Water

I don't know what it is about me and water.
There are sandbags outside my back door and it's been pouring so hard for the last couple of hours that it's like looking through a scrim.
I can now claim that two men have crawled around in the water to rescue my abode. Mr. Ex was the first one. Several  years ago after a pipe burst in the middle of the night and flooded our downstairs, I walked into our kitchen to discover him on hands and knees, wearing only a t-shirt, sopping up the mess with pool towels. Then came an invasion of mold that required a re-do of our entire downstairs, and we ended up moving out--or, more accurately, our daughter and I ended up moving out. Mr. Ex elected to stay at the house. Which I find very interesting in retrospect.
This morning the man I love lay on his belly on a tarp on my sodden patio in the drizzle, a hammer drill sheltered in a plastic bag as he bored holes into my patio wall so the water could find its way to the slope on the other side.
It was water that called my name after the divorce when I thought my life should end. Bridges were so enticing that I kept my curtains drawn during one entire stay at the St. Paul Hotel. At night when it was quiet, even with the windows closed, I thought I could hear the rushing of the river. The sound of the water was like a voice asking me to come to its side.
I love the water. Traveling by boat. Swimming in a pool or a calm sea.  I recently purchased a travel snorkel that curls up into the size of a bagel. I have a special bath mat with a pillow for soaking in the tub--but I love long showers so much I hardly use it.
I'm just not sure how water feels about me.

So This Was Christmas

Christmas Eve dinner for four. Clean-up left until the next morning. "I know you're probably thinking someone has kidnapped your real mother," I told my daughter when we walked away from the mess smiling.

Then with Christmas morning light edging the window shade and me still in bed full of love and cake, I woke to a clatter in the kitchen. The man who loves me had cleaned up the entire mess.
Do I want my old life back? Oh no. For a million reasons, no.

waiting

I'm waiting. Waiting for my mom to be taken off the ventilator. Waiting to hear her voice once that damn tube is out of her throat. Waiting to see her moved from ICU to the regular post-surgical ward, waiting to take her home. And I'm waiting for Mr. Ex to get his asinine self together and do what it takes to divide our joint assets. The marriage has been over for more than two years. We worked for thirty-two years, building our future together, thinking about financial security, how we'd take care of our mothers when they were old and where we'd live when our daughters were grown. Of course for some undetermined amount of time he was bullshitting me, stringing me along until our younger daughter was eighteen so he could leave and he wouldn't have to pay child support.

I still have no idea how long he lied to me.

And I have no idea if I really will hear my mother's voice again.

And I have no idea if the joint assets will ever be divided--or if Mr. Ex has a slimy big-shot L.A. lawyer scheme he's working on to screw me and deliver another gut-wrenching nasty surprise.

I'm waiting.

When Their World Was Made of Water

When their world was made of water, my mother and my aunt floated together in my grandmother's body. Identical twin girls, that not even their father could tell apart. When they were youngsters and took turns meeting him with a snack on his long walk back from his factory job, he'd greet them by calling out, "Hello, Twin. Which one are you?" My mother concedes that maybe he was just teasing.

After they graduated from the 8th grade, the culmination of their education, they had a chance for a brighter economic future when a relative invited them to leave rural Iowa for Baltimore. When they pooled enough dough to get one ticket, my aunt headed east and once in the big city earned money faster than my mother could in Iowa and sent it back home to contribute to her sister's ticket.

They worked as "photo girls," with Polaroids slung around their necks, and hat check girls at night clubs with names like the Chanitclere and the Band Box. They saw Guy Lombardo, Jimmy Dorsey, and all the big names. Sometimes one twin would take a few days off and the other would cover her shifts. There was a cop on the beat who could tell them apart. If he pretended to swing his night stick at them, my aunt would flinch.

My mother and my aunt have lived together for almost thirty years.

I doubt they will leave this world together.

I wish I could change that.

Nothing Compares to You

I'm a mess, I admit it.  

The road trip is over.  I'm about to board a plane and fly back to L.A. where I will be "home" for 36 hours before I board a plane to Greece. I've left my daughter M. in St. Paul for what we are calling her first "grown-up summer." She's almost 2o and she will live in my condo, drive the car her dad has handed down to her and work a  9-5 internship tutoring inner city kids. For the next few days she will be hosting her brother, his wife and their 3 kids and putting her first household in order.

Meanwhile, I feel like I've come almost full circle. I became a blogger after my trip to Greece last fall--when I left the country to be as far away as I could manage when Mr. Ex got re-married. I'm returning for a writing workshop + hiking with the author Meredith Hall  http://meredithhall.org/  and I have fallen completely in love with the man I've been dating since December.

Here's how I know:

M. found little to appreciate on my ipod during our long drive from California to St. Paul EXCEPT for Sinead O'Connor's hit Nothing Compares to You. We played it a couple of times every few hundred miles. Mr. Ex liked this song and when the two of us were driving in the car together when it came on the radio in the 80s or 90s or whenever that was, he'd sing along and put his hand on my knee.

On this trip, I remembered that and there was an interesting pang, but I didn't really care.  All I could think of was the man I'm going home to.

I am very, very lucky. 

And a mess.

Is This Asking Too Much?

"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets.  You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm..."

Pip to Estella/Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Match

I sweartogod I unsubscribed but there it was. His picture in my in-box saying he'd winked at me and he was gorgeous--45 and gorgeous. So I clicked.

I'd been thinking about devotion this morning. What a beautiful word it is.  How it sounds like doves, or votive or lotion, and how I wanted devotion to a partner, to a relationship, how maybe this time there would be more cooing, more peace, olive branches every night for dinner. And there it was.  The word.  Devotion. "I will add a new meaning in the dictionary to the word "devotion," he says in his profile.  

Then I scroll down. Eyes: Brown; Hair: Brown; strategically placed tattoo..........................................Politics: ultraconservative.