Breaking up with Mr. Zio

Mr. Zio is my heart monitor. We've been close these past two weeks, investigating all of the pings and rattles. Anxiety? Not anxiety? Who knows these days, right? But tomorrow, I peel him off my chest and send him packing in a box. Such wonders modern medicine provides! I'm a little fuzzy about what happens after that, but I'm sure there'll be some sort of report. How are you, dear reader? What's pinging and rattling in your life? I'm obsessed with making collages. No art background. Just pandemic online heart-saving classes. I'm mystified by the glues and finishes. I like my finished work to be smooth. I don't want wrinkles. I don't want shine. But I put together these masterpieces with all kinds of snippets, and some papers like one type of glue with other papers like another.

These two collages seem to me to be about luck. Luck feels like such a mover and a shaker to me these days. I'm planning a party--a missed major milestones party. I've ordered food and cakes (one cake for each of the four big occassions we've missed.) My son and his family are traveling from Phoenix. Hey, Southwest Airlines, I'm imploring you NOT to cancel that flight. Because 38 tacos. Because four cakes. Because I have not seen them for more than two years. I'm just so shocked every time I think or say that. More than two years. For god sake, dear pilots, I've already put the extra boards in the table.

Dear everyone, wishing you luck with your endeavors.

The Joy

This is what I saw at the spot where I walked onto the sand this morning.

Do you ever feel like goodness and joy and comfort are there just waiting for you? That you didn't really do anything, but all that abundance drops at your feet anyway?

And when someone says "Hi," do you say hello back?

Monday Morning Beach Report

Long weekend crowded beach or Why I love it here.

Holiday beach goers.
Bikinied girls boogie boarding into the waves, screaming.
The water is cold and there's a dead sea lion on the sand.
I traipse along in my orange polar fleece jacket, sipping the last from my coffee mug.
On the gritty pavement next to my car is a penny.
Just superstitious enough, I pick it up, put it into the cup holder, hope for the best.

In the quiet of the deep

It was dark when we awoke. Barely light when we headed to the car. By the time we got onto the boat morning was fully settled in, and off we went around the island of Lanai for a day of snorkeling. The boat was more raft than boat. (See above) And thus is the smallest boat I've ever been in out on the ocean. The ride was bronco-like at times, but I settled in. For those of you that know me and the level of anxiety that I cart around with me from time to time, let me just say I'm as surprised as you are, but I was so sleepy at the end of the day's adventures that I actually nodded off for a bit during the wild ride.

We've snorkeled every day here in this paradise called Maui--some of it just down at "our" beach. But today's adventure was a whole different jar of caviar. Ship wrecks, underwater grottos and arches. A sea cave. And the fish! I was in an aquarium. I was a fish. I was the water. I was a speck of the Real.

I am still marveling about how this trip came to be. To be the guest of friends on three different islands when I needed  a getaway in the worst possible way. I keep asking how did that happen, and then I stop the asking and just receive with gratitude. I have been wined (and pina colada-ed) and dined. So much has been given.

When Dan and I first started dating, I told him I wanted to get away, that I wanted to leave L.A., leave the geography of my divorce and never eat in a restaurant where I'd dined with my husband or drive down a street or a freeway that I driven down when I was married. Hawaii seemed insulated from all that, and I seriously considered it. He loved Maui, he said. Told me of a trip there--the beach, the air, and when he walked into a  certain bar, it felt like he'd come home. Dan loved L.A., so this was kind of a big thing. In the days preceding this trip, I tried to find out where exactly he'd been. I wanted to walk where he walked. To soak in the beauty and him. I never found out anything. Apparently  it wasn't a t'ai chi trip, and I thought it had been. So I had to give up. I had to give over to the idea that I still could walk where he walked in the big picture. I could see the beauty, breathe the air, love what he loved. It's been awesome. It's been fun. Today I depart for Hilo.

Barbie at a beachside bar

My final Maui sunset

I had already received the New Year's Eve email from The Someone informing me that, due to his declining income, my alimony would be less in 2013. Ooookay. Not much of a heads up, but I'm hardly a candidate for foodstamps, so while one part of my brain is Googling shit like, "how to find out if your ex-spouse has an off-shore bank account,"the other is telling me to deal with it. Still, I whittle away hours reading about asset protection trusts and law firm gossip, wondering if it really would be worth it to hire a forensic accountant. No? Yes? No. But then I check my bank balance and find that the auto deposit for my last big fat alimony check for 2012 is one cent. That's right. A penny. My bank account is a trampoline  now. I spend an afternoon on Trulia and Realtor.com house shopping in Dubuque, Iowa. I was born there, I reasoned. Why not die there? That bridge that terrified me as a child? Well.

I might have to move, I tell the man who loves me. Nope--60 miles wasn't far enough, now I'm contemplating two thousand. But it's okay, I continue. I might die. You might die. Anything can happen, I tell him.  I fantasize that he will come visit me, knowing that is nigh unto impossible. I fantasize that I will find a historic house with a view of the Mississippi at a tiny fraction of the cost of living in southern California, that I will reconnect will my long lost cousins, that my mom and I will never eat dinner again without someone else at the table, that daily zillions of  people are  struck by tragedy, and this probably doesn't qualify. But still, here I am in Margaritaville. The house. The birds. The ocean. The air. Space for the daughters to come visit and stay awhile. A kayak on the horizon. Well, there's nothing like the specter of loss to make you love what you've got.

Today the regular alimony amount appeared in my account. At this point, it's still "pending."But hey, it looks like I get to keep the extra penny. A found penny is good luck, right?

photo credit: voices.yahoo.com

In Which Three Generations, Two Hearing Aids, and an Oxygen Machine Go on a Roadtrip

Deja vu, right? Yes, except that this time we were driving east and the trip was a mere 400 hundred and some miles.

We attended a ballet recital.

And a birthday party.

Sat around the dining room table and talked and talked and talked, marveling at luck and love.
Lost a hearing aid. Found a hearing aid.
Almost had, not one, but two car crashes.

Tilted at windmills.
Saw a rainbow.

Dropped M at the airport.

Drove the PCH for the last leg of the trip.

Home.

photo credit for PCH photo: jhandleman.blogspot.com. 

One by one, they fell.

The day after Thanksgiving I sit with a bowl of turkey chili at my side. A nearly empty champagne glass. A heart full of wonder and love. Somewhere in the post-dessert (apple crisp, pumpkin pie, or ice box cake? Ice cream or whipped cream?)  stupor last evening, I turned 59. 

 I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of a party if my birthday hadn't fallen on Thanksgiving. As it was, I had family and friends to celebrate with me.

I count myself fortunate to be among the living. This month I lost both an old friend and a fellow writer that I'd taken a couple of workshops with. Both succumbed  to cancer. Both women were more than a decade younger.

Last evening's festivities tired me out, but I took note that I needed no painkillers as I often do after a day on my feet. I drank and ate as much as I desired with no ill effects, though I think I may have committed the faux pas of dropping off to sleep while the man who loves me was still talking. This morning I woke feeling like pie and ice cream for breakfast would be a fabulous idea. And it was. Cleaning up was a joy. The man who loves me is a clean-up-after-the-party machine. And my friend, S. slept over and pitched in, too.

I am 59, and fortunate in friendship, family, and love. I am fabulously lucky.

Dear Mr. Ex

What a lucky man you are. You have a wonderful daughter who is graduating from college. For her sake, I am happy you will see her stretch out her hand and receive her diploma and that she will share some of this weekend's events with you.
But let it not go without mention that you did not tell her that our marriage was about to end when she chose a college thousands of miles from home. Let it not go without mention that four years ago she and I made the journey to this new phase of her life without you. That your parting words to her at the airport were, "I hope I see you again sometime." Let it not go without mention that the entire college experience began beneath a cloud of grief that you seeded. And that the torrent that followed was of your making.
You are lucky, Mr. Ex.
Very lucky.
You are blessed.

Important Note

The man who loves me is also the man I love.
What amazing luck.


photo credit: Hamilton Roberts Photograhy

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.