Shouldn't…but Do

I fell apart on the cooking aisle.  Which is not to say that my form of disassemblage is histrionics, but rather a sort of repetitive babbling that disposes of the notion that great leaps of logic require any explanation.

My habit is Sunday morning early at the big box grocery store.  When my children are with X, it takes a little longer, given friendships I have struck up with employees in various areas of the store – pharmacy, up to hardware, pet aisle, grocery, produce, meat counter, on to check-out.

The greeters are nice too, but the most recent, Rich, moved to Tuesdays and Thursdays only, leaving the Sunday morning greeter slot empty.

On the cooking aisle I ran into Bob.  I have only come to know Bob-people in the last year.  Prior to that, I do not recall many memorable Bob-people.  I now know two Bob-people, one on the cooking aisle and one further away, in the land of New Jersey.

As with Bob of New Jersey,  Bob of the  Cooking Aisle is nice too.  He works at the grocery store, using an  electronic gizmo to size up  shelves that need restocking.

Bob of the Cooking Aisle and I fell to chatting, then a  longer discussion on the vicissitudes of divorce and my $4,000 legal bill.

There is a point in any real conversation when chat turns to talk and the polite salutation of summary greeting falls away.  Conditions – life and times – can be shared then, regardless of social status, age or intellectual predilection.

So it was with Bob of the Cooking Aisle.  As the talk took a necessary turn back to the shoppping and gizmo-zapping at hand, I began walking up and down the cooking aisle, looking for several errant spices.

Somewhere between the cake mix and the coriander, I realized I was trapped forever on the cooking aisle, unnerved by the discussion of meaningless financial ruin.  Repeatedly referring to my list, seeking, not finding.

Up and down the aisle, a nervous cross between a widow’s walk and the desperate necessity of finding just the right hat before my turn on the gallows pole.  All that was missing was unbound hair, streaming eyes, and the throat to toe disheveled black  mourning dress.

With some grace, Bob of the Cooking Aisle asked what I was looking for.  He located it, right in front of me (but you knew that), liberating me from purgatory on the cooking aisle.

The alchemist, they say, is cooked while cooking.  And what better place than on the cooking aisle.

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I am a downer.  Fragile, vulnerable, needy, tired, broke, powerless.  Pick your poison. If you’re after depressing company, I am your gal.

Persistent drama facilitated by X even a year after the split, claims my time, my energy, and my relationships with others – futile though they may be.

Divorce is downright common, a personal rite of passage, where, if you are lucky, you come face to face with the lost part of your soul that you dumped on the poor schmuck you married.

Divorce is also a cultural rite, one of the lower tone discussions , “oh, she’s going through a divorce.”  Like tonsillitis, it creates a buffer zone, where the designated victim is offered ice cream and lots, trust me, lots of chocolate.

My vision of the situation is dim, forest for the trees sort of thing.  If I were canny, I would say divorce is visited upon those in need of change – not just in marital status –  but in orientation toward life, and the distinct, but fluid pattern that makes each person unique. The bigger the conflagration, the larger the needed adjustment.

The lower tone discussions, the train wrecks of life – labels worn on the outside – provide buffer space, opportunity and a solid excuse, to change,  suffer,  need and admit, with society as witness.  Divorce cashes in quiet desperation for emotional currency, and lots of it.

Divorce  is ordinary, one in two marriages walks this path.  Ordinary appeals to me, always aware that just beneath dusty, sometimes revolting exteriors, there is usually something novel, complicated.  Thus, seeking ordinary – people, places, situations – is usually meaningful to me.  Unclear if I bit off more than I can handle this time.

The deeper truth to the buffer zone,  is that it provides a temenos, a sacred container,  in which I am held fast.  Unfortunately, this particular container is full up with that wondrous universal solvent, chaos, as befits dissolution – the real premise of divorce.

And that makes me a downer.  Over these months, I notice a loss of emotional pliability, a lessened ability to keep poisonous content from leaking into cherished relationships and the perpetual question – do I harden off to present a happy face, or do I allow the diminishment, try to contain it, live it, feel it, and apologize best I can?

Being friends with me –  holding hands with a  lower tone discussion –  means feeling helpless, commiserating, getting bored, likely having your birthday forgotten, accepting that I am not what I was, and being frightened with me, of what I might become.  Hanging in for the ride when the going gets tough is not so easy, especially when it is a train wreck.

I am a downer, this bog is a downer.  I have nothing to offer but a reflection that  bogs in youth are rich, diverse, curious,  filtering systems.  Over eons, in their dotage,  their habit of filtering and containing decay creates marvelous  fuel that provides enormous energy and warmth.

My gratitude, my apologies,  to friends who have stayed, and the same to those who have not.  Even as a lower tone discussion I am rich – with health, and the health and presence of the friends and family I love.  Thank you for every comment on this bog, every email, card, e-card and every phone call.  Thanks for hanging in on the downside.

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A friend mentioned over the weekend I am strange.  I could not agree more, but simply had to ask why.

I name things.  This computer happens to be Phil.   An old computer?  Fergus.  The composter?  Earl.  And so on.

Quaint.  Animated universe.  Sometimes names don’t stick, and the name falls away, its subject becoming a mere object.  The washer and dryer were like that.

Sometimes the name sticks. The Frost King enables me to buy meat, cheese and breads  at sale prices I can afford, dutifully freezing foodstuffs in an otherwise sweltering garage.

An act of recognition, naming is a spontaneous, primitive act.   Containment.  Essence captured in the walls and ceilings of letters, numbers, notes.  Committed, arranged, decided.  A caged tune.

We grasp, we explore the named, for the landscape there is defined.  Complete with edges – that some people find bothersome – so they change their name, or go by another, a more suitable name, a more suitable landscape.

There are secret names, between lovers, friends or a secret self.  They tread more sacred space, carry more power.

In the vast terrain of the internet, naming blurs, its distinction the ability to confer anonymity.  Without power, without face, safe, undecided, transient identity.

But none of these are why I name.

In my strange mind, to name is to sensorially see, to recognize an other.  A thing named steps forward out of static, out of the rain, steps forward not to be contained, but released from mindless time.  Breathed into existence, reciprocity, regardless of physical state.  Ich-Du, I-Thou, be it Christmas tree, resident garden toad or automobile.

It is not homogeneous transcendence I seek, but archaic correspondence with  glowing bits of a previously unnoticed background, immanence.  To become, one must be held, and let go.  Being is not enough.

And so I name, and so I am strange.

The lawn is high, the gas level in H.H. Silver is low.  Off to procure petroleum products in Buckbeak.  Such is my life.

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Intense humidity and the overwhelming scent of chlorine.  Must be annual summer swimming lessons.

Although mundane, perhaps no event better marks the passage of summer, and the youth of my children, than these lessons.  From anxious hand holding into the water, to the first diving board jump, the abandon of cannonballs, and now, measured perfecting of lifetime strokes.

The watery medium, how to survive it, how to master it, why to respect it.  Interaction between human and water, always dynamic, at once easy and comfortable, at once deadly.  Water and life are like that.

And those familiar with this gig, our abandon resigned to hard metal bleachers, admire their energy, try to help, give them ways to avoid drowning.  If only I could remember as much myself.

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And sometimes the wind is too loud, ideas disperse in high grey clouds, rain is sparse, best to let go. Time scatters, backward, forward, degrees of freedom lose meaning.

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