself clinging to things as if I could bring my past back and keep it alive through the physical evidence. I’m hard-pressed to take the advice I often give to others; the thing is not the memory. Let it go. So I tell others. Can I let it go? I toss the scarf into a pile of ruined garments. I tell myself if I write about it; if I can broaden the witness to my memory, it will help me to say goodbye. I just wish I could do it with more conviction.
My favorite shoes were long lost – discovered last fall when I first realized how bad the mouse problem had become. I’m still not entirely over that. So much for detachment. So much for my zen country life. As I continue my clean up, I find an old pair of platform boots I’d worn for many a gig – again totally dissected by mice. That’s ok. I can’t seem myself as a fifty year old woman wearing those again. Out they go. In fact, out go most of the shoes and boots I’d saved.
Out go so many, many things. I wonder if the mice might not be a gift after all; they are certainly forcing me to lighten my load. I think of the people who live in Japan, whole families in tiny apartments – without the benefit of storage lockers. I think of most of the people of this earth, living free of the burden of stuff. The way of stuff is dangerous. One doesn’t even need to watch an episode of “Buried Alive” to know the power stuff can have over us. I remind myself that I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Lord knows I let go of a whole lot of stuff when I left Dekalb. There was no way I could have done it alone – so I’d hired someone to conduct an estate sale. I marveled over the way in which the women had displayed the articles it had taken me two decades to acquire, making each display as compelling as any upscale vintage boutique. I half joked that it all looked so good I’d like to buy it myself! (Having enjoyed the hobby of grazing through some pretty fine estate sales for several years I’d ended up with some beautiful mid-century finds.) I was in such a daze as I planned my escape from Dekalb that I’d simply had to detach myself emotionally, with my only goal to free myself and start over fresh. Knowing that my things had found happy new owners made it a bit easier. That gave me consolation.
I need to complete the job I started three years ago. My divorce will be final in a few weeks; a thorough cleanup seems fitting. I had to slog through a lot of crap to complete the divorce, and it seems there’s just a bit more slogging to be done…
Anonymous Gifts and Other Surprises
Many years ago, when my husband and I bought our first home together, it was a magical experience. I had admired the house from afar since I was little, and long before it came to be ours, we would sneak into the screen porch of the dark and empty house and imagine ourselves living in that gorgeous, dusty mid-century behemoth. Its purchase was anything but smooth; after having bid on it for six months to no happy conclusion, I’d ended up trumping an eleventh hour bid from some new party, donning a suit (the one I wore for temp jobs downtown), filling an empty brief case with various books (for heft), swabbing on some very un-me perfume (from a free sample) and walking into the manager’s office at Coldwell Banker insisting that I was prepared to pay cash for that house. I had no such cash to back up my offer. I’d made the offer without benefit of much discussion with my partner, as he was in Japan at the time. I remember a finger on one hand twitching constantly with residual nervousness for many days after I’d made the bluff. A few incredibly stressful weeks later (that in of itself is a story of gifts and other lucky events), we had ourselves a house.
Neither one of us can explain why we did what we did on that first day. At the threshold, Fareed picked me up and carried me into the house. Strangely, he did not put me down right away, but instead carried me down the long front hall, made a right, and deposited me in front of the refrigerator. Everyone knows a good party always convenes in the kitchen, perhaps it was in this spirit that he conveyed me there. There we two stood, facing the fridge head-on. And so naturally, we opened it. There, before us, was a platter upon which stood a bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes. In the center was an envelope on which was written “Welcome to 520”. Immediately our eyes filled with tears. Instantly we realized the love with which the former owners had assembled this gift. After a toast to this magical day, we began looking over the old photographs as we sipped our champagne. Through them we met the family that had lived here for half a century. We saw Christmases in the living room around an enormous tree, we saw the mother and dad – Marcie and Gene – in this very kitchen. We saw children sitting on this very floor. No matter where life may take us now, neither Fareed nor I will ever forget this gift of welcome.
Only a few days after we’d bought the place and had begun camping inside, sorely under-furnished, we received another gift. We’d come home one day to find a massive mound of purple mums in an apple basket on the landing to our front door. A simply stunning arrangement – the kind you admire but quickly pass up as you’d never dare spend that much money on yourself. In it was a card as enigmatic as the delivery itself. It simply said “Blessings on this house.” It was signed “Moon Rain and Storm Cloud”. In the middle of the small card there was a drawing of an eye. Altogether it was very ominous. Obviously, their intentions were good – even perhaps protective. Yet that picture of the eye was slightly disturbing. What was that about? Just what had this house meant to them? What did this house mean to the people in the area? Did folks have a proprietary feeling about the place? It had stood empty over a year. It was a dramatic and distinguished, if not different, looking house. There was no mistaking it, this house had a thing. But a thing that warranted some Native Americans shelling out fifty bucks for a bushel of flowers and offering their unsolicited blessing?? In the end, after sleuthing to the best of our ability in a pre-google world, we gave up and simply offered thanks to our unseen friends for their anonymous gift.
Skip ahead many gifts and many years. I am no longer living in the midst of things. I’m no longer a hostess. My home is no longer a social hub for friends. Now I live alone. Now I live far from the road in a tiny, plain house, devoid of any aesthetic value. I am no longer living in a way that I recognize. I am poor. I go without. Once upon a time, gifts were a nicety, always an expression of love, yes, but mostly they were a genteel thing, a kindness added to an already abundant life. The past few years things have changed. The gifts I’ve received have taken a different form. Some friends, wanting to help, have given me gifts of food and staples – and even money. Given in love, yes, but this is still tricky for me. This is not something I’m accustomed to. Accepting a gift of cash? Is that not crass? In poor taste? This is the voice of a woman who doesn’t understand the true spirit in which the gift is given. A woman who, out of pure need, must soon soon learn to accept it with nothing but sincere thanks given in exchange. (I don’t remember too much about my grandma, but I do remember her telling me that the best way to receive a gift was to say thank you. So simple, so true.) Such gifts have made me cry, made me feel uncomfortable, but in the end, made me feel blessed. They’ve enabled me to warm my house, eat fresh vegetables at supper, pay the electric bill, even move my piano out of storage. These have been life-saving gifts. In my past life I’d never known such generosity in any personal way. I do remember sending five hundred dollars to the Red Cross just after hurricane Katrina. And it too was given in love. So I know how it feels to give. How natural, how important it is that you help others when you’re able. Yet somehow, this seemed different. Gifts of this sort were always anonymous – made through the right channels, legitimate organizations set up for such charity. So when the tables were turned and I became the charity in question, I had to remember how good it had once felt to give of myself, let down the walls of my ego and now learn how to accept. Not always easy, but sometimes essential.
A few weeks ago I sent my divorce attorney an email in which I’d told him that it was in his personal interest that he help me secure a better support settlement; paying him otherwise would take years on my small income. He responded by telling me that he knew my financial situation well; he hadn’t expected to receive payment from me. I was stopped in my tracks. I’d already begun crafting an idea of a payment schedule to him, imagining a tab now in the tens of thousands. Having been absolutely raped by an egotistical, downtown Chicago divorce lawyer early on, I’d come to expect more of the same. I’d sensed something much gentler about this new man, but still and all, he was an attorney, and attorneys are busy, busy people whose time is a very costly thing. When I saw him in person last week, I hugged him in thanks – telling him that I in no way assumed this was a pro bono case, and that I still intended to pay him. While that is true, I’m not sure what that will be. But I will work something out. I will. I mean to make modest monthly payments, and if it doesn’t work to cover much else, I hope he can at least use it to buy some fresh flowers for his wife when he comes home late for the umpteenth time this month.
Just last month, on a rainy December night, Elihu and I arrived home late after I’d played piano at a Christmas party in town. He was to leave for Chicago soon, and as in years past, he lamented his being gone for the holiday, and wondered if Santa would visit him here too (Santa has yet to disappoint in that regard, he needn’t have worried.) Bent over under the rain, we ran to our door to find a couple bags of bird seed in our path. One was a bag of Niger seed. The real stuff – not the second-rate blend you find at the box stores that had been cut with half filler seed, but the real deal. The pricey stuff. At the time, we didn’t get the whole picture. But it was enough to shock me – and to let Elihu know that Santa had remembered him. Of course it was Santa, he told me, because no one else would give real Niger seed! Indeed. No one I knew had the stuff. It was only the next morning after I’d braved the cold to let out the chickens and then returned to the warm kitchen that I did a double take. Huh? Had I seen something unusual on the lawn just now? I looked out the window to see a beautiful iron shepherd’s hook bird feeder holder, complete with three bird feeders. All of them filled. One even held pepper suet to discourage squirrels. What?! I too was pretty close to convinced that we’d been visited by Santa. In the month that’s followed I have asked people, posted on Facebook, even called the local firehouse, all in an effort to learn who this Santa really was. I’d considered putting up a sign of thanks on the roadside, but didn’t want to chance Elihu seeing it. He already knew who’d been here, this was my problem alone. Then yesterday I went to the very boutique where the feeders came from. A store filled with beautiful but pricey bird-related items, it’s not someplace we shop. It’s a place we visit once or twice a year. I had the occasion to stop in as I was buying a bird toy for Elihu’s sister’s birthday. It gave me a chance to query the woman behind the counter. Luckily for me, she did seem to recall the story. She gave me a few hazy suspects. So, be warned, you kind-hearted friends, I just may be on to you. You know who you are. Soon I will too.
Gifts arrive unannounced, anonymously, and also in less than obvious forms. (Take, for example, my surprise divorce and the resulting about-face in my life.) Often, when things go wrong – or appear to be going wrong – Elihu and I remind ourselves that within this immediate disappointment a gift of some sort is surely waiting to be discovered. Perhaps not one that can be recognized immediately, and certainly one that will be harder to receive if one is being all pissy and crabby about how things are not going as they were supposed to, but nonetheless, we’re sure that there is something positive in the mix that will present itself shortly. At least that’s the attitude we try to take (make that I try to take; it’s far more natural and effort-free for Elihu) when plans run aground or take a frustrating turn. I would like to stress – as much for myself as for anyone reading – that to simply consider that there is a joyful outcome hidden within a current upset really does transform the event. It creates hope and possibility. If it changes nothing at a glance, it diminishes the present anguish by offering the potential for something delightful and unexpected yet to happen. It turns a stress-inducing situation into a treasure hunt. You are now on the expectant lookout for a gift. In the form of a serendipitous meeting, a happy conclusion to some other forgotten story, the acquisition of something helpful. Gifts come in many forms. Some much harder to discern than others. Some may even take awhile to present themselves. So keep an eye open. Ya know?
Thank you, all you givers of gifts. Those who have received them are so very grateful.
Witness to a Divorce
So, am I divorced yet? Did things go well? I don’t mean to be coy, but yes…. and no.
Before I disclose the results, I just have to thank you for helping me. I fairly sailed through my day in a subdued, sober form of good cheer. None of the old, familiar feelings of fear and doubt gained on my spirit. Even as I sat in the historic courtroom, the afternoon sun spilling over the large oak table strewn with piles of documents, I marveled at the sense of peace I felt. Not sure whether it was the intentional, energetic help of yours, the very passage of time since the drama began and my gleaned wisdom and insight since – likely all of it – but I sat there in a state I can’t remember experiencing before. Tranquil, yet poised for action and clear thought. Ready. Ready to speak for myself. Ready to be an individual taking responsibility for her own future. At last I was ready to face the disarming, story-spinning charm of my husband Fareed.
I’d love to share the delight of the day as it unfolded for me, yet I realize that some may want to get to the bottom line without all those extras. For those of you who are mostly interested in the lowdown, please just skip the body of the post and head for the final few paragraphs at the end. I have some images of the past twenty-four hours I want to share, and hope some will remain here with me to bear witness…
Tuesday night, in darkness and freezing rain, I’m flat on my belly under the chicken coop trying to encourage a couple of errant birds to exit their cave and allow Elihu’s waiting arms to deliver them back into safety. With the help of a rake I manage to get our miniature silkie rooster, Felix out. But two remain. I have no choice but to leave them there for the night. I still have to get my son a full ten miles across town on this slippery, foggy evening to my friend’s house for his overnight stay, then I need to return in order to fill out a financial affidavit for court the next day. And I need to leave the house by 5 am latest. Elihu and I make it to Ceres’ house, and as I unzip his suitcase – I discover it’s empty. Of the two identical bags I have, I left the packed one home. A true friend indeed, Ceres follows me back the ten plus miles in her car (after filling my tank up on her dime – too much to understand) and gets the correct and packed suitcase. I’m relieved of having to make another 25 mile journey. Onto the homework.
Luckily, having just prepared for bankruptcy, I’m pretty together with my financial info. After inputting the data my attorney’s asked of me, I punched the lot with holes and inserted them in a three ring binder. I can’t remember feeling so prepared. Faced with such an important day, I just had to write something on the occasion. So I created my post, leaving just four hours for sleep. Seemed I’d gotten into an intoxicating bit of REM sleep when the alarm clock told me it was time to head for the airport. The importance of my quest helped rouse me out of it.
Everything went smoothly. Things don’t always go like that for me. Last time Elihu flew, they had to write information out manually on his ticket in order for us to pass through security. For some reason, the system wouldn’t recognize our reservation. Thankfully, the Albany airport is small, they all know us there, and we made it, even if they were waiting for us to close the plane door. Drama. Sheesh. Fun, but too much is tiring. Thankfully I had NO drama all morning on Wendesday. Crazy. Found a shuttle to the car rental, and was nearly on my way. I had cheerful, serendipitous little encounters with folks all along the way, and enjoyed many personal exchanges that I will keep in my memory as a happy part of that day.
Among the many benefits of travel is the opportunity to meet people, and to become exposed to ways of living other than your own. As chatty as I tend to me, I naturally make an effort to get the story out of the people I talk to, and on that day, the stories flowed. It was so very interesting. I learned a lot. I learned more about the extremes that live side by side. The incomprehensibly massive budgets required of those who must travel professionally, the barely sustaining paychecks of the clerks and workers who make it possible for the travelers to do what they do.
I talked with a clerk at the car rental desk who had two daughters in college and had to make his modest paycheck cover not only their expenses, but his mortgage as well. I met a former restaurant owner who now worked selling magazines and gum and like me, depended upon food stamps to eat. When I thanked the pilot and asked if he enjoyed his job, he told me that he did not. That he made only thirty grand a year as a United pilot, that on his salary he could not afford to pay back the loans for the schooling the job had required. He planned to get out, and open up his own auto body shop instead. He sounded disgusted and fed up, highly motivated to get on with his new life. I met so many others, all hustling, working hard, putting in time at thankless, invisible jobs, all just to make it through. My eyes were opened. I was humbled. And you know what? Every last person I met had a positive spirit about them. Not a one was feeling sorry for themselves, although as I saw it, they had a right to. They shared their stories and we commiserated, but the mood was hopeful. I was inspired.
And doubly inspired, friends, when I saw my bright red, brank-spankin’ new Mini Cooper waiting for me! An older gentleman was getting into a large tank of a car next to me. “Mine’s cuter!” I shouted. “I win!” He laughed and mentioned something about gas consumption, adding to his defeat. Soon I was off onto the Chicago byways as if I’d never been gone. I turned on the radio. Bad Company and then AC/DC pumped me up and ushered me onto 294 South. I laughed at myself. Middle aged gal rocking out in her little red car. Goofy. Nothing rough or rebellious about it. But joyful, that’s for sure. Ok. Checked the presets. No XRT? Geez. Found it on my own and sank into a luxurious bath of some forgotten gem followed by Marty Lennartz signing off and welcoming Terry Hemmert on next. How Chicago can you get? This was starting off right fine. The sun was shining and I was making good time on my way out to the cornfields of Dekalb.
I was surprised how familiar it all was. The drive, the well-loved landmarks (the smiling barn near Bliss Road on 88 to Aurora – know it?). As I drove into Dekalb, strange feelings came over me. Intangible ethers of mood and strange hauntings, like a waking dream, all inspired by the places that I passed. The landscape was so familiar; it felt as if I’d never left. As if I passed these very houses each day of my life. Forgotten memories came alive when I passed the spots on which they occurred; as I neared the library, I remembered my husband’s girlfriend, plump with her pregnancy, waving at me as I passed in our minivan, as she’d mistaken me for my husband – her boyfriend. I was shocked at how much the vision still hurt, how it arrived from nowhere. The sights brought a mix of emotions. So little had changed for the most part in my three years’ absence, yet my own life had changed in just about every way possible. A strange contrast.
I drove down the main drag of town and passed our Cafe building. The business I’d run for two years. One of the straws that piled upon the camel’s back. I dropped in on a place or two, finding some friends gone, others just as I remembered having seen them last. After a quick bite (of real Mexican food, thank you) and a free cup of coffee from Matthew at the House Cafe, I headed north for the courthouse. On the way, I passed my old house. The one in which I’d thought Fareed, Elihu, our new baby and I would pass the next decade together. I spied a big plastic climber and slide near the garden, signs of the little ones that lived there now. I saw Fareed’s big tour bus parked in the huge driveway. The one that pulled into my own driveway a few months ago. This was no longer my home in any way at all. Surprisingly, this sight hurt the least. I had no desire to live there. I was a true visitor now.
When I had passed through security and made my way up the large, central staircase of the Sycamore courthouse, I soon found my attorney, a man I’d met but once almost two years before. We were able to make ourselves comfortable in the large courtroom, as we were over an hour early. He explained that I would sit in the witness’ chair, the one beside the judge, and there I would simply tell my story, at his prompting, answering his questions as best I could in order to complete the picture for the judge. Our goal today was to inform the judge of the circumstances; Elihu was low-vision and had special needs, I worked to the best of my ability around my duties as single mother… all points the judge would need to know if we were to go up against Fareed. Had I not been there, it would have been, after these three long years of court dates, entirely Fareed’s game. Hence my pricey appearance. It was showtime. My attorney told me not to be shy or hesitant; I should make myself clear and speak directly to the judge. I reminded him that I was a performer; I was good on stage.
When Fareed arrived, it was indeed a peculiar feeling to know that he and I were not on the same side. I’d sat beside him so many times before – some times in a court of law, sometimes in heated business negotiations – and each time, whether I agreed with his methods and truthfulness or secretly did not (as was the case many times), as his wife and partner, I showed my support. I had always agreed with Fareed. It’s what a partner does. And I’d seen his craftiness up close; the way he twisted things to his advantage, living in complete belief that it was all justified, no matter how it might seem otherwise. I’d seen him and his father shimmy their way through all sorts of situations, each time the odds seemingly stacked against them, each time with them making out far ahead of the opponent. Now I was that opponent. A small voice cautioned me, but a bigger voice reminded me that I knew how he operated; there’d be no snaking around today. Besides, I had no selfish motives. That just had to count for something.
Some dynamic then began to change. The phenomenon of people being physically in each other’s space, I guess. I softened to see him, and he to see me. After all, were we not two people who’d lived over twenty years together? Made music together? Made love, made memories, made a child together? It is all still there. And so, after a short while, we were discussing the terms, reviewing the sticking points in a measured, even-tempered tone. Where I might have hissed with anger just one year ago, I was able to plainly state my case now. I was not out for blood, for anything unreasonable. I had no savings or retirement, and I needed what was fair. At the very least I needed my money back. Fareed started out adamant. He low-balled me and remained in that stance for a while. Until we spent a few minutes alone in the hall. Before long we two were laughing together. I wonder if my attorney might have thought me crazy. Here I was, in the face of the man who’d put me in poverty, created two other families, and yet I was enjoying a good laugh with him! Was I that deficient of self-esteem? Truly, it felt good to laugh. Before too long, whenever Fareed and I are together, we are laughing. Fucker.
We got down to it after about an hour’s discussion, ultimately removing the need for my taking the stand and presenting my case. I got far less per month than I’d ever thought I would. But it’s open for re-evaluation, should his (or my) situation improve. All in all, not a total loss, harsher than I feel I deserve, but livable. I know how thin Fareed is stretched financially these days and I feel bad for him. I wanted to show some humanity, engender some feelings of support. Hopefully one day he may do the same for me. Many would think I’m nuts to even think so. But regardless, I didn’t want to continue hammering away at him, creating more stress in his world. He’s got it bad enough. I did offer him my advise: don’t have any more kids if you want to get back to your projects, your profession. He laughed it off, but hey, both of his youngest boys were ‘surprises’. I reminded him that once upon a time, Jill had said she wanted six or seven kids. Just sayin.
When we finally sat down across the table across from each other in the courtroom, I remember feeling a sense of tranquility that was new to me. And when we were told to rise and approach the bench I was equally calm. This was it, and finally, there was no fear. I’d lived absolutely steeped in fear my first year in New York. And I admit that every single email from Fareed since has raised my heart rate quite noticeably. Now, my pulse did not even quicken. It was here that a poignant and unforeseen thing happened. As the bailiff called us up, I said aloud, “oh no, are we really going to get divorced now?” and at that moment, it hit us both. Tears sprang up in our eyes, and we instinctively reached for each other’s hand. How cruel, how strange is this divorcing of someone you’ve spent half your life with. But before the sentiment could be fully appreciated by either of us we were made to approach the bench.
I watched the judge, fascinated by his inner process. At each point, he paused, looking at a spot on the desk before him, as he thought the multiple scenarios through. Then, like a speaking textbook, he said the agreement out loud in perfect, unrushed legalese for the record. There were some pauses, as he picked up a book to look up the exact source of a few ancient laws (one of which addressing the question of whether either one of us taking up with same-sex partners would legally be considered ‘conjugal’ relations, thereby nullifying the support – the mood here was playful and we all chuckled over the archaic rulings), yet in spite of his slow, deliberate method in less than a half hour he had finished what had taken nearly four years to accomplish.
So, are we divorced or not? As I understand it (and there may yet be another step as regards the official filing) not until my attorney gets our agreements down on paper in the correct format and presents it to the judge on March 7th and the judge then signs it, are we divorced. Yet with respect to Fareed’s pension, and the share I’m entitled to, our union did come to an end on January 18th.
And the numbers? Are they better? By a little. Elihu and I will still need foodstamps and heating assistance (more to the point, we will still qualify for the aid). I am very grateful that there exists such a system. We may need it awhile yet. The happier news is that my near-ex has agreed to pay me back the money I invested in our first home so many years ago. Plus a little extra. Not a whole lot extra, but enough that if I sock it away (that language sounds like my mom, yikes) and don’t use it up, it might end up being very helpful in my aged years. In that I have no savings or retirement, no other source of future income except that which I earn or have saved, this feels like it makes up a bit up for our situation. Elihu and I will still exist below the national poverty line, but it won’t be quite as dire. We will receive $1,000 a month from Fareed. I’ll make what I can teaching piano lessons, and if I can get this Studio thing going, hopefully I can glean something from that. And who knows, maybe I can self-publish some material and get a little from that as well. Although I’m really not where I’d hoped (and thought I deserved) to be, at least I know exactly where I stand. There is some peace and satisfaction to be had in that.
Our marriage wasn’t actually legal on the day of our ceremony. I take full responsibility; mistaking the marriage certificate for a parking ticket, I couldn’t find it on the day of our wedding in order to have the judge sign it. I had to wrestle with this one as the guests stirred about downstairs in our living room, anxiously awaiting the event. In the end, both Fareed and I agreed that it was the witness of our friends and family that truly made our wedding binding and real. That felt right and true. Legally, we weren’t married for another ten days. And now, it seems we’re in the same place. We went before the judge, stating aloud our intentions, but we won’t have the docs to back that up for a few weeks yet. Strangely inconclusive. Plus it just felt so sad. Those who’ve gone through this know what I mean. All that ceremony in getting married, all that lack of ceremony in getting divorced. Sad.
In the end, we were truly married by the witness of dear friends. And with your witness here again today, I think we can consider both the marriage and the divorce of Fareed and Elizabeth to be concluded. Amen.
The Hillhouse 