A blustery day, all around, as Piglet might say to Pooh. Or was it the other way around? The sun looks a bit like the moon, struggling to peer through the clouds. And then that too, is gone for good. The rain comes, cleans. It is good to be unattached, though difficult. Yesterday was a day of attachment, for instance. Tuesdays have that tradition in my path.
It was a marvelous day. A memory-laden one, in old haunts with new sensations. The Pie Place moved in town, making it a possible breakfast stop for us within walking distance. Well, easy walking distance. We’d made it out to the outer skirts of town before, for good pie. I began there, for some writing space, but the seats were simply too low. Isn’t that funny, a certain kind of strange?
So Java Moose it was, a familiar watering hole for me with books and journals. I felt a return to some writing space there, where I enjoyed proper seat-heights and a bit of coffee. I even refused the cup-sleeve for ecological reasons, and demurred from the desire to purchase a mug with “Java Moose” on it. The local ladies' knitting club made the space feel so homey, domestic, maternal. A short walk back ‘home’ released Marley from her ‘padded cell,’ as I’m calling the Subaru where she rests until house-keeping comes. Some re-nesting and then we were off to Naniboujou for a late morning hike up to Devil’s Kettle—with canine companion straining at the leash to being, then in tow by the end. A nice lunch followed, the “Hiker’s Combo,” to be precise. One of the best club-sandwiches (half of one, at least) that I’ve had: wild rice bread, shaved turkey, applewood bacon, a slice of brie cheese, cranberry sauce, and a bit of lettuce. The soup was fresh too—tomato-cream-cheese with great chunks of tomatoes. A walk on the shoreline there, at the lodge, jarred some old memories of my love, in that space, from days gone by.
A day of attachment. The longing is palpable within him—for a place that is uncontested, assured, never to die. His places of origin—hometown, house in which he grew up, shopping malls, parks, restaurants—have all evolved or become something else. The entire structure of his family changed ten years ago, upon the unexpected death of his father. A stalwart presence in the family disappeared. Branches of relations pared off, rarely to sense their connection to one another again, in any familiar way. Previous girlfriends arise, similar stories are reviewed and enjoyed. "Here is where my dad asked me to release his ashes," I hear. A time of solo-journeying along the shore seems natural. Then returns are shared, to basalt rocks that never change. Agate beaches that look the same, to untrained-naturalist eyes, at least. The sound of the waves remains constant, soothes the soul a bit.
Where am I in this drama? I ask sometimes… I am a constant companion, yet my intellectual-spiritual-embodiment cycles befuddle him. My regular irregularities unnerve him, as I feel drawn to this practice, then that. This literature, then that. This new activity, then that. Sometimes I enable my beloved’s worst resistances, I fear. Or at least his anxieties. I confuse care-taking with companionship, protectiveness with ‘necessary suffering,’ to use Rohr’s term. I lament the felt-lack or apparent absence of discipline in his life, in our life together. I know no other ‘container’ in which all of this makes sense, works for good. And I’m willing to try—have had experience within—many such possibilities, like prayer practices, embodied practices, communal-circle practices. All to no avail.
And then I sense my own attachments, to make ‘what would be’ from ‘what is.’ If I’ve learned anything in my over-ten-years of marriage, it’s that I cannot change anyone but myself, and sometimes not even her. There’s incredible freedom to be had, right here, in ‘what is.’ For ‘what is’ is pretty good. A beautiful view, companionable and canine devotion, time to breathe with good herbal tea to help breathing deeply. Well-sorted mail and quiet energies of good work that awaits. That can wait.
So perhaps a day of prayer with a little Newell, some brain-candy reading of Steig Larson’s trilogy, perhaps even a walk in the rain to Artist’s Point, to see if the basalt rocks have changed after all.
I bet they haven’t. Not much.
