Archive for October 2011
Timely Visit
Like a healing balm, last night I enjoyed a wonderful antidote for what has been ailing me lately. Both of our kids came by the house and I ordered dinner from the local pizza place that has long been Cyndie’s and my favorite. In a humorous nod to the fact that Cyndie isn’t here, the person who took my order over the phone exclaimed, “Something different!” when I asked for the taco special, an uncharacteristic diversion from Cyndie’s typical order.
While the kids were here, we called Cyndie and had a wonderful chat over speaker-phone. Just having a short visit from our children was enough to energize the atmosphere in this otherwise empty space. Then, in 4 days, Cyndie will fly back for a 1-day job here in town, and we will all get together on the weekend. A few weeks after that, Julian and I will fly out to Boston to spend Thanksgiving weekend with Cyndie there.
It will serve to ease me into this living alone routine in moderate chunks of time. Before we know it, there will be snow flying and I will be planning igloo construction projects that will occupy my lonely mind.
There is great potential for positive influence from relatively small gestures, and a visit from your adult children is one thing that produces amplified results in that regard. It’s something that this dad was more than ready to receive.
Thanks, kids!
Not Yet
It may seem like winter already in some places, but according to the calendar, it is still autumn where I live. While Cyndie is experiencing snow in Boston, I have sunshine and blue sky here in my region.
One Week
I have survived the first week of living alone. My wife left for Boston a week ago Friday night. The grand plan of staying connected through Face Time on our brand new anniversary iPads has been altered for now, as Cyndie decided to leave hers with her mother in town here. Cyndie was told she would get an iPad when she arrived for work. Unfortunately, the one she got didn’t include the camera feature. Isn’t it funny how things like that work out?
It wouldn’t have mattered much, anyway. She as been working nonstop everyday, into the late evenings, with barely a chance for a bathroom break, let alone meals. Talking to your husband, or other family and friends, or even shopping for groceries and toilet paper for the new apartment, are luxuries that are below the essentials of sleep and just breathing to make it to the next scheduled meeting. Right now, between the two of us, I have the much easier burden of adjusting to our separation.
Life at the empty house in Eden Prairie is pretty calm. I have noticed a common theme of songs running through my head all week…
“So how are things goin’, in the small dark movie of your life…” (Greg Brown, “Small Dark Movie” from Further In)
“Every time I think of you, I always catch my breath…” (John Waite, “Missing You” from No Brakes)
“And when you’re gone, I can run through the house screaming…” (Michael Johnson, “Bluer Than Blue” from The Michael Johnson Album)
“I’ll fold the laundry like I want to, I might not even fold it, I might just wad it up and stick it in the back, happy, happy, happy, by myself…” (Greg Brown, “Just By Myself” from The Live One)
“You don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone…” (Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi” from Ladies of the Canyon)
And from my perennial favorite, and oft quoted, Bruce Cockburn, “Don’t Feel Your Touch” from Big Circumstance
Infant of a newborn moon pushing up its glistening dome
I kiss these departing companions – take the next step alone
I just said goodnight to the closest thing I have to home
Oh – and the night grows sharp and hollow
As a junkie’s craving vein
And I don’t feel your touch, again.To be held in the heart of a friend is to be a king
But the magic of a lover’s touch is what makes my spirit sing
When you’re caught up in this longing all the beauties of the earth don’t mean a thing
Oh – and the night grows clear and empty
As a lake of acid rain
And I don’t feel your touch, again.The last light of day crept away like a drunkard after gin
A hint of chanted prayer now whispers from the fresh night wind
To this shattered heart and soul held together by habit and skin
And this half-gnawed bone of apprehension
Buried in my brain
As I don’t feel your touch, again..
.
Oh Yoko
Here is another image from my archives that popped up on the home computer screen saver recently. I was co-publisher of a monthly rock and roll magazine for about a year, over a decade ago, while on hiatus from my usual day-job. I enjoyed the opportunity of hanging out with a lot of musicians during that time; some of them big names in the business. My press-pass allowed me the chance to speak with Yoko when she was in town to promote a retrospective exhibition of some of her works of art, including collaborations with John Lennon. Here, she was venturing into a plexiglass labyrinth, titled “Amaze.” In this installation, it included a toilet at the very center, faintly visible in reflection on the ride side of the image.
Surprise, Surprise
Color me surprised. Last night, unplanned, I stumbled across the PBS program, Nova, about the murder mystery of the 5,300-year-old iceman mummy, Ötzi. While watching the show, and expecting to find out about the mystery of whether or not he was murdered, I was flabbergasted by a revelation that I absolutely did not see coming.
They were talking about identifying his DNA and mentioned that there was one bit of the genetic sequence that wasn’t his.
Perhaps most surprising, researchers found the genetic footprint of bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi in his DNA—making the Iceman the earliest known human infected by the bug that causes Lyme disease.Iceman Autopsy
The Iceman had Lyme disease!? Really. If they can find it in him, why can’t they find it in all the people that are infected today?
I bet Ötzi’s insurance didn’t cover any long-term antibiotic treatments.
Early Adjustment
It has been 4 days of life as a solo fella; a weekend and 2 work days. I am noticing early signs of adjustment, but I don’t think it counts for much, yet. It’s too soon. I would describe my status as still being more stunned by the separation, than adapted to it.
One thing I find myself doing a lot
more often is playing around on my mandolin. My style of learning involves simply monkeying around on the instrument and finding sounds that appeal to me. I exercise my finger positioning and my picking technique. It isn’t a pleasing sound to listen to when you aren’t the one doing the playing. Since I’m the only one here, I can let myself go into a trance of repetition that is soothing to me, but likely grating to others.
News from Cyndie is that she is busy with one meeting after another. It’s a big job, but one we feel suits her well.
Thirty-seven years ago today, we made an initial connection that turned out to be the beginning of our courtship. This year we will celebrate at a distance.
Small Steps
Returning to my image archives, I present this shot from my trek in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. It suits the long trek that Cyndie and I are embarking on in living in two different cities, 1400 miles apart. I remember that I took this picture in an attempt to capture the source of dust that we breathed as every step kicked up a cloud of dirt and yak dung that exacerbated the abuse my lungs were already suffering from leaky wood-burning stoves and thin air of the high elevation. Long treks can be broken down into small steps, and tough times can include plenty of special moments. 
Initiating Stoppage
I have taken a step of my own related to Cyndie’s transfer of residence out of our home, to an apartment in Boston. I created an account online with a service called Catalog Choice that will manage the termination of the mountain of junk mail that is delivered to our mail box.
One of the ways Cyndie managed her gift shopping while traveling across the country as a consultant was by way of mail-order catalogs. The companies were more than happy to accommodate her and shared her name and our address, far and wide. One thing I noticed soon after starting the process on the Catalog Choice site, was how inter-related some of the catalogs are that we receive. It is as if they form companies within companies, each one sending a different version of bait to wrest money from someone they know to be willing to shop by mail.
Of course, none of them make it easy to stop the catalogs from coming. Most are willing to work with organizations like Catalog Choice, but some do not, and require that extra steps be taken to contact them with the request by separate email to end the mailings. Fortunately, Catalog Choice does their best to assist the process and provides convenient ways to copy and paste into an email to the less-cooperative companies.
We have allowed the onslaught of catalogs to continue for so long that it will now be a monumental effort to stop all of them. Even after making our request known, most of them report that it will be 60 to 90 days before we can expect mailings to end. I am a patient man, and will be waiting and watching to see it work. I will also continue to update the site each day after bringing in the mail, to assure I have entered every company that is sending catalogs here to Cyndie. She won’t be needing them any more. She can do her gift shopping in the city of Boston now.
Initial Reaction
This is just the second day in a row in which I have woken to find myself alone in bed; alone in this house. I am surprised at how different this feels from all the many other times I have been alone when Cyndie traveled the country as a consultant. It may be unfairly early to judge, but I don’t think I gave this plan a deep enough consideration of the nuance of impact on me.
It seemed to me, initially, that other married people have lived apart from each other, so this should be something we could do, too. My early reaction is that we are not as much like other people as that thinking assumed.
Cyndie reports that yesterday she purchased a bed, a couch, chair, some lamps, a rug, bathroom towels, queen sheets, and will meet her landlord today and get keys to her apartment.
I am struggling to figure out what to make of the new void in my life. It is triggering me to further consider the option that many folks indicated to me would be the obvious choice: leave my job here and move to Boston with her. I always figured it was a possible solution for me, but one that I would pursue if her work there showed signs of lasting multiple years, or if we discover we just can’t tolerate the separation. We’ve gone this far in planning our current approach that it doesn’t seem logical to make that decision based on the first weekend she is away from home.
The mixture of feelings that I’m experiencing this weekend are primarily a dramatic notice for me that I didn’t allow myself to think too deeply about what I was in for. Now the race has started, and I am beginning to think about what I need to do to succeed. Am I wearing the right shoes? Did I train properly for this? Do I have the right gear on for this race? It is a good thing that this will be a marathon in which I can make adjustments as we go. But I don’t think the secret is going to be in the external aspects of what, or how, we deal with this, as much as it will be internal, in our hearts and minds, where our souls are connected.
It is my soul that is feeling the immediate impact of this separation, because my head keeps telling me that she is not just traveling for a number of days this time.
Alone Together
.
alone together
in this decision
to go it alone
after all these years
together
it’s not that different
from her stint
as a national consultant
where she traveled
from one coast
to the other
I reheated leftovers
and piled up
her mail
how hard can it be?
she’s been deployed
but not to a war
there’ll be visits
iPad FaceTime
she’ll be in one city
one time zone away
waking up this morning
alone
is much different
she’s gone
I can run through the house
screaming
and no one will hear me
she cleared out
her perfume
from the bathroom shelf
this will be great
I can have things
the way I prefer them
except for one
important detail
she’s gone
.
.
Relative Something 