The wisdom gleaned is in the unexpected.
You can offer it up, you can go looking for it, you can pray for it to come to you, but Wisdom is one fickle customer. It’s only when you’re in her presence that you get to breathe in her perfume for a few minutes, just before she’s gone. And she will go. Wisdom makes her living out of coming and going, the last of the door-to-door salesmen. Not everyone is buying.
So welcome her when you can, take her with and open heart and an open mind, and be willing to be confused. This life, well…it makes so little sense if you are willing to strip away the labels. This is a good thing if you are willing to say bye-bye, labels. On the other hand, of course, it’s not so much fun if labels are your thing.
She doesn’t often tell you what you are learning as you are learning the lesson. That, Wisdom will leave up to you.
David is still at this house. It looks like his new home may be ready in May. It is difficult, and it is not, and it is. I am happy for him, even as I cry. It is just this way.
Someone at work asked me the other day, “But do you still love him?” I found it a complex, difficult question in its simplicity. Yes, of course, was my answer. I do not un-love. It is my way. I marvel at the un-lovers’ ability to do just that. I think my life would be an easier one if I could un-love, anyone.
Someone asked David in a panic if I would be writing “a divorce blog.” I could no more call this a “divorce blog” than I could call it a “mommy blog.” It is a life blog, roughly. I mean no harm. I never mean harm. And yet, I cause it. We all cause pain, without intent. I am trying to live the best quality life I can. This causes problems. I know how I got here, I know how we got here, I would take pain away if I could, including my own.
I am grieving a loss of something guaranteed not to fail. I am grieving a life, one life, a life that could have continued in one way. There will be many days—like today—when I wonder, Did I throw a wrench in the machinery? Am I a moron?
But a choice was made.
But for now, there is a back to care for. Human variety. Shoulders. A neck I am deeply familiar with. David came home in abject pain, writhing. Muscle spasms. I feared heart attack. I had not seen that face on him in a long time, the rawness of physical pain replacing every other kind, for a time.
It was natural to set him up with a hot water bottle, to hold it against his shoulder blades.
This is not for everyone. This is uncharted terrain, as familiar as to never have before needed a map.
I offered heat, quiet, dark, water, lorazepam. Only to find out later that it was cyclobenzadiapam or some such pill that I should offered. No mind. It still did the trick.
He had taught theatre today, and so when Sophie offered him her stuffed cat as consolation, and as the lorazepam kicked in, David put on a most entertaining Greek tragedy using her toy cat. Aaaaiiiiiiiiiy, cried the cat/David. Aaaaaaiiiiyyyyy. I am the most miserable wretch in the world. There is no more miserable wretch than the King Oedipus. Aaaaiiiiyyyy.
Hattie joined us on the bed. Oedipus(s) Rex is not required reading for four- and six-year-olds. But we laughed. They paid closer attention to his Oedipuss-in-boots Rex than his students had earlier. They begged for more, the girls, asked many questions about Mr. Eed-A-Puss. They wanted to know why he was so upset about the Marrying-His-Mother Thing, why she too was making such a big stink about that (Jocasta! So fussy, such a drama queen! Ripping out her uterus like that!).
It was a MISTAKE, after all. What could be so wrong?
David tried valiantly to explain that Oedipus is a gravely unhappy soul, a fictional character who rips out his eyes (okay, I added the gory eye part) when he realizes he is not who he thinks he is, after all. The girls shrugged off the gravity of the situation once again—this will be another talk, clearly.
Mostly, they practiced their tragic “Aaaaiiiiys,” beautiful Greek chorus work. Prepare yourself, Public Theatre in NYC. These girls are coming up through the pipeline to you. After her chorus rehearsal, Sophie then re-entered the room, blind-ish, clutching the curtains, saying poor O’s lines nearly word for word. A star. There is theatre, easy theatre, in their genes. Of course there is.
Every marriage is different; why should every divorce not be different? There is love here. I do not expect it to go away. It lives in the face of difficult choices. It lives in the face of a new home on the way for one of us and the girls; it lives in new lives for us each.
This is not the divorce for everyone, of course it is not. Some folks prefer throwing plates, and I can see well how that would be oddly comforting to the children, to have something to point to, to point at. Remember when? Remember when he did that and she did that? What a mess! Of course they split!
But this is closer to being the divorce for me, if there is kindness and care.
Tonight, after I got the girls to bed with my mom’s help, David sat upright on the couch, wincing, his spasming muscles locking him in place like an Easter Island statue. I put another hot compress on his back, fed him tea, and we watched “The L Word: Season One.” We talked about all the hot lesbians, making out constantly; I asked if it was a turn-on, no guys in the way. He said it was—mildly—but of course the scenes were really too short, and besides he was engrossed in it as a piece of art, a compelling drama. I laughed. He is an artist and a director, or a shy liar, or both. But it is still endearing, will always be so.
Afterward, I called my brother for medical advice. Was it too much medicine? The wrong medicine? Not enough? My brother the doctor is kind and was happy to talk. He too knows that family is family, wherever it must go, whatever it must do, however it must look. My brother’s wisdom and love is practical, pragmatic. But no less real.
I think this: There can be love, even if there is not understanding, not completely. There can be talk, even if the floodgates are held closed, for fear of what will be said. There can be grieving that takes place over Season One of “The L Word,” without one real “L” word being said aloud. This is my understand of divorce so far. Is there pain? Yes, of course, devastatingly so, and not just his back. Is there misery? Of course. Is there a sense of not being heard, of being left behind? Of course. For us both.
But love and care do not disappear lightly. That is a stroke of grace, to realize that—a visit from Wisdom. I go forward. He goes forward. I help him into his position on the master bed for the night, bring him his medicine, and then I retire in Sophie’s room. This is difficult, if not impossible, to explain.
So I say this not to explain. I say it just to say that Wisdom appears in funny guises. And maybe whenever she has any say in it, she chooses kindness and compassion to teach her lessons. I have no doubt he would be fetching hot water bottles and meds for me, were the situation reversed.
I cry often, but I am grateful for her, Wisdom, when she stops by. Wisdom and her cousin, Kindness, are certainly not all, but they go a long way. I need walking companions, after all. It will be a long hike.
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