We Don't Know What We Don't Know

Somewhat less than three decades ago, I spent a night in this hospital giving birth to my older daughter C. If you had told me then that my husband would leave me for another woman and start a new family, I simply would not have believed you.

If you had told me then that I'd be in this same building today under the same bright blue sky on similar a hot day with Santa Ana winds brewing--this time sitting on the bed of the man who loves me, I would have looked at you blankly and asked, "Who?"

The daughter is a grown woman now. The ex-husband exists only at the crumpled edges of my memory. But the man, sick as he is at the moment, is a presence as wide and warm and sheltering  as that blue California sky.

A Jack Gilbert poem and thoughts worth considering about love and marriage

On Thursday, I have old friends coming to stay with me for several days. They've been married a long time. Perhaps they've known the wisdom in this Jack Gilbert poem from the beginning. But maybe not. Maybe they stumbled upon it in the ruins, parched and out of water, cursing under a relentless sun. Tear It Down
by Jack Gilbert
We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows. By redefining the morning, we find a morning that comes just after darkness. We can break through marriage into marriage. By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond affection and wade mouth-deep into love. We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars. But going back toward childhood will not help. The village is not better than Pittsburgh. Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh. Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound of racoon tongues licking the inside walls of the garbage tub is more than the stir of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not enough. We die and are put into the earth forever. We should insist while there is still time. We must eat through the wildness of her sweet body already in our bed to reach the body within the body.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19356#sthash.JFty2bJN.dpuf

The Sands of Time

The bride and the bridesmaids vibrantly tattooed. The groom and his men weeping. Bagpipes, a drummer, a vocalist with her own set of pipes seemingly made in heaven. My niece's (Mr. Ex's sister's daughter) wedding was a perfect and beautiful reflection of her and her beau.

Mr. Ex and I attended plenty of weddings in our days as a couple. When the vows were exchanged, he would reach for my hand and struggle to hold back his tears. I don't remember being very much moved by other people's weddings back then, so my own tears at this wedding came as a surprise to me. The serpentine journeys of both bride and groom and what they had to endure before finding each other filled me with joy for them and sadness at how breakable we humans are. When the preacher spoke of shared histories looked back upon from a future perspective for this young couple, a jagged fragment of grief over my lost marriage got caught in my throat.

It's a weird salad of ingredients that don't mesh well, this grief and the complacent loathing I feel for Mr. Ex. These feelings are like tomatoes and strawberries that would be so much tastier in their own separate bowls. Toss in Mr. Ex himself standing in the back of the chapel with his camera photographing the whole thing, and it's a meta salad of weirdness.

With two big family events almost back to back this month, I'm getting a taste for the smorgasbord of post-divorce offerings. This weekend we showed up at the table with a sort of  separate but equal attitude. Drinks with me. Breakfast with him. This side of the room. Now that side of the room. I find that I feel apologetic toward these members of his family with  whom we  so often shared the same table over three decades. Divorce requires twice the effort from them. Not from me or Mr. Ex, really, but from them. 

I'm trying not to think ahead to the weary road our children may one day find themselves on. Visit Grandma. Visit Grandpa. This holiday. That holiday. This family reunion. That vacation. Maybe if will be fun. If Mr. Ex and the Little Missus keep popping out babies, and if the daughters that Mr. Ex and I share start their own families in a few years, Mr. Ex's new children and his grandchildren can be playmates. I can be the doting grandmother who lavishes undivided grandmotherly attentions.

The best of both worlds.
Or another weird salad.

Meanwhile, I am pondering that shared history is nothing but an old story if you stop sharing the present. And the present with a new love is history forging its trail one lovely day at a time.

Postscript on "Lurking"

In my search for community from the ranks of divorce sufferers and our supporters, I did not mean to imply that lurking or regularly reading a blog without visibly following it is somehow bad. It's not.

But as I continue to stunned by the vast and deep ocean of amazing blogs, I crave connection. Check out two of my recent favorites--blogs that I am now following--Camel Saloon and Myself the Only Kangaroo Among the Beauty (you can find the links in my sidebar--scroll waaaayyy down.) The more we have in common, the less we are divided is what I'm hoping. The image in my head is boats. Pretty little boats. In a safe harbor, each one next to the other. We can all sail away on our own, but right now--here we are--neighbors--so how about a beer?

Happy reading.

And apologies to those readers from India I see coming in on my live traffic feed. Um. This probably isn't the Indian wedding site you were hoping for. I wish you true love and a long and happy marriage.