EXCERPT FROM "THE GIFT FROM THE SEA"

~ By Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

Intermittency — an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb-tides of one's existence? How can one learn to take the trough of the wave? It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach. In this crystalline moment of suspense, one has a sudden revelation of the secret kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Here in the shallow flats one finds, wading through warm ripples, great horse conchs pivoting on a leg; white sand dollars, marble medallions engraved in the mud; and myriads of bright-colored cochina-clams, glistening in the foam, their shells opening and shutting like butterflies' wings. So beautiful is the still hour of the sea's withdrawal, as beautiful as the sea's return when the encroaching waves pound up the beach, pressing to reach those dark rumpled chains of seaweed which mark the last high tide.

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.

Naive Melody / This Must Be the Place

The husband had the day off, so he mentioned coming with me to the beach this morning. When he asked what time to set the alarm for, I said "If you want it to be GOOD, 5:30." I meant deer (he LOVES deer and is notorious for making me wake far too early to go to Cades Cove whenever we are in Tennessee). But things were not as I predicted. We saw very few, although I told him where to look on the ridges and indeed there were bucks with huge racks against the sky. The beach was vacant and the sunrise was extraordinary. I was less introspective with his company, but as we meandered and as he handed me this shell or that stone, I heard 'Home' playing in my mind. At this desk now, with the delectable internet at my fingertips, I am reminded that the real title is "This Must Be the Place" or, even better to my ears, "Naive Melody" :

Home is where I want to be

Pick me up and turn me round

I feel numb - born with a weak heart

I guess I must be having fun

The less we say about it the better

Make it up as we go along

Feet on the ground

Head in the sky

It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . .

I got plenty of time

You got light in your eyes

And you're standing here beside me

I love the passing of time

Never for money

Always for love

Cover up and say goodnight . . .

Home - is where I want to be

But I guess I'm already there

I come home - she lifted up her wings

Guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another

Did I find you, or you find me?

There was a time

Before we were born

If someone asks, this is where I'll be . . .

....

I have been thinking a lot about the roselle on a map lately... and if you know me very well, I have been talking a lot about them, too. There's a graphic in a textbook I use that shows a person standing in the center of a roselle. In thinking about the all of everything, and the feeling of being lost or off balance, I have realized that this roselle has been an internal metaphor for decades, and , like the book's illustration, I find myself in the center of mine. I have had two friends who have always been 'on my compass' so to speak. They've been there because I have known them since the time I began to really understand who I was. They have been, each, one to my left and one to my right. When I see this image in my deep heart's core, I see one hand reaching out toward one, and one hand reaching out towards the other. In the reaching, I see balance. Now, of course, there are many friends I reach out to to find my way and who inhabit my personal compass, and the image begins to look like an old example of marquetry, with arrows pointing to not only the four primary directions, but to each possible direction from every angle. The best friend from college is there. The closest friend from work is there. My favorite professor, now more like family, is there. My 8th grade Social Studies teacher, who I am still in touch with, has a spot... and so on. And, of course, the person I am married to does as well. But still, in my mind's eye, the balancing points are these two friends who both recognized and taught me first and most about who I was. In this real world now, one remains, and one, for lack of a better word, is gone. With this new order, I am thrown into thoughts that might not otherwise come to me, and I have been wondering how I might keep my balance while reaching out for someone who is not really there any more, as well as the question 'where is my husband in this internal metaphor ?' And without really trying, as if he's been there all the while, I have lately come to see that he is standing in the center of the roselle with me, and is not someone who I reach out to for balance....

... so there he is on the beach with me this morning, and there is that song being sung in my mind. And there he is, in the center of my internal metaphor... and there he is, I notice, in EVERY photo I took of him this morning with one foot on the ground and one in the air.

That's my husband. Who works with stone. Who likes to point up at stars. Who plans the vegetable garden. Who said said we HAD to live in my grandparents' home so that "we can cut the roses they planted and put them on their graves."

That's my husband; "feet on the ground/head in the sky" and absolutely on fire.

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqg_ZGcuybs ]

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Aug. 28, 2010

Well, I had the nerve to say (within the last twelve hours, no less) that I was doing well; that things weren't so raw. That'll teach me. At 4:30 am, there was that familiar trickle of salt water into my ears and no sleep to be found as I watched my husband's new beacon of an alarm clock shuffle its digits. When I finally did enter the land of nod, it was one of those journeys where you wake up and fall again and again rejoining the same plotline. When I woke up, I had a sense of relief--- until, that is, I realized I was delusional. I can't really tell it like a story, but in one part I got up from my seat in the Cathedral and turning to put something on my chair, I could see Chris' shadow on the stone wall. There was no sense of the mystical, I believed he was really there in full flesh as it 'twere. I probably woke and slept again to get to this other part: he's not gone at all. He's sick. He's hiding. He's trying to spare me the grief of disconnection by disconnecting now. I will write him. I can write after all. I will be able to say everything in such a way that this problem will be solved. How convenient for me! Then I woke up. Then I really woke up.

"The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end

may also be the beginning."

-Ivy Baker Priest

8/20/10

The Full Monty

Joseph Campbell tells of the period of time in which he studied ALL the iconography in Chartres Cathedral. After pretty much becoming a regular fixture, the man whose job it was to ring the bells invited him up to ring the bells with him. Campbell said it was one of the most exciting experiences of his life. On the way down, the bell ringer asks him if he wants to see where he lives. Campbell, of course, eagerly says yes, and is led in the middle of the choir stalls, “behind the Madonna” and through a door where this man’s space was. A desk, a tiny lamp, a small bed. Campbell said of this man that “he was living in the midst of his meditation.”

I have been thinking about the DECISION part of being reunited with Chris. The part where I knew what would sometimes come would hurt. And the part where I knew what the end would be. I believed what I believed. I believed in the power of friendship. The possibility and the potential. I believed in the love I knew and had known. I believed in the love given and received by others. I believed that one does what one is able where one is.

Chris led me through the door behind the choir stall. He allowed me to live my meditation. The key ring I carry is engraved with a quote about what is seemingly the end is just the beginning. I have been carrying it for months now, but I do not carry it because of any sense of the mystical. I carry it because it reminds me to think about it. To think about the energy that is left dormant. My friend is gone. There are hours a week where he used to be. What direction will I move in? What will fill my time and utilize my resources? How will I live in the midst of my meditation?

August 18, 2010

As I was sweeping the kitchen floor (there were brownies baking in the oven that are now cooling on the counter--- what is my life now but that of a domestic?!? ), I was thinking about it ALL. And I thought ‘it was my job for so long to keep him alive....’ Almost as soon as we were reunited--- maybe even the day we sat on a couch together again, he told me so in a way that you know you are hearing the truth... that he had had 'recovery' but not a reason to be alive. He did things then, after that day together when we first went down to the bench--- huge movements towards living, rather than existing. By being present, he felt he had a reason.

I wasn’t DOING anything to bring this about, I just existed. Soon, tho, I would encourage him that employment was possible, and eventually he found it. On very dark nights, I would talk him away from the river, etc etc etc. When things didn’t seem right I would alert him that a manic episode was coming. I could hear it in his voice. When something physical was going on, but being ignored, I would gently nudge him towards attending to it.

A few years ago, it was November, there was snow storm after snowstorm, it was either right before or right after Thanksgiving and he needed a defibulator/pacemaker, and I was quite ill myself. And I can remember being in our living room and my husband kind of seeing me off as I left to go to the hospital and the worried look in his eyes and I was saying “I don’t want to go” for a myriad of reasons. I was exhausted myself, I was sick and I was scared and I finished off the litany with “But if I don’t go----I am afraid if he doesn’t KNOW I am waiting there that he won’t live.” We (husband and I) had been through enough of living and dying to know that will might not be everything, but it certainly was huge.

Of course, I have no midas touch, but that doesn’t really matter and never did. He had for decades talked about my presence bringing a calm to him. The first two decades, I don’t think I even heard him. (It would have been so hard for me to believe something like that about myself in any case.) This last one, all my senses were heightened.

I’ve been about buoying him up for so long, taking care of him, encouraging him…. I am like a mastodon with these things anyway, emotional adjustment comes to me very slowly in ANY case--- but in this, it was my aim to keep him alive for so long, it is really no wonder that I am having the hardest time of it now.

Aug 16, 2010 12:40 am

My daily early morning beach walks are rapidly becoming an endangered species--- the first day of school looms large before me. I washed off the shells I've been unable to resist taking home, and in doing so was reminded of this portion of a poem by Walter Raliegh that I became familiar with in the 8th grade when I read a lovely book about the Way of St. James (a medieval pilgrimage):

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

August 13, 2010

[Portion of a letter sent to a friend suffering what I am calling the 'anxiety of absence.']

"Chris was not always a saint. He was, in fact, once so cutting and cold that I walked away from him, quite literally. I did not look back.

[Back to the cancer....]
After two years of fighting, by the time I gave up and in, I was so weak I was not sure I would survive the cure. This was followed by five months of visiting nurses--- one in the morning, one in the evening, it was during this time, waiting for this nurse or that to come, that I decided I had better find Chris again. If I waited for him to come looking for me, I reasoned, I might not be there to be found. Still, in those burgeoning days (of the internet) things were not so easy, and it took me a LONG time to find him.

I was very fortunate.
He was very fortunate.
Timing was everything.
I can easily imagine that had I found him at another time, it would have not had the happy ending that it had.

I also, from this vantage point, can imagine that there weren't many reconciliations left "in him" ---our's took a LOT of energy; energy we both more than gladly relinquished, but I cannot ignore the the demands it made on both of us.

What I am trying to say is elusive......but, looking back, I can see that there are always limits to what is possible. Chris and I were reconciled at just the right time. Once so, one of my first thoughts was 'if I get sick again, I will hurt him' --- believe me , it was not long before I realized that THAT was not the way it would go. I knew, I KNEW it would end this way. And I did my best to take care of him...to take care of him for all the people I knew who loved him, because I loved him, and because I was the one who COULD. If you can look at it from afar--- if you can look at it from above--- if you can look at it from the CLOUDS--- the look of it is the same. What I did for him I did for everyone. The love we shared was the love he had for all. As such, he was reconciled to everyone.

Look at it, therefore, from the clouds, and be, yourself, reconciled.

~C"

8.7.10

I went to the river. I went to the river singing a song we have sung together. The space around Mrs. Roosevelt was deliberately overgrown in a way it had not been, so the flowers came with me. There was one faintly blue hydrangea stalk and one creamy white rose. I tied them together with a grosgrain taupe ribbon with a pale blue border. I could practically hear your “OOOOOO!” From the granite steps I could see there was no one at our bench. From the granite steps I could remember the way the shape of your shoulders changed that space. I sat down there. An eerie quiet sat with me. I watched the kayakers for a long time. My husband, through with work, phoned and I could hear the worry in his voice. I did not know when I would be home. How long I sat is a mystery. I did not think of you much. I was afraid to. Like with the Vicar, the thing I wanted most was not to weep. There was no plan, but slowly I untied the flowers. I took the envelope from my bag. I tore two straight inch long lines in its flap to thread the ribbon through. I made a loop of the ribbon and hung it from the middle support of the frame of the bench, as if you would be by to retrieve it. I peeled the petals from the rose and let them fall next to me on the slats of the seat of the bench. I stood and leaned against the guard rail of that river, collecting the flowers of the hydrangea in my palm I tore them off the stalk and watched the blue buds flutter down passed the moss covered rocks into the water and slowly watched the river carry them away in random clusters. I took a few photographs of the bench before I stepped onto the granite steps. When I reached them from the walkway, I turned to see if someone had read your letter yet. Someone will, my husband said, hours later at dinner. I said yes, I knew that, but when I tried to say why that did not disturb me, I couldn’t say the words without my voice cracking---without falling silent after the attempt at explanation. It was at dinner that I finally broke down saying I think I finally believed you were gone now, because you did not meet me there. Let someone read your letter. Let them know that you are gone. Let them know our names. Let them know that we sat there. Let them know what a friendship can be. I am glad that I took the photographs. How well do I know myself? I do not think I will go there ever again.

August 7, 2010

Birthday Letter to Chris

My Darling Friend,

What if I never met YOU? How dark so many hours would have been! In your room, I found a card I had written that said my heart was so full now, having found you, that it hardly fit anywhere. Losing you leaves me with the same thought. There’s no space big enough to contain my grief, and no where to go that yields the sense of belonging I knew when we were together.

This date marks not only your birth, but our reunion after a silence that lasted far too long. Your words, written after that day, will comfort me always. I thank you for writing them and I thank heaven I have them now and always:

From: Chris

To: CMC

Sent: Thu, Aug 8, 2002 6:59 pm

…yesterday was for me the only reunion of its kind. there have been other reunions--some easy, some quite uncomfortable. but yesterday, sitting with you and feeling both like i have not felt in many years and better than that for the experience of reunion after all--after it all--does not for me have an equal.

me disappointed about yesterday? you bet i was...because the sun set, the meal ended, and the taxi sped away and once again the struggle to believe was on...and my hand on the closing taxi door could not help but feel like a living metaphor. but in all, you are right here and that is the thing of importance. and that puts disappointment in its place. still, i must protest one thing: the pleasure was not entirely yours.

"what is it about this pair of us?" you ask. i ask. the answer is for me the holiest mystery of this, and each word of attempting to understand it sacramental. there is much to be said for these visible signs of grace, and much more for such moments of cosmic lenity as we were glad to walk in yesterday.

and now, i'm off to the river....

love,

chris

So, my dear, I am off to the river, too,… to sit on our bench as we did on this date, and as we did so often thereafter. I will sit there alone for the first time, and think of the days you would tell me you had gone there when I was at work or far away. I hope that I can say, as you once did, that “those bench experiences are so strong that i don't need you there to understand and benefit from the power of our friendship.” I will think of the thirty years our friendship spanned, and all the places we sat together, laughed together, cried together, walked together, prayed together and talked together. I suspect I will fail. I won’t have your grace in solitude. I will wish you were there with me. I wish it now.

All Love,

Always,

C

The boy had to be at work at 7:30 am. Add travel time and there would be no deer to be seen. THAT and the forecast last night said thunderstorms. Add that I didn’t sleep. I wasn’t going to see Robert today. I made my online shopping list in the wee hours. I dropped him off at work, phoned the husband and said I was going shopping. I am such a liar! Not sure when I changed my mind, but honestly I wasn’t committed to getting out of the car until I parked.

In the short distance from boardwalk to water, I was already musing that men who make their living on the water must feel like polygamists. It is different everyday, this line I walk. Today there was an abundance of shells as far as I could see. Usually, it is sheer force of will that propels me forward, counting steps or lifeguard chairs. I’m here for at least two reasons. There is patch of skin on each leg that has been compromised which means that those who bother to look probably think I have been burned. My father used to say the salt was healing. Since I noticed a difference the first day I kept my date with the ocean, I believe him. The second reason is to do the things I want to do again--- to do the things I want to DO--- I must improve my balance and stamina.

THAT and the fact that I feel like if I fall now I will never be able to get up; from floor, from ground, from any horizontal, from sorrow. I think again of my overwhelming question: was Chris’ death the tipping point for all grief? I kick off my periwinkle crocs and note a lovely bleached oyster shell and a feather that I make a mental note about. I will be bringing them home. Walking toward and then looking out into the blue while my legs get their ointment, for the first time in all these visits I am weeping. I count the times the water laps past my knees and when I think its enough, I sigh and start to walk east, now mostly out of the water because the shells have me mesmerized . I bend to begin the filling of pockets and think these shells will propel me through the year the way they propel me down the beach. I will put them in a jar and bring them to school and put them on my desk. I will call Christy to look at them when we are feeling demoralized and destroyed; to remind us that summer will come again. I brought an old ball jar like this to Tennessee when I went to school, complete with sand and water collected at Jones Beach.

There’s a lovely scallop shell grabbing my attention, but when I bend to pick it up the translucent beauty next to it is unmistakably a dragonfly’s wing, I peel it away from the sand carefully and attempt to lay it on the back of my hand to look at it more closely. Of course, instead it does what it was meant to do; a breeze catches it and carries it away. Two more steps and an audible “Oh my God” passes my lips. Foot-long from nose to tip of tail is a stingray, white belly exposed. I take a large clamshell to flip it over. Coral colored and spotted, this is nothing like the one I saw in Monterey, but that was alive, grown and behind glass. As captivating as this is, I am urged on. At some point, I wonder if my shoes have been carried away, and turning to scan, their color doesn’t help. I guess it is time to head back. Maybe I will find them; maybe the oyster shell and feather are also gone.

What thoughts walked with me then? I cannot say. I found my shoes, slipped into them and found the white shell I planned to pocket. When I reached for the feather, I saw a tiny one near it and took it as well . I thought the longer one represented everything that had already been accomplished; the small one what was just beginning… but then I turned it over in my mind. The small one was the past; the longer one how far there is still to go and how much there is left to do. I thought of how many times I had said “Not yet” to Chris and how I would buoy him up about the things that were still possible. Not once did I say “Not yet because it will kill me.” Maybe I should have. When I reach for the metal rail of the boardwalk., I step up and bend my head down at the same time, letting my forearm hide my face. I think again about how falling now feels like never getting up again. I walk to my car and empty my pocketful of shells into the molded plastic space meant for coffee. I stick the feathers in next to them and drive home, singing.