THE ROAD TO RECOVERY
In solitude, I come to know the value
Of love
And the loneliness
Of its absence.
I would as much say
I have aged at last and surrender
To its reflection.
One would be crazy not to go mad;
Mad with desire, mad
With the spaciousness of being.
Yet comes a moment in life
When one recognizes that some desires
Come too late;
Thus comes acceptance.
So I am aged, and gather all
The precious years into me
And know therein
Lies anonymity
After six weeks in New York, my darling Joel came home last Thursday. After weeks of daily Skype-ing the man appeared in flesh and blood; the warmth and pulse of which can never be felt via the internet. I stood in our bedroom looking out the French doors from whence I could see his limo come into view at the top of the hill; watched it slide down and around the dusty curves of the dirt road and I raced to the garden gate and watched the tired length of him leave the car and come into my arms, and I into his. And time concertina-ed; not just the last 6 weeks, but 25 years and we stood on the threshold once more.
I know I am blessed to be nearly 70 and in love. And I also know that this time apart, at this time in our lives, gave us a taste of the impact of the ultimate absence one or the other of us will experience.
And I also know this: I know nothing save my name.
These weeks alone were an endurance test and an eye-opener. Like so many of us I like to think that I can predict, if not the exact details of the future, at least how I will react to them. I had myself convinced that should Joel go first I would, as well as being devastated, be just fine on my own. I had even, the hubris to believe that of the two of us, I was the better equipped to survive such loss. Ha!
Of course, I could write it all off to having been ill the whole time; ‘it’ being the stark fact that I have never felt so lonely my whole life. The loneliness had to do with being stripped, because of the illness, of my life force. Without that core energy I was unable to fill my days with the many things that give me pleasure: writing, painting, gardening, walking, traveling. Who are we when we are stripped of our capabilities? What are we when we are left alone in a foreign country without our capabilities? Frightened, that’s what. Frightened and lonely.
The illness itself was frightening, until diagnosed and recovery began. But the loneliness was shocking. Life was proscribed to a morning drive to the village for groceries, preparing food within the strict diet I am on for 2 months, bringing in firewood, lighting the fire, and then, exhausted, lying by the fire and trying to read. Something normally a great pleasure was now a challenge as the inflammation in my brain made concentration near impossible.
The brightest times of the day were those illuminated by the beauty of the landscape glimpsed to and fro town and to and fro the woodpile. By 5, as the day took its light and left and evening shortened into night, I would draw the curtains, dine by candlelight at 6 and then surrender to watching one of several BBC mystery series; the fictitious fates of those worse than mine a welcome distraction until 9 when I would take my furry hot water bottle to bed. Whatever surplus energy I could summon was spent launching the hardcover edition of my novel plus three frustrating weeks of trying to get the e-Book version made available.
When I look back, now, on those 6 weeks I see an arc that went from illness to diagnosis, to recovery; and from fear and desolation to acceptance and surrender and finally to gratitude. The fear and desolation was not only from being ill and not knowing why, but also because everything I thought I knew no longer applied. And all that I thought I could count on was no longer available. That portion of the journey now strikes me as absolutely essential. Why? Because it put me in the endless moment. When we are stripped of certainty we are in reality. And reality is not always to our liking. Tough Luck.
The second part of the journey, much like getting sober, doesn’t come gift-wrapped. Acceptance and surrender entail acknowledging the fact that we are, each of us, no matter the details of our lives, always alone. In fact, we spend much of lives staying busy enough to be able to avoid this fact. Once I started to surrender I started to recover.
The third leg of the journey – gratitude – is the gift that keeps on giving. I was very much aware that my aloneness was also my freedom. Unlike the unutterable aloneness that millions of refuges are experiencing, or that any of the disenfranchised people of this world have to face minute by excruciating minute.
And when Joel came through that gate, believe me I had more gratitude than I can express. The miracle of it, knowing that he could just as easily not have made it, is only a momentary miracle. What I want to retain from this journey is the acceptance of, and surrender to, the fact that it is complete folly to think we can predict how we will react to any future event; whether it be the loss of a loved one or terrorism on our doorstep, it is useless to try and prepare for it. The best we can do is open our hearts and our arms and believe that somehow we will manage.
NB. My novel, From Dusk to Dawn, is now available as an eBook from Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
The hardbound version is available from:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Amazon.it
Amazon.fr
Amazon.De
Barnesandnoble.com
IndieBound.org
Starting in London, in January, I will be giving a series of talks and readings from the novel. This series will be in salon form and so far the itinerary includes, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Taos, Los Angeles, Bridgehampton, Bradford-on-Avon, Paris, Bonnieux and Florence. I will of course be posting the details.
To those of you who have already purchased the book, my grateful thanks. If you enjoyed reading it, please post a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and/or Indie Bound.
If you’re new to the blog and still looking for gifts for Christmas, please, feel free to purchase my novel!!
