Balance/Imbalance

I spent a long time this afternoon talking with a dear friend. It was her dime, and it was a long call from overseas. It was much like catching up with Lynn or Barb or Marjorie - there is a soul connection there that bridges time and space. She is sweet and warm and witty and real. We have a separate but shared history. And I've never met her in person.

There is no accounting for connection and kinship. I've known this for a long time. Even as a young girl I recognized those souls that belonged in my circle, although several of them were present in this lifetime for a very brief time. They are the souls that light my path and show me the way. They are the companions that are easy on my spirit, take nothing away and add only strength and peace. Mary. Susan. Jenny. Janice. Marjorie. Lynn. Barb. Carlene. Paula. Rebecca. Alison. Jill.

Some of them took different paths that put us at odds. Losing my friendship with Susan and Janice was painful, disturbing, and very sad. I'm not even sure why I was tossed aside - I can't believe it was really because of some lame misunderstandings, or a mutual male friend. Something else was at work, some deep and old tension, or some powerful energetic misalignment. Karma. Well, maybe it was petty, crappy stuff, shallow and stupid and juvenile. But it hurt deeply and permanently. I don't discard soul friends. They are forever. Apparently sometimes I'm not so valuable.

Earlier this afternoon my local friend made an offer for company. I didn't even pick up on it until I was already back home, ensconced in my hermitage and singularity. What kind of damage have I sustained to miss the blatant clues that my companionship is valued, and desirable? In the midst of what always seems to me to be paradise, I choose, on a regular basis, not to share. It's an old tug-of-war: exposure, or insulation. Exposure means a vulnerability against which I have few defenses. Insulation means a vulnerability against which I have many, many defenses. A book. A cryptic crossword. RP. A drink. Sleep. Comedy Central.

Maybe it was Marianne Williamson, maybe it was Nelson Mandela who said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."

Like Lynn I am aware of how powerful I can be. Like Lynn I have buried that knowledge in a quagmire of excuses, all of which separate me from Love. I can connect with my overseas friend because she is not here. To her I can be myself, expose myself. My local friend extends herself to me and I shrink away in fear. Perhaps I am afraid of vulnerability. Perhaps I am afraid of what she might unleash in me - healing, love, engagement. Oh, that would be the ultimate horror, wouldn't it?

Sweet old ladies (that I won't have to deal with)

Rosalie bought Mom's house. I met her yesterday at the close - she is a tiny, frail, crippled woman, and quite beautiful. I could almost see through her, she is so fragile. Her hands are twisted up by arthritis, or maybe a stroke. She was not able to speak clearly, though she certainly was all there. She will be moving into the house with her friend of 62 years, Elaine. Rosalie used to be Elaine's boss many years ago. I'm guessing that she was a good one.

So Elaine did most of the talking. Oh, we hear your mother was very particular about her house and we can see that. Oh, she took such excellent care of everything. Oh, the house is so wonderful, and we are so happy to be moving there!

I told them about the simple low-tech tools in the hall closet that my father made - a broom handle with a dime inserted into the end, and a strong plastic tube with a notch cut out of one end. These are to be used to open and close the AC vents in the ceiling - no ladder, no chair, no falling. Elaine seemed ecstatic about that. I told them I'd put the screens in the front bay window, the window that Mom never opened. I told them about the storm windows in the garage. They thanked me for leaving the microwave. They were all smiles, obviously pleased and happy.

They seemed sweet, and they will enjoy living there, and Mom would be happy for them. I would have liked to speak with them more, but our estate attorney felt it important to discuss her several WTC clients, including a long story about the harrowing escape of one of them from a burning elevator shaft, and the debris that killed the ambulance driver, in such lurid detail that I thought I would have to leave the room. In fact, I was just beginning to stand up to do so when she stopped herself with, "But this is a happy occasion!" Yah. She's her biggest fan. I look forward to ending my relationship with her firm. At $250/hour, I don't enjoy her stories all that much.

I hope Rosalie and Elaine have many years of health and happiness at 635D. It's a good place, and ready to have life again.

Empty house

My older sister really came through for me last week and we finished closing up Mom's house. It's empty. Really, really empty. It echoes.

My parents moved to that house in 1986, the year my father unofficially retired. (He officially retired the following year after using more than 100 accumlated sick days for which he would not receive pay...so he traveled with Mom and golfed for five or six months.) It didn't take them long to fall in love with their new lifestyle - no mowing, no shoveling, and no worries when they went to New Smyrna Beach, FL from January 1st to March 31st every year.

When I heard that my parents were moving from the house I'd grown up in, the house in which they'd lived for 31 years, I was heartsick. I couldn't imagine visiting them anywhere else - I knew I'd miss the nuances of the family home, the places the old floor sqeaked, the way the sunlight streamed into the kitchen windows in the morning, the view of the bay, the sound of the buoys, the smell of the salt marshes. And once they had settled into their last digs, and I could see how happy they were - and all the "stuff" was there, the photos, the furniture, even the curtains - well, I came to an entirely different understanding of what home meant. This place, with all the love and all the memories transplanted, was home. Of course I had my own home by this time, but somehow it never acquired the same legitimacy as the places my parents lived. Even now my home feels somewhat bogus, not quite legitimate as "home."

It was awful losing Dad in 1991, but I didn't also lose my home then. Mom stayed on in the place she knew she'd never have to leave, in the place she wanted to live until the day she died. She loved everything about her house and treasured that Dad had been there with her, even though it was only for a short time. I can still hear her saying how much she loved it in the village, how much she loved her home, how happy she was to be there.

Early this morning I took a trip there, my last walk-through, my last moments to remember. I stood in her bedroom doorway and remembered how she'd be dozing in bed on Saturdays when I was on duty, how reluctant she was to get up, even though I had breakfast cooking and coffee ready. In my mind's eye I could see the sofa bed in the den, my room whenever I visited before moving back here, and I could hear her knocking on the door and bringing me coffee, chuckling about what a slug-a-bed I was. If she were brushing her teeth in her bathroom, she'd rap on the wall (shave-and-a-haircut) and I'd rap back from the kitchen (two-bits). It was an old routine that she and Dad had. I knocked on the wall this morning, one last time.

In the living room I could see the wear on the carpet near her chair, much more wear than by Dad's chair. She had a dozen years to make that difference. I pictured her sitting there in the afternoons, falling asleep in the sunshine with the newspaper on her lap. In the kitchen, I remembered he sitting at her "command center" (kitchen table), where she enjoyed watching the various comings and goings of her neighbors, did her paperwork, and ate her meals alone these past twelve years. The same place she would be sitting when we had our many arguments.

I knew this would be a hard thing to do, sell that house. It may seem maudlin and unnecessary, but I wanted to take all the time available to mourn, to actually get the tears out. I'm losing home, in a lot of ways. I'm losing the point of contact, the easy retrieval of memories. I have a lifelong habit of stuffing feelings, stuffing tears. I had to be shut down a lot of the time since coming back here - shut down emotionally about what was happening to her, about our relationship. I got stony and hard. She couldn't understand why I couldn't "lighten up." I don't understand now, either, except to acknowledge the difficult and entangled relationships that some mothers and daughters tend to have. I wasn't smart about it and I won't get another crack at it. But she's not here anymore for me to need to be defensive about my emotions. And they're leaking out of me, I can't help it, nor do I care.

Two o'clock today I sign that house over to someone who didn't know Mom, and probably couldn't care less about that. That's okay, but I really wish there was a way to present this gift, this precious location: we were happy here. There was love here. And now it's yours.