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??

Interim Post…

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I know I’ve got some splainin to do. It’ll just have to wait for a bit though, as the logistics of life have thrown themselves at me the past few hours since I’ve been home.

When I got back from Chicago yesterday I found my home stone cold. The pipe that had burst late on Tuesday afternoon had indeed turned out to be part of the hot water system that runs throughout the house (I’d thought so but dreaded to have it confirmed). Yikes. A nail, softly laying aside the pipe for nigh on these past forty years had finally etched a tiny fissure in the copper after dozens of seasonal freezes and thaws… I had it fixed last night, but sadly paid overtime for the job. Make that my mother paid overtime for the job. Sigh.

Spent a good part of the day writing my post on the events of Wednesday, but as I wrote I noticed that my usually chilly house was getting just a wee bit more uncomfortable than usual. Had that old familiar feeling. Was I, just perhaps, out of oil? I smiled at the thought. It doesn’t scare me so much anymore. I know the drill. (Ironic, isn’t it, to first have one’s heating system fixed only to then run out of fuel?) I checked the oil level and found indeed, I was out. Did some calculations and learned that I had been far more frugal this year than last, using less than 2 gallons a day. Well and good, Elizabeth, but it don’t count for much if you don’t plan things out in advance. ! And I hadn’t. (Rather than face head-on when it was that I might run out of oil, I’d used the ‘duck and cover’ approach. You know – if you don’t acknowledge it, it won’t happen. ! ). So I got myself $30 worth of kerosene and poured it in. Good til Monday. Somehow, it will be alright. I just know.

So. Kid’s in the bath and I need to give him some attention. Been distracted with the heat, the plumbers, the crap that’s popped up since last night when I got home. Will post the update tomorrow, I promise. Suffice to say I thank you all. I know you helped. Things went well. Some might not agree, but in the end, just to know where I stand is better than the state of limbo I’ve been in these past three years. I’ve wrapped up this era in my life. Even if I still fall well within the government’s definition of poverty, it’s ok. I have a much better sense of peace. The threat of impending drama has dimmed.

I’m divorced, and I’m not divorced, both at the same time. Really. Not quite there even still. But at least now I can see that the speck of light ahead is actually the end of this tunnel, and just the beginning of a whole new run of track.

Graduation Day

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Oh would that I could end this. Some tell me to fight, some say get angry, some say take him for all he’s worth. Trouble is, ‘taking’ him for anything at all costs money. I simply don’t have the money to keep up the fight. Justice costs money. Plain and simple. And anyway I don’t like fighting. But I haven’t given up on my quest for equity – not quite yet.

Today I spent money I don’t even have on one round-trip ticket to Chicago in order to conclude this exhausting process. Also today, a pipe in my house burst, filling bucket after bucket and taking the ceiling down with it, yet there’s nothing I can do about it. Insane timing, huh. I shake my head in disbelief and try not to feel sorrier for myself than I do already. I admit I’m slipping a bit today. Here I go, spending more money than I have, stepping out onto the precipice of a frightening life ledge, and my house is springing a leak. Man. Really? Are you kidding? Thankfully, in the end, I do indeed have a good sense of humor. And I know that I’m in a far better place today than I was one year ago today. All in its time and place. Just breathe…

Am I not a good person, with the best, most loving intentions for all? I believe I am. How is it that Fareed can treat me as he does? In November we arrived at a settlement agreement, one in which he agreed to pay me back the money I’d invested in our first home nearly fifteen years ago. At the eleventh hour his father intervened, literally showing up in the courthouse lobby after having consulted his own private attorney, demanding Fareed not sign his own agreement. Perhaps in fear of his father, of the possibility of being disinherited (I can’t believe his father would do that, but then again I can’t believe that Fareed gives his daughter in London more he does Elihu, but there it is) Fareed ended up declining to sign his own offer. Minutes before going before the judge. My attorney said in his some thirty years in this profession he has never seen anyone so ballsy, so crass as Fareed. Wow.

His father insists that I owe him thousands – never mind there’s nothing on paper to that effect, never mind that he gifted Fareed and me money through the years resulting in tax benefits to him. Never mind that he offered his support without hesitation, that he knew intimately how we needed his help to maintain our home, our illusory middle-class life. His son’s lifestyle was a great source of pride for the man; he was able to show his Pakistani family how successful his son had become. A famous jazz guitarist, yes, but look! He has a fine home and a beautiful wife and a son! (Make that three sons…) His father was well pleased with our ‘progress’ and did not hide it. I guess it’s because I left Illinois that the patriarch is so up in arms. He told his son “there has to be a limit to her audacity”. My audacity was a request to receive enough money such that we might afford to heat our house and have enough food to eat. I’ve got balls too, huh.

Ok. I’ve ranted. I’ve indulged and given way to the crap that I so long to share with supportive ears. I really want to be done with this song. I’m so friggin tired of this story. Are we not all outraged? Good! Then let’s finish this thing and move fucking on already. I and many, many others see the blatant inequity. Let’s hope the judge does too. Let’s hope my over-priced airfare pays off tomorrow. Oh friends, really, if you can just think one tiny, kind thought for my progress and success tomorrow, I believe it will help. I mean to end this phase of my life. On Wednesday, as you finish your lunches and head back into your day, I hope you can send a wisp of a kind thought my way. I will be so very grateful.

My divorce is now in its fourth year. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve worked hard. I’m ready to receive my diploma.

Coming Clean

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It seems I’ve outed myself. I knew there’d be folks for whom my smoke jones would come as a bit of a surprise, I also knew there’d be those who’d nod to themselves, thinking how they’d been there too… I feel I’m in a netherworld – I jones for that which I disdain. I am, and I am not. At the same time.

I do know what it’s like to pass a decade without even thinking of a cigarette. I also remember a time in the early 90s as a hard-smoking, hard working musician when cigarettes were simply part of the landscape. Yet even then, in the midst of the most decadent time in my life, I would shudder with revulsion at the ‘after smell’ of smokers, out in the real world, away from the proper, cloistered confines of the cigarette.

The other day, at the end of my fruitless and enlightening quest for a smoke I came upon an ironic situation. I’d gone to the town hall in order to clear up some questions regarding a property line. When I joined the assessor at the map, we two mere inches away from each other, I smelled it. She, despite her well-groomed efforts to keep a professional, un-smoking profile at work, was a ‘ten minute break out back by the dumpster’ smoker. The acrid, disgusting scent told me the unmistakable truth. If I couldn’t bum one from the guys at the garage, I could get one from this gal. But then, how would it sound if I said, “Hey, I think you might be a smoker, could I possibly bum one from you?” Seriously. “You kinda stink, but hey, that’s ok, cuz I’m lame too!” I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t want one that badly. Instant perspective. I did shell out two bucks for an enticing color topo map of my neighborhood, but I did not offer it up for a smoke.

I know that tough times leave a human searching for relief, for comfort. Something to take the edge off. I can remember a time in my life when for many years there was simply nothing to take the edge off of. I may have been crazy-busy, over committed professionally, but still, no edge. Now here I am, no overt pressures on me, no relationship to fret over and no professional stress either, yet there’s an uncomfortable edge pushing at me almost each day, worrying me, threatening me, reminding me that I’m not entirely comfortable, at peace.

Yes, it is getting better for me. Much better. But this unresolved divorce and unrelenting poverty still hang over me, coloring my view of things. I’ve seen the sad sacks outside the doors of the social services office, all of them smoking, stinking, smoking. I think “Poor souls, why don’t they just quit? My God, they’re dirt poor already, how can they shell out ten bucks for a pack of cigarettes??”  And then I go home, and realize that I’ve got less than twenty bucks to last the week. I’m feeling that edge again. I can’t do much with twenty bucks, but I can buy a pack of something that will temporarily take the edge away. Even if the feeling is gone almost as soon as it’s procured. Even if. At least. At least it’s something. Something besides that Goddammed edge.

So I understand both sides. At the same time. Fully loaded with all the facts, scientific and emotional. No easy answer. The best one is to distract in the moment of stress, get through it somehow, and congratulate yourself for having made it. Then of course, there’s that edge. Still there. What to do? Humor helps. Yeah, exercise and meditation too. Somehow though, like flossing, it’s easier contemplated than incorporated into one’s routine. At least in the beginning. And I’m still in that neighborhood. Maybe just a bit past the starting line, but truthfully, I feel I’m just getting started on my ‘new’ life just about now. The past three years were a tricky phase of transition, of ground-laying. Now, antidepressants long concluded and cigarettes off the list, I’m ready for the next phase. Ok. But there’s still all this future to deal with. I have be able to negotiate it on my own.

There’s that pushy Mr. Edge to contend with. He’s still here. So I guess I gotta put my shoulder into it now. Get the healthy routines down. Make em second nature. Maybe even throw in a hot bath. I haven’t always been a bath girl, but I have rediscovered them the past couple years. Not always convenient, but still, it might serve to ease the way a bit.

At least it’ll give me another chance at a clean start.

Jonesin

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Hookay. I admit it. Today I would like a cigarette. I mean REALLY like a cigarette. Been clean a while. The past three years I’ve been a casual on again, off again smoker. Whenever I feel it’s too much, I just back off. Haven’t bought any in a long time. But I’ve smoked em. New Year’s Eve, after dinner at my friend’s house, on her back deck in the unseasonal forty degree weather, as we listened to the coyotes up on the ridge, their eerie hoots and yowls oh-so close by, we enjoyed a post-meal smoke. That well-placed cigarette hit the spot, I can tell you. And yet it also sounded the ‘too much’ bell somewhere inside. I’d had my fill of indulgence over the holiday, and this cigarette heralded a run of clean living to follow.

It started out well. With my basement cleaned out and a good measure of physical space restored plus aesthetic appeal to help motivate me, I’ve used my treadmill most days. It wasn’t so much part of a New Year’s campaign; I myself never choose to publicly – or privately – proclaim a New Year’s resolution. I am done with the disappointment and the feeling of failure that follows. Instead, I keep some new goals and values at the front of my awareness, encouraging myself to make baby steps towards them. I finally get that as a human, I’m encouraged by tenderness and understanding, and I choose to treat myself with such on the treacherous road to better living. I allow myself failures, and praise myself at small achievements. While it’s perhaps a more realistic approach to self-betterment, it can also provide too lenient a path to casual relapses. Hence today’s search for a cigarette.

I’m not going to buy a pack. I’m fairly broke, and that’s just not right. Can’t do it. Besides – if I did, I’d smoke the whole thing. No. I don’t even want a pack. I just want one. Just one. Ok. I’ve always been able to find just one when I wanted – I know the places to drive past; the homeless guys on the parking lot wall across the street from social services, the ghetto chopper parking lot, the Pakistani-owned gas station, maybe even the working men in their trucks at the local Stewarts shop. Usually, one’s a hit. I always offer a dollar, sometimes they accept, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they even give me ‘one for the road’. Once I even met a very engaging gentleman through my pursuit of a smoke, who I later learned to be a maxillofacial surgeon. I spied him leaving the all night pantry, tapping the bottom of his unopened Marlboro Lights package. After I’d learned more about him, I asked why in hell was a fellow such as he pondering this cigarette, when he’d been months without one? When he, as a doctor, should know intimately the dangers? He too was bothered by an ending relationship, and like me, he too was simply searching for some relief. He’d ended up giving me two, which yes, I did smoke. I often wonder about him. Did he succumb as well? I’d begged him not to, but what a two-faced, flimsy entreat. I was weak, I hope he was not.

This morning I made all the usual stops to procure my fix, but not a one of them panned out. I ended up making some rather desperate attempts at finding one; I asked at the shop where my car’d been worked on. Not one of the men there smoked. Some never even had. Grease under the nails, cute chick auto parts posters on the walls and not a Marlboro between them. I stopped by the other shop in town – greasier and grittier by far – thinking it was done. But no – even Beetle quit six months ago. I heard how he’d shoved gum in his mouth til his cheeks were as big as my head – he wasn’t going to smoke ever again. Even threw his pack out unfinished. Wow. Beetle quit? Geez. Joe gave me a little pep talk – how a pretty girl doesn’t want to go and get all wrinkly… It wasn’t his pitch nor the story of Beetle that really did it for me. After my fruitless yet highly motivated town-wide search I was fairly confident that the universe had intervened. Apparently, today I’d needed some help.

The day is nearly done now. My son sits at my feet, building with his new blocks, singing an improvised, operatic narrative of everything that enters his head. Dinner soon, then to bed where we’ll get down to the really scary parts of Treasure Island. I’m over the hump.

For now, that is.

Gifts Assorted

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I played piano for a holiday party in one of the historic mansions of Saratoga Springs last night. Can’t help but reflect on how things change. Not too long ago I myself was the hostess of a similar affair. Then too, I sat at the piano and played Christmas carols and led the guests in song. Only now, my back faced the singers as I sat at an old upright, out-of-tune piano in the foyer of someone else’s home. Back then, I looked out over my ancient baby grand at my friends as they sang, enjoying their faces, the look of pleasure and togetherness I recognized on them, savoring the moment and filing away the images in my mind to remember forever. Last night, although kindly treated and fully appreciated, I was an outsider. For a moment here and there, I missed the old days, and ever so briefly, my heart became sad. Even still, having been rather cloistered away in my tiny country cottage these past three years, I was happy at the opportunity to be playing again among people.

Elihu had spent the evening running up and down the four wooden staircases, dropping wine corks down the center to the hall below, just missing the heads of guests standing in line for the bathroom. He befriended a small boy – very much of the same spirit as he – and the two darted through the forest of grown ups, following on small adventures through the house’s many rooms. As I played just about the whole three hours I was there, he had lots of time to himself. The books and drawing materials I always bring along with us to keep him entertained sat untouched at my feet as he explored the huge house, befriending cats, a dog, discovering a large game fish mounted on the wall of the billiard room on the top floor. He announced when we got in the car – and reiterated several times later on – that it had been his very favorite party ever. And this kid’s been to his share. “Why?” I asked, sincerely curious. “Because I could be alone. No one was watching me, making sure I could see something, making sure I was ok… I was with everyone and I was still alone!” I assured him I understood completely. I did. I have lived most of my life as a lone person in a crowd. It can be a wonderful feeling. Sometimes it’s just the best of both worlds.

Today Elihu flew to Chicago to be with his father for Christmas. So far Elihu has not spent a Christmas here. Probably never will. How can I deprive him of being in a household of two small boys, a mommy and a daddy on Christmas morning? I can’t. Elihu knows that Santa is old-fashioned at heart; he honors all twelve days of Christmas and seems to prefer visiting the country homes after that first, too-busy night of the holiday. That means after Elihu comes back, on New Year’s day, he may indeed find presents under our humble tree well before the wise men reach Bethlehem. So I do have Christmas with him. Only it’s just not on the 25th. And he ends up getting ‘more Christmas’ than most kids do. All around, it’s ok.

It was twenty-five years ago tonight that Fareed and I went on our first date. “VIP” seats at the Nutcracker in Chicago. They turned out to be a couple of folding chairs behind the last row of seats, hastily set up for us as the lights dimmed. Fareed had forgotten where he parked the car, so after the show we waited in the cold of the underground parking lot until it thinned out a bit and the car, a retired suburban cop vehicle, could finally be spotted. Checking first to see if it was ok with him, I removed my stockings. As it was a first date, I’d been trying to impress. Clearly, after the folding chairs and lost car I didn’t have to suffer through pantyhose all night. Off they came, ending up in the bottom of my purse. Then we were off to a fine, downtown Indian restaurant. A world opened up for me in that dinner. Then we visited his Rogers Park apartment, which was not far from my own Rogers Park apartment, the one in which we would live together for the following twelve years. It was then and there that he played for me a recording of John Williams playing the Aranjuez concerto. What did I say when it was over? I asked him if he could please play it again. To him, this seemed to seal the deal. For me, I was just trying to understand this strange new music. I needed a second pass at it. As I drove down the dark highway tonight after dropping our son off at the airport, I remembered what day it was. And our story came back. Hadn’t thought of it in years. Can it really have been a quarter of a century ago? Truly, it was the night that changed my life. I wouldn’t have my son, my life, and all that I’ve learned from it, if it weren’t for that one night, so long ago.

The first year we lived here we went back to Dekalb to visit over the holiday. I cannot imagine how I did that; I slept in my own house – along with my husband, his young girlfriend and their baby, waking up in that same house on Christmas morning to share the day with them – as if we were all some sort of a natural family. (I guess ultimately we are some type of family. Strained, not quite at peace yet, but in some way all related, like it or not.) I had been trying to show my young son that everything was ok; that I was ok, that I approved of this new family. Elihu had my permission to love them. I did not want my son to feel guilty for loving his new baby brother, however stunned I still was at the new baby even being here. (Today I realize that the antidepressants I was on back then probably enabled me to make such a brave visit, because I cannot imagine making such a visit today, ‘clean’ and fully alert as I am now.) On Christmas Eve I’d taken a prescription sleeping pill, and as it began to kick in, mercifully numbing me to the current surreality of my life, my then five-year old son told me he wanted to leave something for Santa. I was too groggy to deal with logistics this last-minute; we were in bed, for crying out loud. “Santa always gets cookies.” Elihu said. “But he’s fat; he doesn’t need cookies. I want to give him something he needs.” I struggled to stay awake for him as he thought about it for a minute. “I’ll bet he needs a screwdriver. A phillips screwdriver. He could really use that.” I told him to run downstairs and ask Jill and Daddy. So he did. A few minutes later he crawled into bed with me, happy to know that his gift for Santa – a small, phillips head screwdriver – was under the tree waiting for him. That Christmas may have been strange and painful, but I will never forget Elihu’s true love and concern for Santa as expressed in that one, tiny and meaningful gift. It more than made up for it.

I stopped in to see my parents after I dropped Elihu off at the airport. We had a nice visit. They were watching different ballet companies’ versions of the Nutcracker, a marathon of performances after which the viewers could call in and vote for their favorite. I told my folks that just that afternoon Elihu had recounted the Nutcracker for me – only he didn’t want to tell me how it ended and ruin the story for me. ! He’s a thoughtful kid. And I appreciate that. Not sure if I’m as thoughtful a kid; I often worry about my parents growing old and having all that house and life to take care of, yet I don’t stop in too often, despite my living next door. Life just seems to take over, and guilt follows. So I’m glad that I at least stopped in. Made going home to my first decadent night of house-tidying and free-form internet surfing feel better earned. Plus I knew that they were ok. And that’s something I don’t take for granted these days.

No sooner had I returned home than the phone rang. Elihu just wanted me to know that he had arrived safe and sound. “Love you so much” he said before he hung up. And then I was alone. For the first time in a long while my house was truly empty. I thought about the week before me, an expanse of time that belonged only to me and my private to-do lists. This week, I would to put my house in order. I would file every last paper, toss every last unused article, and donate every last item that needs a new home. For me, this week is truly the best gift ever.

Santa, dear man, you can forget about me this year. I’ve got pretty much everything I need.

Bad Apple

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Apparently my near ex finds this blog an unhealthy mess. A forum for self-pity in which I exploit my child, as well as his other three.  Threatens to take legal action of some sort if I don’t retract certain things. Gotta say, that doesn’t feel great. But today I am rather done with being bullied. The self-righteous way in which he wields his power seems the unhealthy mess here.

I have had some revelations in my solitude. For nearly the past quarter century I’ve been too enmeshed in this person’s life to gain any meaningful perspective. Lately, it’s occurred to me (only lately?, some might wonder) that given the way in which my near ex was raised, his behavior is not entirely shocking. When our news became known to folks, quite a few felt the freedom to finally express their true feelings on the man. There is a consensus among these opinions; he is a talented motherfucker, a hard worker, and he can appear as sweet as you please – yet there’s a frighteningly chilly side to this worldly, successful musician that shows up real quick when you no longer serve his agenda.  Was he fired from his last band as he pleads in his divorce statements in order to show hardship, or did he quit in order to boldly strike out on his own, as he purports to the Chicago Tribune? Two stories, one narrator. He amends his story as needed. Yes, he’s a whole bunch of stuff, but he’s not stupid.

My near ex is an only child and has never wanted for much. He’s enjoyed the world on his own terms for all of his life. His parents have enjoyed the same. Immigrants of the 50s who came here to attend college, their story is at first romantic and inspiring. They created wealth and success in their new adoptive country. They had one child, and brought him up in a household of culture, learning, travel – and top-shelf dysfunction. I oughta know.

To this day his father sleeps on top of a desk in a windowless basement office in a cement-block building on the outskirts of the campus from which he is a retired professor. His amenities include a hotplate and a dorm-sized fridge. Don’t know how or where he performs his toilet. We always used to wonder. He virtually lives in his overcoat – something which has appeared endearing at times – yet it does smack of a certain cluelessness. However he lives or dresses, this man has certainly accomplished a lot in his life, and honestly, there’s no other person I know who has the magic touch as he does when it comes to acquiring permits or having bank fees waived. He’s got a certain thing – I will handily give him that. But that he owns property which might afford him a fine standard of living, yet he lives like a homeless stowaway – that I’ve never really understood. In the end it never really mattered. He was always there for his son – and til now, his daughter in law. He coached, offered advice – and he was never, ever without a solution. I can hear him now, in his soft Pakistani accent, “Elizabeth, one could simply just….” Every problem was met with a “one could simply just ____” Easy to say when you have several Mexican laborers living in your basement and ready to jump at any task for $7 an hour. Yeah, if I had that resource there are a lot of things I could “simply just”. !

Last year he and my mother in law came here to visit us in New York. He told me he had a “mystery” he needed to solve and that he needed to put on his “Sherlock Holmes hat”. He leaned in, as if to whisper to me, and said in an almost rhetorical tone “I cannot figure out why you would want to move here, to New York“. We had just ended an awkward, yet somewhat sweet visit with both of them and my parents (after all we’d all been family for twenty years in spite of the crazy events), and I thought it was rather evident why I was here, and especially so because my parents lived right next door to me. Regardless of how obvious it all seemed, I spelled it out for him. In retrospect, I wish I’d played the teacher card and turned it around: “I don’t know, why do you think I moved to New York?”. That I had to answer – that the question was even in his mind – proved that he was only able to see the world from his private epicenter. His son is much the same. In their eyes, I left Dekalb for selfish reasons. (If self-preservation equals selfish, well then, I agree.)

My mother in law is another character whose personal description might fill an entire post. She is well past 80 and continues to dye her hair a fire engine red using ‘congo red’, a laboratory stain she gets through her husband’s business. It saves her the cost of box color. Years ago she was diagnosed with a latent form of what doctors term “high-functioning schizophrenia”. When the stress in her life reaches a critical level, her symptoms begin to manifest. And I tell you, life has a dreamlike quality to it when you’re searching under the floorboards in her basement apartment bathroom (no, they don’t live together and haven’t in twenty years) for gobs of bills and gold stored in ziplock bags and must retrieve them for her silently, stealthily, so as not to be picked up on the cameras which were placed inside her home by the government.

I know a number of folks with schizophrenia, some whose lives have been horribly changed, some not so much. It’s nothing to joke about, yet it’s also not something to deny and avoid. And yet we all did, for two decades. We’d dance around her, her temper, her stress threshold, with her husband confiding in me every few years that this time he was serving her with divorce papers, but I was not to tell anyone. Time and time again he would end our talks: “Elizabeth, this conversation never happened.” I was jockeyed about between all three of them, keeping lies, disclosing what was advantageous for a currently needed solution – oh I was knee-deep in crap. I played the game right along with em. But it was how we all lived. There my husband was, adored and revered in public, but privately he was twisted up in a tangle of half-truths and intimate deception.

And I guess I didn’t do much to stop it. Sometimes I tried. When I did, I was told not to rock the boat. If we wanted their help. And with that big Evanston home, we needed help. So I admit, I found it easier to shut up and deal with it than to expose the dysfunction and point to the huge elephant sitting in our living room. What good would it have done? We had our home, and they were living as they chose. We each had our thing in place. They always had drama, and we always had to dance around it. It was a drag of a way to live, but it worked. They greased the wheel, so we kept on rolling…

I don’t want to deny my parents in law all the wonderful things they’ve given me. I’ve traveled the world with them, learned about other cultures from the inside, learned how to cook new kinds of food, learned things from the metaphysical to the mundane. I have truly learned a lot from them, and for this I give them my love and my gratitude. But no more will I give them my deference.

I had thought perhaps, in this new era of babies, families and moving on that it might be time to lay our cards down and reassess our old methods. Perhaps it was time for truth. This is in part why I began to write this blog – I was exhausted from keeping so much in and for so many years.  I recently wrote a letter to all three – mother, father, son, in which I did indeed point out the enormous and unrecognized guest in the room. I laid it all out. My near ex claims it has had the opposite affect of the one I intended. Well, maybe not. I’m kinda screwed here no matter what. I just meant to get shit out in the open so I could finally breathe free and clear. I guess I’d thought they would rally to my aid in some way given the blatant inequity of the situation, that my father in law would take up his “one could simply just” mantra, but no. He hasn’t even responded to my emails. That’s never happened before. Clearly, the sides are chosen, the era of my compliance has ended, and with it, my membership in the club.

It seems the apple has not fallen far from the tree.

Of Mice and Money

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How much to guard? How much to reveal? This very public forum has me second guessing things I’d probably once have written about without pause. Well, I have some new plans which feel pretty good, and as I’ve no support whatsoever from my husband nor his family, I’m going ahead with it. I’m filing for bankruptcy.

I’ve learned that the legal firms who now handle my debts can attach the money in my checking account. Once they’ve done their legal thing and followed the proper procedure, they are entitled to make the next step towards recovering the debt. Not that I wouldn’t pay the debt if I had an income, or the means, but I simply don’t. And I need the little I have to keep the electric on. So here we go…

I’m surprised at how matter-of-fact this all feels. I feel slightly detached, as if I were gliding through a dream. What the hell is real anyhow? I’m not doing so well economically for the time being, true, but I live comfortably, and surrounded by beauty. So am I truly poor? (Often, when I remark to Elihu that we’re lucky in many ways, citing our ownership of the land on which we live as proof – make that my parent’s ownership of the land on which we live – my son will correct me. He reminds me that people do not own land. We agree to leave each other to enjoy our own little pieces of it in our own ways, but, he reiterates, we do not own the land. Ok. He’s right, I know, but still it buoys the spirit to think we have ownership of something.) My ego-driven self really wants to know I still have something to show for myself here, yet in the end I do know that nothing is truly ours, and despite our best efforts everything will change form and cease being what it once was. I offer my beloved Aerosoles mid-heel slip-ons, frayed at the edges by gnawing mice as example. Looks like Jesus was right. All our stuff is going the way of rust, mice and moths at some point. So perhaps wealth – or at least the perception of  having stuff – is rather a shifting mirage.

So here I go. I’m starting over. I can only buy things that I have cash in hand for. Thankfully, that’s not really a new challenge; I’ve been living like that for nearly three years now. My needs are fairly modest, and I’m good at being frugal. Who knew? This is a reality I would never have dreamed of three years ago this time. I admit I get to feeling sorry for myself when I pass the patrons seated on the sidewalks in front of the wonderful Saratoga restaurants – I covet their elegant-looking salads and thin-stemmed wine glasses, but hey, I’ve been there, done that.

Not to worry, I’ll taste the arugula again.

Switching Channels

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An uncomfortable volley of emails. Angry action taken on both sides. I am tired. He is tired. We can find no agreement. How is it possible? How on earth did I get here?

I have refused to sign and return our joint tax papers until I can be assured the $8K refund will go to my son and me, as my husband offered. Now he says he must use the money for property taxes, else the property will go into foreclosure. I can’t be much worse off than I currently am, so I refuse. I can see no other card, save the precious child card. Til now I’ve adamantly refused to take that path. My son loves his father, and he needs him. I cannot remove his dad from his life. Barely out of bed, today I am fairly exhausted.

We’ve all seen those inspiring, tear-inducing spots on you tube of down-trodden people who’ve risen up against huge challenges to become shining examples of possibility. Against the backdrop of the world’s population my circumstances do not look bad. And truly, thanks to the welfare system of this country, I am not hungry. Yes, I have been without food and heat, but never to the point of abject poverty. I drive a CRV (can’t afford tires or routine service, but it’s paid for nontheless, and it serves me well). I live in a house. I have a computer and internet access. I have all four limbs and my health. And usually, a sense of humor. Today I am trying to measure the quality of my life against the bulk of the people with whom I share this planet, in order that I might take a breath and step back for a moment.

Today, I will put aside the divorce drama and instead focus fully on The Studio. The community arts center which lives primarily in my dreams at present. I must give less energy to the dark concerns that tug at me daily, hourly. Somehow I must keep the hopeful vision of The Studio alive and fully animated in my thoughts. I must imagine the sounds of happy children’s laughs ringing out within the Studio walls, I must imagine the gorgeous sounds of Baroque music which will fill the concert hall this July. I must keep these images lively and dancing in my awareness at all times. How in hell I’ll glean an income from an arts center, I have no idea. I’m a musician, not an administrator. But today, I will trust. I will just trust, that where my attention goes, my energy flows and results will manifest. I admit, I spend most of my energy dwelling on the hopelessness of my situation, and I see only more of the same.

Today I will change the channels. I will participate in my future vision instead of the current reality. I’ll see if the world looks any different tomorrow.  (My attorney seems to have no problem with letting 24 hours pass without attention to this case – maybe it’s time I tried it too!) Pass me the remote…

Birth and Baptism

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary, Mommy Mind3 Comments

It was three years ago today when my husband saw his second son born. My husband’s pregnant girlfriend was due to deliver their baby sometime around the middle of June, so I’d made plans for Elihu and me to be out of town during that time. The wait was over.

As my husband had not officially moved out of our house, and as the couple had no place other than that of her parents, I had begun to make peace with the idea of starting over far across the country, closer to my own family, and leaving our marital home to the two of them and their new baby. Just a few years before I’d left my beloved Evanston, just outside of Chicago and moved to the rural town of Dekalb so that Fareed, Elihu and I might start our life anew. Now, without my husband, I had no reason to stay in that small town. I packed for a week’s vacation and took Elihu to the place that would soon be our new home. My son and I were far away when Charlie was born, three years ago today.

A friend had insisted we come and enjoy her family’s beautiful pond anytime we cared; they were all away and busy during the daytime, we would have the dock and water all to ourselves. On that sunny, warm June 12th, 2008, I took Elihu to the pond for an afternoon of pollywogs and distraction. While he had little idea how his own life was changing, I did, and that day was heavy with a strange, sick brew of feelings. It seemed I was living in a dream. My husband was about to have a new child. The child that had blown the lid off of everything.

My comprehension about it all was primitive. I could still not understand this. I’d lived through nine months with Fareed still living in our home; each day I was dreading the event that he himself awaited with great excitement. Such a queer mix of things, I could do no more to keep myself sane than to leave town and come back after the babe had been born. Here I was now, with my son, on a hot summer’s day, toes dangling off the dock in the cool water of a country pond while almost a thousand miles to the west something was changing. Here, my son was busy with nets and buckets, scooping up pond life, unaware of how his own life was changing in that very moment.

The sun and sparkling water gave me some relief. Elihu had taken an interest in the fishing gear there and for a time my energy was spent helping him bait and cast, and making sure that he didn’t hurt himself accidentally on the hooks. I was on vigilant watch against mishaps for a half hour until he lost interest and contented himself again with the net. I sat back in the Adirondack chair and looked out over the white pines that rimmed the water. I watched my son play, and thought to myself that in spite of our having been a family til now, Fareed had shared very little time with the two of us.

Most of my memories around Elihu did not include his father. Instead my memories were mostly just the two of us. Walking around our Evanston neighborhood, riding the bike on the lakefront, visiting friends, together at rehearsals, radio shows, performances. I had Elihu with me all the time, everywhere. I’d always felt this was a time of waiting. Waiting for our new life. A life in which I would set aside my gigs and projects to raise a family. A life in which Fareed would tour less, stay home more, enjoy our company. Now, it seemed, it might be just Elihu and me, alone, forever. My heart couldn’t bear this.

Here Fareed was, embarking on the familial journey with someone else instead of us, his real family. How could this be happening? We’d moved to Dekalb just two years ago in order to start over, but not like this! I tried to drink in my surroundings, to buffer myself against the constant barrage of thoughts. I needed to breathe, to separate myself from the pain. It felt like nature, water, air and light were the only things that could help me. The lakeside day was so bright and hopeful, it was oblivious to our loss. It was a day of contrasts that I could not comprehend.

My thoughts were interrupted by a huge splash. I needed not an instant to think, but sprang from my chair. The pond water was a dark amber, tinted by the tannin of leaves, and it obscured even bright objects only inches below the surface. As I looked down I saw the top of my son’s head descending through the water, its shape disappearing in the dark. I threw myself down into that darkness, grabbing blindly for my baby, finding him as fast as I could, then pushing him upward, my legs sinking to the knees in the silty bottom. If I’d been rescuing anyone other than my only child, I don’t know how I’d have gotten purchase enough on the ground to push him into the air….

But this was my son, my life, my everything. Somehow I lifted him above the water and again another foot upwards to the dock. I myself sank back down again after I’d set him on the platform, but in a rush of adrenaline I lifted myself up and onto the dock beside my Elihu, who was scared, but thank God, crying and alive. I held him against my body, I rocked him, I tried to soothe him. I held him as I’d never held him before.

We sat for awhile, waiting for our hearts to stop pounding. The horrifying image of the dark water closing in over my son played again and again in my head. He might well have died. Yet he didn’t, I had saved him from that. I’d given birth to him once, and today in some way, I’d given birth to him again. He was alive, I was alive, it was ok. And once again, it was just the two of us. It seemed the universe had demonstrated in the most acute way that we two were starting over. We had emerged from the water somehow changed.

As I drove up to my parents’ house my cell phone rang. Fareed’s tone was matter-of-fact. While he was not overtly rejoicing in his news, his mood was light and upbeat, different from the somber tone he’d used all those months as we waited for this day. I could hear in his voice a guarded excitement about his new life. His new son had been born about forty-five minutes earlier and he had just wanted me to know.

But then he went on to tell me details about the delivery – things I didn’t want to know, couldn’t possibly share delight in – while I sat in my car, still wet from the pond, dazed, trying to integrate what had just happened here with what had just happened there. As Fareed continued to talk, my mind began to piece together the last hour. It seemed that nearly the moment the new baby was born, my son was tumbling into the water. As the newborn took his first breath of air, my son struggled for the same. I sat, unmoving, stunned by the metaphor that had been placed so clearly in my path. This was a day of emergence and change. It was a day of cleansing and rebirth.

And if I’d not been entirely convinced before, I was then. We had been washed clean of our old life – and a new one had just begun.

Pick Yourself Up

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary, Farm Life, Mommy MindLeave a comment

Well thanks. I read your comments with tears, embarrassment, gratitude, relief. To know friends are out there really does help to keep me going. Immediately after I’d published my post I was filled with regret and shame, filled with the imagined comments of people who would justly scold me for being so full of self-pity today. Everybody has laundry. Every mom has a messy house. And chickens? I’ve lost chickens before, it’s nothing new, plus it’s to be expected in the country. Money problems? I’m able-bodied, I should just suck it up, get a day job and pack my kid off to a babysitter, right? Isn’t that what most people do? Who cares if I net two dollars an hour, at least it shows I’m trying, right?

Sometimes it must look as if I’m not really doing much about my situation. Some kind of action is called for, why have I not taken any? Why not? Now is when my mind quiets. I know why I live as I do. I know, and this is why: at the end of the day I would rather be poor and enjoy life with my son than well-off and seldom home. Although this notion doesn’t fly in a court of law – and in fact actually works against me – I can’t care about that. And because I have this ability and freedom in my life I should just cease my complaining and remember what I do have. I have the ability to do many things, and to do those things mostly when I’d like.

Today was not necessarily a bright day, but it was an important one.

I learned that my folks don’t have many great options in their future. In the beginning stages of his Alzheimer’s, dad neglected to renew his long-term care insurance and so now that’s not an option for them any more, in spite of them having once had it in place and having paid for it for a while. A real disappointment and waste. Wish my mom had taken action when she realized this, but hell, I know that the feeling of defeat kinda zaps you of the resolve to fight. She might have had a chance of appealing this when it happened, some seven years ago, but not today. Looks like the Tiffany lamp which hung in my dad’s childhood home might have to go to pay for the Jamaican lady who’ll have to come out to the house to look after him in his aged years. (Maybe not, as this may become my own full-time job one day.) If they title the house and other stuff over to me, then I won’t have the lifeline of welfare that currently keeps us fed, because on paper I’ll show to have financial means. And as I understand, if they put their few assets into a trust, the NY state laws may well end up allowing Medicare to attach it all anyway a couple years down the line, in order to pay back the system for any medical bills it’s covered thus far. (Apparently the new laws which we’ve yet to learn are being written as we speak.) How is that a trust? I thought trusts were supposed to protect against that kind of stuff. ?? Ok. Great prospects.

Is it all really so bleak? I look out on the landscape of the people around me and wonder, are they doing well or not? Do they understand their own financial futures or are they a big guessing game? How many know the rules – and how many don’t know and don’t care? My father’s mother burned through a couple million dollars – thirty years ago – languishing in a nursing home for a decade. At that point in her life she remembered no one. All the money her husband had carefully invested and set aside during all of their lives served no other person or purpose but to pay for her bed and meals as she lay there, just waiting for her death. God save us from that fate.

Leaving the elder lawyer’s office, I didn’t feel any better, in fact I felt worse, although I said something like ‘at least it feels good to know’ to my mom. Yeah, right. Thought there would have been more options. Well, we’ll do our homework, set up another appointment and hope that the future brightens up a bit by then.

Turns out I have a $15 credit with the garbage collector. That was good news. I enjoyed a nice exchange with the gal on the other end of the phone and we both laughed about it. Ok. I’ll take that. Pleasant chat, good news. Moving down my to-do list. I learned it will cost and additional $400 should Elihu and I choose to use our airplane tickets to Chicago before they expire in August; there is a myriad of fees atop the ticket price, making it likely I’ll bail and lose my initial purchase price of $600 altogether. (They’d been bought one year ago when it looked likely that Fareed and I had reached an agreement on our settlement. I was coming out for the court date. Turned out he wasn’t in agreement, and there was no need for my being present for yet another pointless court date.)

Sick feeling, gotta move on here. Decided to be proactive and called one of the three legal firms which continues to send me scary letters each month regarding payment of my marital credit card balances. Nothing interests them except money. Calling to say hi doesn’t do a thing. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. They may take legal action, I hear them say. They may put a lien against the house in Dekalb. Go ahead, I have nothing to lose. Really. Bad feeling in stomach, but at least I tried.

Sometime during my disheartening day of grown-up nonsense, I ended up canceling the appointment with Elihu’s mobility gal that we’d had planned for after school, because I thought it would just be too much in addition to the news I’d yet to give him. Thankfully she agreed. So I picked him up after school, took him out to get a snack at the local store (something I seldom do) and then finally drove him home, dreading the scene to follow.

I’d stalled as much as I could, finally I sat him down at the kitchen table for our talk. ‘I have something serious to tell you’ I said. I tried to prepare him for the moment. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘It really is serious, I just want you to know. It’ll all be ok, but it’s kind of sad.’ His eyes were fixed on me and the moment seemed to linger, timeless. ‘We lost all our chicks today’. He paused, never taking his eyes from mine. ‘All of them?’ I nodded. I wanted to say as little as possible, to let him express all he needed to. I was ready just to be there for him. I watched his face. Nothing. No scrunching up and crying, no laughing with discomfort, no anger, nothing. I told him that I’d cried all morning, and that if he wanted to cry of course he should. Once again, he was stoic. ‘I want to see’ he said, very seriously. ‘Yes, I wanted you to. I didn’t move them at all. I just waited for you to come home’. We walked out to the garage. He moved among the small bodies, picking each one up very matter-of-factly, examining them, noting how much was left, speculating how they must have died. At each one, he’d say their name and say that he’d miss them. Then he tossed them into a bin. He came to Pickles, the pretty, all white one named by a friend, and his voice sounded sad. ‘Oh, Pickles, I’m sorry’. He asked me to take a picture of her for the girl who’d named the chick. We set her aside. Finally, he came to Josephina, the black barred rock hen who’d been born on his birthday. ‘Jo-se-phee-na, oh Josehpina’ he lamented. But he did not cry. We set her aside too. We decided the rest would get tossed for the crows (and coons too, probably) and we’d bury Pickles and Josephina.

All in all, I think he did very well. Sometimes I wonder at how easily he takes this news; his father would likely say Elihu’s becoming acclimated, somehow desensitized to the deaths of his ‘pets’, but I would not agree. He acknowledged them, thanked them and then sent them on their way into the universe. After we wiped the dirt from our hands Elihu mused quietly ‘that’s life on a farm, I guess’. He wasn’t broken-hearted, but neither was he jumping with joy. It was what it was. A moment of stock-taking, of  pause, before moving on once again.

Elihu lost a tooth today. And while watching the Monty Python ‘Piranha Brothers’ sketch on you tube. ! A happy moment. And tonite, as I fished around under his pillow for the tooth and slid in the bill (yes, a bill, and having foolishly set the precedent at the market value of $5, that’s again what the tooth fairy left) I considered how lucky I was to know this moment. How lucky I was that I would have this to remember one day.

Hookay. Got it out of my system now. Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again.