Category Archives: Love

Love For the Sheer Joy of Loving

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Wesleyan College lost a great light this weekend–our chaplain, Reverend William Hurdle. For seventeen years, he encouraged and counseled and delighted in every young woman who needed an ear or a shoulder or a hug.

Reverend Hurdle joined the staff after I graduated, but I’ve had the pleasure of being in his presence many times at college events. Over the last few years, he had grown weaker–he would be seated on the stage already instead of processing in with the faculty and staff in all their regalia. As he made his way to the podium to say an invocation or grant a benediction, his body showed the signs of age and illness, but his voice kept its gentleness.

There are a thousand broken hearts now that he is gone. He truly was the kindest, gentlest, most loving man. I didn’t know before today that he was on Okinawa at the age of seventeen.

Well, none of these words come close.

I’ve been thinking about his “motto” that so many of his friends have quoted this weekend–“Love for the sheer joy of loving.” Not because Jesus told you to, or because you want to improve your own karma, or to pay back some debt. Love for the JOY of loving. Love for the goodness it brings right now, to you.

I was sad today, so Vivi and I took our Kindles and went on a little adventure. We stopped by Trader Joe’s and bought an armload of roses–green and red and white. We ate Belgian frites with feta sauce and read our books. She’s reading “The YoYo Mystery” and I’ve begun “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” We sat at the tall table that we can’t sit at when Carlos is with us. While we were sitting there side by side, she looked up, all freckles and brown curls, and said, “Mama?”

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Before she could even start her question, I heard Reverend Hurdle’s voice in my mind and heart, “Love for the sheer joy of loving.” That’s exactly the way I feel when I hear myself being called “Mama.” A simple joy, nothing complicated and not towards any end. Just love.

It reminds me of a talk my friend, Robin, and I had once about Jesus’ love. Even though I am an atheist, I don’t mind talking about Jesus because I think he got a lot of things right. (I don’t talk about religion much because I don’t have any interest in changing how others believe and I don’t plan to change my beliefs either…now back to our story). Robin was trying to reconcile the idea that Jesus loves EVERYONE equally, regardless of how they behave. Hitler, Ghandi, Beyonce and Mr. Rogers all stand in the same line. So Robin had finally found a way that she could picture this unmeasured, inclusive love. She stopped talking and simply spread her arms wide, like a mother would do when her child starts running to her for a hug. That was her idea of what the love of Jesus looked like. Made sense to me.

That’s the image that comes to mind when I think of Reverend Hurdle, arms flung wide, come one, come all.

May those who loved him hold his memory as a blessing. Here’s the lovely blessing I remember hearing from him:

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Canoodling

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Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

If you’re really looking to feel like a sexless, dried up husk of a woman, I know just the place for you to live: a college town.

Last week, I stopped at Willie’s for a steak burrito (no double entendre intended). The guy behind the sneeze guard looked like a boy I dated in college. This had barely registered on me and the blush was just beginning on my cheeks when he asked, “Rice and beans?” He raised his head up over the glass to hear my answer. Our eyes met. I smiled and said, “No rice, just beans, black.” He gave me a quick grin and for a moment, I was 19 again.

Then I noticed that his neck was covered in hickies. Or is it hickeys? Whatever. For a millisecond, I felt like he had cheated on me, like when I found someone else’s phone number on a little white slip of paper in that other fellow’s jacket pocket. Probably a flourescent windbreaker pocket, because y’know, it was back in 1987.

While I waited for him to ladle my beans and pass me along to the toppings lady, I kept hearing that line from “Moonstruck” when Cher comes home from her evening at the opera and her mother yells–“You got a LOVE BITE on your neck! Cover that thing up! You’re life’s going down the toilet!”

moonstruck_05But in this little vignette at the Willie’s, I wasn’t the Cher character. I am now Olympia Dukakis. That’s what a college town will do to you. If you’re over 28, you’re the weary mother in a housecoat, shuffling around the kitchen with a coffee pot and a heavy sense of resentment.

And don’t even get me started on trying to go to Kroger on the Sunday before classes start! The place is a steaming miasma of college age pheromones and Axe body spray. All those young lovers who have been separated while home visiting their families? They’re ALL in the grocery store. Carb-loading. There’s more canoodling going on there than at any club or fraternity house. Buying groceries together is intimate.  It means you’re going to be doing things that make you hungry and you’ll be too naked to walk over to Subway.

I say “canoodling” because young lovers are especially numerous in the pasta aisle. Everybody knows how to make spaghetti, even the freshmen. When I first started canoodling with a fella who had a kitchen and pots, spaghetti was the only thing I knew how to make. Well, spaghetti and a beef stroganoff that was heavily dependent on Campbells cream of mushroom soup.

So while I’m steering my cart towards the yolk-free egg noodles for that delightful cabbage and kielbasa mashup (again, no double entendre…or maybe it’s subliminal), I’m dodging couple after couple who can’t keep their hands off each other. They’re each holding one handle of the shopping basket and swinging it between them. Or cuddling while they decide between the shredded Parmesan or the Parmesan Romano blend. Or he fiddles with the belt loop on the back of her jeans while she selects a jar of Prego. Or, because it’s not 1987 anymore, one cute fella taps another cute fella on the nose with a long sleeve of vermicelli and they giggle.

All while I stand there, a dried up husk of a woman who used to be pulchritudinous in the late 80s and for a good part of the early 90s. As these young lovers prepare to heat things up, I’m trying to find the elbow macaroni that has vegetables hidden in it, the low-fat egg noodles for Eastern European casseroles, the whole wheat rigatoni that contains more grams of fiber.

Love is in the air. Especially in aisle 8 at the Alps Road Kroger. I’ll be over here in aisle 2, where they sell wine.

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Love Dares You to Care

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This post has been rattling around in my head for over a week now: a little bit of Freddie Mercury, a dash of David Bowie, Michael Brown, Alexander the Great. I couldn’t get my head around it until, just like when I was a kid, Mr. Rogers helped me understand.

We’re big Queen fans in this house (and queen fans, in general, but that’s on a case-by-case basis). I wish I could have seen Queen play a live show–Freddie Mercury commanded arenas with his electric stage presence and four octave voice. A force of nature, he died from complications of AIDS in 1991. He died one day after telling the world that he had the disease.

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I know you’ve heard “Under Pressure”…right? It’s been called the greatest bass line in rock and roll history (and this is the part where we spit on the ground and curse the name of Vanilla Ass for sampling it and not giving songwriting credit until he got sued, sued baby).

Anywho…As G and I were clearing the table the other night, I played this video for him of the isolated vocal track of “Under Pressure.” Please take a moment to listen:

I’ve known this song for 30 years but hearing the simple power of their voices apart from the instruments knocked me back into my chair. I sat at the crumb-covered table and listened to the words like I was hearing them for the first time. That echoing call: “Why can’t we give love just one more chance?”

Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

I couldn’t help crying, for it had been less than 24 hours since the announcement that there would be no indictment in Ferguson. So many people, crushed by the pressure.

While the noodles boiled for dinner, I had been reading news reports. Vivi lay stretched across the top of the loveseat behind me with her book. She put her chin on my shoulder to look at the headline on my screen. “What’s rack-i-seem?” It took me a second to realize what she was sounding out–“racism.”

It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, “Let me out!

“Well, race is the way people tend to be grouped by how we look, like the color of our skin. Racism is the idea that one color of skin is better than another. What do you think about that?”

She screwed up her face and shook her head. “Skin’s just skin.”

Oh, honey. True…but. But we’ve added so much to it over centuries and centuries.  Now there’s a Gordian knot of history to unravel.

Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don’t work
Keep coming up with love but it’s so slashed and torn
Why, why, why?  Love

gordian_knot-260x238So slashed and torn. A Gordian knot is a metaphor for a problem that seems to have no solution, something so tightly entangled that we can’t even find the end to begin pulling the knot apart. It comes from an ancient Greek story of a cart tied by this complicated knot. Whoever could untie the knot would conquer the east. After struggling with the knot, Alexander grew tired of the delay, drew his sword and slashed the knot in two.

Is that what’s happening to our Gordian knot of racism?

Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can’t we give love that one more chance?
Why can’t we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?..

For days, I’ve felt helpless and sad. It’s such a huge problem. Now, #icantbreathe. We’re cracking. How do I explain rack-i-seem to my second grader? She’s lucky enough to be on the side that can choose to learn more. As my friend, Bryndis, put it a while back, whites can choose whether to learn the ways of other races, but people of color have to learn to navigate the white world in order to survive.

Can’t we give ourselves one more chance? I got some courage back today, thanks to Mr Rogers:

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Love. Struggle.

‘Cause love’s such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

Love dares you to care. How do we care for the people on the edge of the night? The people who are quietly lying down in the street, on bridges, in shopping malls–lying down to become visible. To insist upon being seen and heard. I can listen. I can see. I can add my voice.

Racism has to become OUR problem. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS back when most people thought AIDS was someone else’s problem. Thousands of people fought like hell, lay down in the street, to get America to notice AIDS. Like ebola or climate change or marriage equality–we won’t make any progress on these Gordian knots until we recognize that they aren’t just other people’s problems.

This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

 

The Gold Bug

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Green Beetle With Brown Legs by Jan Vincentsz van der Vinne

Green Beetle With Brown Legs by Jan Vincentsz van der Vinne

I went on a personal archaeology expedition last week and got choked up on a little gold bug. A yellow plastic beetle, to be exact.

Ever since I read that journal that I wrote while my marriage to Fartbuster was ending–“Bless My Stupid Heart”–I’ve been trying to recall more about that time of my life. After 15 years, the big events stand out, but the minutiae of our ordinary life together has begun to fade. I started keeping gratitude journals about a year before our marriage went up in flames, so I pulled out the really old ones, the dusty ones in the bottom drawer of the nightstand and I began to read.

I spent 3 hours reading through 2 years worth of gratitude journals–a tough two years. I was prepared for the awful days, those days when I wrote terse little entries like, “Well, at least I have myself” or “Now I know the truth” and “my neighbor came over to check on me when she noticed I was parking in the middle of the garage.” I turned the corner down on those pages so I could come back to them when I need to.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the days just before those awful ones. It’s so had to look back and see what I was genuinely grateful for the day before my whole life blew up.

In the detail of thousands of entries, my old life assembled itself again. The hollyhocks that grew higher than the windows in the sunroom. The way my dog, Zoe, shivered after her bath. Margaritas at his grandmother’s house on Christmas night. The lazy Sunday mornings when I woke up with my feet entwined with my husband’s. A new Judybats CD coming in the mail. Reading Oxford American magazine. Pecan rice with a roasted pork tenderloin. That time we installed the dog door without arguing. Painting the bathroom a terra cotta color and talking about going to Rome someday. Walking the dogs in the evening when the whole neighborhood smelled like dryer sheets. Dusting bookshelves then finding myself rereading a favorite book. Valentines. Nicknames we gave each other.

About every 20 minutes of that 3 hour journey through my grateful past, I had to stop to cry. Once, I got so sad for my younger self that I tiptoed into Carlos’ room to listen to him breathe those deep little boy sleepy breaths.

It wasn’t all bad, that life.

It ended so badly that I have trouble remembering that it wasn’t all bad. I wasn’t stupid to love Fartbuster. Most days, we were doing our best.

That came clear for me when I read one little line in a journal that brought a dear memory back through all the pain:

“a little gold beetle in my drink at dinner.”

gold beetleI don’t remember how I ended up with a yellow plastic beetle–it doesn’t matter. One night, I tucked it under the covers on Fartbuster’s side of the bed. He saw it and jumped. We laughed. The next day, I picked up my drink at dinner and there sat the little gold beetle on the bottom of the glass. A few days later, he found the beetle in the toe of his shoe. For weeks, we traded the gold beetle back and forth in pockets, the sun visor, on the towel bar, in the cereal box.

It was fun. We had fun.

When your heart is broken by someone you trusted, it’s so hard to remember the good times. It’s hard to accept that those days were just as real as the months I spent in that middle place of fear and pain.

The muddle of it all reminds me of an idea from Hermann Hesse, one of Fartbuster’s favorite writers: “Oh, love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

Hesse

Portuguese Has a Word for This Feeling

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Here’s a gift to you from G today. It’s pronounced “sow-dah-day.” Portuguese is the only language that has a noun for this feeling.

Take this word and tuck it into your heart. If you are missing someone, remember the joy and let it propel you.
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A Tidy Kitchen Will Break Your Heart

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A tidy kitchen.

“Just.  Wash. The. Godforsaken. POTS.”

That’s what I was growling under my breath tonight as I clung to the edge of the kitchen sink and tried not to pass out from the bleach fumes.  See, G is a chemist by training and he thinks that there’s NOTHING that bleach can’t fix.  Especially pots and pans.  He–being both a chemist and a MAN–refuses to just pick up the f’ing scrub brush and scrub the pot.  Instead, he leaves this morning’s waffle batter bowl sitting in the sink with equal parts bleach and water until the concoction eats through the stuck on stuff.  And my last nerve.

This makes me NUTS.  Just wash the pots and be done with it!!!!  His bleach fetish is also why most of my tshirts have a little line of bleached out dots right across the belly, where I’ve leaned up against the sink too soon after he’s “done the dishes.”

Is it just me or is your blood pressure up too?  GAH!!!!

So I finished up all the dishes once my eyes could focus from the fumes.  Done and done–ten minutes and NO DAMAGE to anyone’s respiratory system.  But the fumes did remind me of a story and a lesson I learned about 10 years ago this summer.

A few weeks after Richard and I bought this house and moved in together, my sister called me.  “So how’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s great…except there are a couple of things that are hard to adjust to after a few years on my own.”

She thought I was talking about manstink, but I assured her we had separate bathrooms.

“No, it’s the fact that he NEVER shuts the kitchen cabinets!  Or drawers!  He’ll walk into a perfectly clean kitchen to make a cup of coffee and leave the cabinet door hanging open, the spoon drawer sticking out, a sticky spoon NEXT TO the sink, and the creamer on the counter!”

My sister hooted.  Turns out her husband does the same thing and it makes her crazy too.

For months, Richard walked through the kitchen doing his thing and I walked right behind him tidying up.  (Which, if you’ve been in my house since I had kids….is no longer my practice.)

Then he got sick.  And he went to Baltimore for treatments.  I went up there on his heels for the first week but I had to come home eventually.

One morning, I walked into the kitchen to get something for breakfast and there wasn’t a thing out of place.  Except him.  The cabinets were fine, but he wasn’t.  I sank to the floor, right there in front of that clean sink, and sobbed until the dogs got worried and started to lick me.

A tidy kitchen will break your heart.

Sharing a life with someone takes compromise.  Sharing a home with other people is hard.  It’s messy.

Wonderfully, wonderfully messy.

And that’s not just the bleach fumes talking.

 

A Kiss, a Kiss, a Kiss

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When I got home from Kroger at 6:30 p.m. with $243 worth of raspberries, swim diapers, tamales, kettle corn, limes, and middle-aged regrets, I tooted the horn twice so G would know to come help me unload the car.  He strutted out the kitchen door in his green fleece pajama pants.  The ones covered in 100 snarling/smiling faces of The Grinch.  Just Grinches and belly hair.  Go ahead–picture it.

I dare you.

It was at that moment that I realized I didn’t buy any wine.  Or razors.  Nevertheless, he leaned in the driver’s side door and I hit him with a kiss that threw us both for a little loop.  Not the peck on the cheek that goes along with “Have a good day, Sweetie.”  Not the smacker that says, “Thanks for taking out the trash!”  This was more of a “I remember why I liked you in the first place, back before we needed to buy swim diapers.”

The Kiss IV, Edvard Munch. Image courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art .

The Kiss IV, Edvard Munch. Image courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art .

A Real Kiss.

I had been thinking about kisses all day, thanks to Facebook.  One of my first boyfriends was celebrating a birthday.  I went to his page to wish him well and one think led to another and pretty soon I had traveled back in time to a Homecoming dance from 30 years ago.  Remembering how new kissing was, how mysterious.  How many hours I had spent thinking about kissing and then the instant when I found myself actually doing it!  How delicious it felt to slide my hands around his neck for a slow song.  How intoxicating it felt to lean closer to whisper something to a boy who smelled like Polo cologne then find myself kissing him.   How young.  How new.  How marvelous.

So, yes, I spent my free time today Facebook stalking every boy I smooched back in the 80s, back before things got complicated.  Back when kissing wasn’t all tangled up with groceries and taking out the trash and belly hair.  When a kiss was still a kiss.