The Light Above

The light above shines brightly through the bare trees. Stay atop the hill, or slouch toward another living soul; but I know you, still.

The fabrications, the bravado, the narcissism, all.

The dishonest dance mocks me now.

Yet today I know
Present moment, only moment

When will I ever let go?

Don't you know?

What would I do to bring forth my own life, blessed hope, and good fortune? What could I accomplish if I could accept myself?

Where would that lead, if I could look in the mirror and see the world in my reflection? Where would I be then, if not in sorrow?

How would I leave the past behind, as you say I have not moved beyond it? How can you understand the depth of loss and loneliness if you refuse to ever look at it or recognize it in your own soul?

When would I have been enough for you to stay, if ever? When would you have told me, if not before the music played on the hill, or the birthday beckoned, or the other woman was admitted for show?

Don't you know?

Ivana, The Donald, and Heartache

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and tell me that a broken heart takes time to heal (he says the same thing). In the meantime, I'll schlump around and bemoan my fate. I'll blame his inconstancy. I'll curse his frantic need to find an idealized mate. I'll tell you how he had more problems than I had realized, though he told me as much about his history with relationships--on our second date. I'll tell you how I never felt I was good enough, and how I was so bloody grateful to have such a talented and handsome boyfriend.

Am I bitter? No, I haven't even started to go there yet. I am not the only person in the history of humankind to be told I am not The One (and that there is someone waiting in the wings who might just be). Doesn't matter: the joke is still on me.

Keep busy. Hang out with positive people. Take a trip. Lean on loyal friends. Stop remembering moments in which something else could have been said or done. Stop replaying moments from our time in Italy, however painful that was . . . the beginning of the end?

Stop wishing I could have addressed my own fears first and just left after the first three months when my inner voice screamed get out...

Did Ivana feel this way when it was over with The Donald?

To some promised land or other

Over that river on a slender thread
of hope, to neither the top
of the hill nor the comfort of
a shaded glade.

Along that road to the village of solitude
most treasured, of comfort and ease, where
I settle into yet another home, with
heart filled with hope of renewal.

Good-bye and farewell to the frantic thoughts
of loss and consequence.

The Story of the Mountain Lion

Very late one evening in the 1980s, while staying with family in Bennington, Vermont, I was reading in my room at the back of the house when I heard an unholy piercing scream. I was petrified and thought to myself, Either an alien has landed in the backyard or a woman is being murdered next door. The racket continued but seemed to grow near and then distant. The household's dog lay quietly asleep at my doorway. Eventually, the noise ceased. In the morning, my cousin asked how I had slept. I answered, "Fine . . . except for the eerie screaming in the backyard." She laughed and replied, "Oh, that's the catamount. He comes down from the mountain every so often and tramples my garden." I asked why the dog had not stirred and was told he was deaf.

Sometimes I can very deaf to what is going on in my life. It's an old habit, borne of the need to keep on keeping on when I was younger, when things were particularly difficult. It isn't very helpful now, however. Sticking one's head in the sand to drown out the screaming, that is.

Old habits die hard.

A New Fall

A new fall season. Driving to Gloucester yesterday afternoon for a wedding (having fought my way through Friday-afternoon traffic on 93 and then 128), I noted once again how much the fall season in New England makes my heart sing. There's something about the light and the air. And, yeah, the trees are nice, too.

There are so many associations: Growing up in the Adirondacks, on top of West Mountain. Literally. Spending time on Lake George throughout the summer and into the fall, on my dad's speed boat. Sensing the shift in the wind moving through the leaves the third week of August. Watching the summer tourist season at my dad's motel come to an abrupt halt after Labor Day. Gathering up my belongings and making the trek to Albany, back to boarding school. Then, later, to Boston and Saratoga for college.

I moved to Boston from Glens Falls 30 years ago this fall for my first grown-up job. I had a broken heart at the time, but it healed. I lived in a tiny little neighborhood in Watertown's East End, next to the Mount Auburn Cemetery. There were railway tracks running through the backyard, plus a silo nearby from a breadcrumb factory that leaked flour and left our cars with a light dusting from time to time. I liked to say it was the neighborhood that time forgot. A true cul de sac, filled with families, where I felt very safe as a young woman living alone in her $400/month apartment.

That was the start of my love affair with Watertown, Massachusetts. It's been my home for all but five of my 30 years here. And now . . . and now, I am about to move to Brattleboro, Vermont. A new New England adventure as I settle into my 50s.

Be Here Now

Yes, I should be packing (and I don't mean a pistol), but there are just so many other things a girl can do of a Friday night, ya know?

I see that my rifle-toting Vermont cousin has started her own blog, entitled Where Am I and What Am I Doing? Great title, no? She shared a photo of a cemetery in Wardsboro, where some of our ancestors have been resting comfortably for more than a century. The photo and her post in general reminded me of the many fine conversations we've shared in the nearly three years we've spent getting (re)acquainted, and the spirit of openness and compassion that exists between us.

As I, um, mature, I've come to realize how important it is to let the past simply mutate into whatever it will be, now. We keep telling the stories, of course, but their significance exists somewhere between our memories and this very moment. Only we can decide where to stop along the way; what to notice, whether to smile wistfully at human folly or turn away from it. Even so, the stories don't mean anything without the people who populate them.

I think I am going to be the revisionist of my own life, and my life only, going forward.