The Poem You've Been Waiting For

(or: The product of those random scraps of paper)

Once, I asked you:
If you could be any of the four classical elements,
which would you be?
And you said:
Air--"because you can't see me,
but you can feel me."

Sometimes you ask me if during all of those missing years
I thought of you--
Or spoke of you--
Or thought of speaking of you--
And often I say,
"Well, no."

Then I sense your disappointment hovering thick in the air.
You don't say it--
But I can feel it.
Sweetie, it's so classic, your bad sense of timing.
You ask at all the wrong moments.

So if you wonder whether or not you still meant anything to me beyond a nearly vacant memory,
If you sense that I suffered some self-inflicted amnesia, circumventing the sting of things better forgotten,
If the question is did you ever cross my mind,
The answer is:

Every time I saw a Dodge Charger of any vintage;
Every time I heard Brooks and Dunn sing "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone";
Every time I pulled my Literature 201 textbook from the shelf;
Every time a vacuum cleaner bag needed changing;
Every time I saw you as an old man in the movie UP;
Every time I saw you in the movie American Beauty, eyes tearing up as you tried to explain the grace you found in something so mundane as a plastic bag dancing in the wind;
Every time I drove past the building where we sat on the roof and watched the sun rise;
Every time I drove past the Fremont exit on the Ohio Turnpike;
Every time I drove past the place where I first kissed you;
And every time I searched your name on the Internet, only to locate some long deceased Ohio governor instead.

So if you wonder if I forgot you--

I couldn't see you.
I couldn't hear you.
And I couldn't find you.

But I could always feel you.

Nine Months

The difference nine months can make.

September:  You've finally asked for a divorce and meant it.  You buy a dog at the local shelter to prove to your spouse that you really want a divorce.  In 12 years of marriage, it was the one thing he ever told you not to do.  You name the dog Shiva to symbolize the huge transformation that is occurring in your life--internally as well as externally.  Most people assume that since you work in a Hebrew school, you named it after the seven days of mourning that one sits after a death in the family and they tell you they are so sorry about how sad you are, and how appropriate to name the dog Shiva, but you're not sad--not really--I mean you are, but you've been sad for a long time so things can only improve from here, right?  You try to explain why the Hindu Lord of Destruction is actually a really positive thing.  About as many people "get it" as those who understand that the Death card in a tarot deck doesn't mean you're going to die.  You're okay with that.  You start yoga teacher training and you think you're going to be totally awesome.  You're a high school English teacher beginning a new school year.  You have two kids to find childcare for now because you're about to become a single mom.  You're stuck between being totally terrified and believing that you totally got this.  The dog eats one of your brand new Birkenstock sandals and tries to chew through a power cord, but you're convinced this is just a passing thing.

Shiva--Lord of Adho Mukha Svanasana stretches
and champion destroyer of shoes and Monster High dolls.

October:  Your soon-to-be-ex spouse finally moves out of the house.  You feel a huge surge of relief and liberation, but you aren't sure how to handle being alone.  You clean the house top to bottom and rearrange the bedroom furniture, throw out a lot of stuff, and make sage sticks to smudge the place.  When the kids leave for their weekends with their dad, you are desperate to fill the empty space, so you start going out on dates.  You find out rather quickly that the dating pool is, to say the least, frustrating and bleak, but sitting alone in an empty house... you can't take it.  At least when they are home, you don't have to worry about sleeping alone--because they are ALWAYS in your bed at night.  Your daughter tells you to find a rich man--someone who can take her to Kalahari.  You turn 39-years-old and celebrate over a quiet dinner with your children.  The dog starts eating the couch.  You try to fix something and realize your soon-to-be ex-spouse has pretty much taken every tool in the house.  You're listening to Counting Crows and John Mayer a lot.  Not exactly uplifting, you realize, but it is what it is.  One evening you go to bed to find two children, a dog, and a cat in it.  You decide to sleep in your daughter's bed instead.  You have no time to practice yoga and no money for a sitter.  You start to wonder how you're going to fit all of these requirements in for this whole yoga teacher training thing.

This used to be my bed.  Now it is community property.

November:  You find yourself making bad decisions because you are so completely and utterly out of your mind lonely.  You go to your monthly yoga teacher training weekend and it starts with a chakra tuning practice.  You bawl through most of it because it starts with the root chakra and in addition to struggling with your feelings about your mother's reaction to your divorce, you feel as if the ground is constantly quaking beneath your feet.  From there it's just all downhill until you're just a mass of pulp on the mat at the end.  You're supposed to be able to teach Surya Namaskar A and B by now, but you are so distracted by your personal life that you are getting nothing accomplished.  On the 19th, your final court date, you wake up, go to a yoga class, and find yourself so physically ill that you have to lay with your legs up the wall for the final 15 minutes of class.  Either you have the flu or this is the most shot your nerves have ever been.  Your head is throbbing as if Thor were smashing you in the skull with his hammer.  You don't regret it, but somehow you thought this day would be a lot happier. A few days later, while listening to John Mayer on the drive to work (because songs like Split Screen Sadness are suddenly getting constant play in your car CD player), you suddenly get this idea that you should see if your old college flame still has the same cell phone number that you got from his sister via Facebook 4 years earlier.  He does.  You tell him you're not married anymore.  He is very, very interested in this life event.  After planning a date with him, you freak out and decide that you aren't ready for the inevitable, which is that he is going to be very, very serious.  You are emotionally unstable and you know it.  You freak out and blow him off.  The dog eats more of the couch, a dozen freshly baked vegan pumpkin muffins, and your daughter's favorite stuffed animal that she's been carrying with her everywhere since she was three months old, but you love her anyway.   You have the most pathetic Thanksgiving ever, but your son brings in flowers from the garden to decorate the table because he is adorable and sweet, and after the kids go to bed you get sick again and have yourself a good cry.  You are pretty sure Christmas this year is going to totally suck.  You try not to think about it.  A secret friend leaves a gift card in your mailbox and another sends you one in the mail to help you buy Christmas gifts for the kids and you are overwhelmed by the kindness of friends.  You think maybe Christmas won't suck after all, but your parents have decided not to visit so your hope is dimly lit at best.

R.I.P. Hugs--both the old and the new, as the replacement got eaten as well.

December:  You discover that you have opened a can of worms with the old college flame, who seems to know that you are not in an emotional position to rekindle a relationship with him but isn't willing to give up so easily.  He starts sending you cryptic text messages in the form of poetry.  You show one to your friend during yoga teacher training.  She is perplexed.  She now knows him as "metaphor man."  You are not perplexed.  You know that the more serious a situation gets, the less direct he becomes.  You continue to blow him off, not because you want to, but because there is this complex and confusing history there that only you and he could possibly understand.  Your new John Mayer song is In Your Atmosphere because it explains perfectly how completely confused you are about the old college flame. You ask the friend who knows him as "metaphor man" what she thinks, but only after you give her a very abbreviated version of your history with him.  She tells you hey, why not give it a whirl?  You finally decide to try to connect with him again.  There's another snafu and you blow him off again, then you spend the entire weekend regretting your decision.    You go home with the kids for Christmas and when you get into town--where the old college flame still lives, and you don't--you call him and say hey, how about Christmas Eve lunch?  By Christmas Day he's telling you he still loves you and is spending the day with your family.  By the day after Christmas, he is proposing.  You are totally freaked out, but you're not afraid anymore.  The only thing you are afraid of is how completely freaking nuts everyone is going to think you are when they find out that you have been divorced for 2.3 minutes and you're already with this other guy.  You tell no one.  But you spend a lot of time wondering how to give people a short version of your history with the old college flame.  You realize there just isn't one.  Turns out it's the best Christmas ever.  You get your new social security card in the mail on December 30th because you had changed your married name back to your maiden surname--the only man you were willing to "belong to" was your father.  But now you realize that there is no point in changing your driver's license or anything else because you know that you're going to say "yes" to the old college flame's proposal and that he is going to want you to take his name, even though you have sworn that you will never, ever change your identity for a man ever again.  You still like John Mayer, but you decide that you need to choose a different song to remember the old college flame by because "Split Screen Sadness" no longer works.  He sends you this song and tells you it has always reminded him of you.  It makes you cry.  You decide on a new song.

Best Christmas Eve EVER!!

January:  You realize that turning away the old college flame back in 1999 was a pretty big mistake.  You shock everybody with this.  You hope that nobody thought that you were cheating on your husband or that you are crazy or that you are some kind of strumpet.  You try to hide it from the people at work, but though the wonders of Internet social networking, everyone knows in about 5.6 minutes.  You sell the old ring and buy your daughter a new My Little Pony toy, then use the rest to pay for another month of yoga teacher training.  

It's an aquamarine.  My daughter helped me pick it out.  

February:   Things are complicated because I just agreed to marry a guy who still lives 100 miles away from me.  We drive through some of the coldest, snowiest, most ridiculous weather in Ohio history in order to be with each other on weekends.  Having a weekend boyfriend is a drag and one weekend a month I can barely see him at all because of this yoga teacher training that is starting to, quite frankly, overwhelm the hell out of me, but when we are together, we look like this:

New haircut selfie!!!

March: I have no idea what the hell happened this month.  I think I was supposed to be doing a lot of yoga assisting and starting to teach classes and stuff.  I have no idea what I am doing, and I am supposed to be planning a wedding now.  There is some confusion over whether or not I am actually still sane.  I am still an English teacher somewhere in this mess and there are papers to grade and stuff like that.  March is just a blur.  A cold, snowy blur.  The dog has completely destroyed the couch and the old college flame, now fiancé, is allergic to her.  We still love her anyway.  My daughter asks my fiancé if she should call him "Dad."  He tells her to call him whatever she is comfortable calling him.  In the meantime, my son is just happy to talk about rocketry and watch Saturn V DVDs with him.  My son decides the fiancé needs to be introduced to The Lord of the Rings.  I start teaching yoga classes for my YTT requirements.  I land a gig teaching donation based yoga classes at a local studio--and the idea scares the crap out of me.  I am no longer sure that I am going to be totally awesome.  At the end of the month, I post this on Facebook:  

"My 9-year-old son (who is a 55-year-old man trapped in a 4th grader's body) told me the other day that it was a good thing that Gandalf the Grey fell into the chasm with the Balrog, for if that hadn't have happened, he'd have never become a White Wizard and had the all of the abilities needed to help the Fellowship destroy the Ring of Power. He said, 'So see, sometimes things happen and they seem bad, but really in the end they are good, because everything happens for a reason.'

I struggle a lot lately with why I made certain decisions in my life path; the struggle has led me through sadness, then anger, then regret, then indifference, then occasionally anger again...but then there are moments of clarity, moments of 'this is why I made that decision, and it gave me these amazing kids and it brought me to this point in my life, here in Lakewood, Ohio,' which in many ways was necessary for me to find our who I really am.

There is a principle in Hindu philosophy called Satsang, which, in a nutshell, can be interpreted to mean that we should associate with people who bring out the best in us--who encourage us to be our highest selves. Today I have had many reaffirmations of why I am here, now, in a Cleveland suburb, a place I never thought I would be. I am grateful today at how many friends I have accumulated here who have not only helped me when I was in a crisis--however big or small--or who have, in some way, helped to uplift me. There are so many of you. I am a very lucky woman.

It's hard to keep Shiva from destroying the couch when
my daughter keeps inviting her up there.

April:  Of course I am going to catch up on all that grading during Spring Break!  Except that my mother is in town staying with me and my cousin is getting married and  the fiancé's parents are back from Arizona for the summer it's Easter and all this other stuff.  I start to panic that I am never going to catch up on my day job.  You know, the one that pays the mortgage.  I have all of these yoga teacher training requirements to complete and I am falling behind.  On the other hand, my autistic son is on new medication and he is doing well in school for the first time in his life.  He is named student of the month.  I see the fiancés parents for the first time since, oh, I don't know, 1995??  My brother's newborn makes me decide I want to have another baby.  See why?

And I start cheating on my fiancé with old yoga men and Raymond Carver at night:

And I find this old photo of the car that I am about to, technically, become "half owner" of, which is super awesome but the truth is that 90% of the reason I love it--other than the fact that it is the Dukes of Hazzard car--is because it has been a labor of love for him since he was a teenager:

And I decide that I am going to help him restore this, even if it just means that I sit there and hand him tools....

....because I don't give a crap what we are doing as long as we are together.  

May:  This happens.  

2014 Jivasara Class--Real Yogis Huff Mint.

And when this happens, my fellow teacher trainees tell me that I am a different person.  That the person who arrived last September was broken and clearly trying to keep up the appearance of being strong.  That the person they know now is blissful, content, and confident.  I realize that somewhere in the middle of this blog, I switched from a non-personal second person point of view to a first person point of view, and although I wasn't conscious of it, I think it means something about my state of mind shift.  I am a few months away from marrying the man who I perhaps should have married in the first place, yet I am grateful that the path I took gave my my children.  I am grateful for everyone who helped me while I was on this journey.  I am grateful for the friends I didn't know I had and the ones who showed me just how much they value my friendship.  I am grateful to have a man who waited 15 years for me to come to my senses.  I am grateful for my yoga teachers and my fellow trainees, who supported me though some of the darkest times of my life.  I am just grateful in general.  Ananda--bliss.  I think I'll try to have another baby and I think that Ananda makes a good name for a girl.  The dog is no longer eating the furniture.  My kids sleep in their own beds again.  I am starting to learn to play nice with my ex-spouse, and even if I don't know how to forgive him yet, I recognize that, for my own benefit and for the benefit of our kids, I have to learn how.  I am teaching yoga.  I am smiling.  I am letting go and moving forward.  

Nine months--the gestation period of a human baby.  

Shiva has worked his magic.  

And that's the difference nine months can make.

Dear Daughter,

Here is what I will tell you when you ask.  Because you ask a lot of hard questions now, and I have to be prepared.

There are all these cliches about knowing when you have found "The One."   That he will literally make your heart feel swollen with happiness and gratitude.  That you'll feel more like yourself when you are with him than when you are without him.  That when he is not with you, there's something missing.  That you'll feel so close when he holds you that you'll be unable to determine where you end and he begins.  That as a unit, you will be greater than the sum of your parts. That you'll feel an inexplicable sense that something bound you to him even before you even met him.   That you will find yourself capable of forgiving things you once thought unforgivable.

I always thought all of that was bullshit.  Now I know better.  Don't settle until you feel all of the above.  Satsang, above all.  Aim for the highest.

Love,

Momma

Be True and Be Free; or, "The Blog is Back."

I don't know why I started this blog.  It's never really had any particular theme or focus or purpose.  Mostly I just write every once in a while when something is really weighing heavily on my mind, and it's never anything that I can imagine is useful or important to anyone else.  But people tell me I should write a blog and my ego gets in the way and I suddenly think that what I have to say really is important, so every once in a while I write here.

And that's a lie.  Kind of.

The truth is that I have purged every poem and story I have ever written because I am afraid to look at them.  Because I am afraid that I suck as a writer and that nothing I have to say is really all that meaningful or eloquent.  Because I am afraid that my work will remind me of who I used to be and I am afraid that I won't like what I see.  Because when I was in my 20's I wrote a poem inspired by the Earthrise photo taken from the Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve, 1968, and I sent it out as a Christmas card and I didn't think anyone "got it."  You know, those kinds of insecurities.

Which brings me to Satya.

Last night I started "tattooing my house," as my boyfriend put it, with Sanskrit.  I decided to paint the Yamas and Niyamas on my walls.  The plan is to paint all ten of them, in Sanskrit, and beneath each, in English, describe their meanings in a short and sweet manner that can be understood by my children, who are 8 and 9-years-old.  I started with Ahimsa, non-violence, in the dining room.  Under it:  "Be kind."  Then Asteya, non-stealing, in the hallway:  "Give more, take less."  The kids started asking questions.  Score one for Mom.  Daughter is walking around the house saying, "Give more, take less."  Son is suggesting places for the next Yama I plan to paint:  Satya.  We decide on the living room.  I sketch it out and paint it, but I can't think of how to explain it in simple terms.

Satya. Truthfulness.  To say "Speak the truth" isn't enough.  Yes, we should speak honestly, but that doesn't quite cover it all.  I considered "Speak YOUR truth."  Be true to yourself, to your Self, to the essence of who you really are.  That was better, but doesn't quite encapsulate all that Satya means. Satya is Truth with a capital "T."  It's not just about not telling lies, or about hiding who you really are; it's about living a life of integrity in a world where there is an absoluteness of Truth.

How do you sum that up in a few words for a couple of grade school kids?

Swami Satchidananda wrote in his book on the Yoga Sutras that "The more we lead a life of honesty, the more we will see the results, and that will encourage us to be more honest.  With the establishment of honesty, the state of fearlessness comes.  One need not be afraid of anybody and can always lead an open life....So, first follow truth, and then truth will follow you."

It occurred to me that I had spent so many years of my life unable to speak, act, or be my Truth that it was no wonder I couldn't figure out how to explain it to my kids.

Take this blog, for instance.  I took it down in part because my ex-husband kept reading it and then commenting on it in some shape or form, often in a manner that indicated he was uncomfortable with something I had written.  I haven't really written about my divorce on this blog.  I have tried to refrain from speaking ill of my ex-husband on the Internet.

But this just needs to be said.  It needs to be said not because I am trying to bash my ex, but because I am compelled to be an example to those who are younger than me and/or who have yet to dive into the world of marriage.  IN CENSORING MYSELF VIA THIS BLOG, I WAS DOING EXACTLY WHAT I DID TO MYSELF FOR MY ENTIRE MARRIED LIFE.  I was allowing him, albeit indirectly, to dictate my truth.  Without assigning fault, let me just say that I spent one-third of my life in fear of expressing who I really am to my own husband. I wasn't being my Truth.  And that was--and residually, it remains--a problem.  A big one.

Okay, so this new paragraph is a tangent.  Not really.  But it will seem like one for a second.  When I was in college, I had this friend (really more than a friend, I had a crush on the boy for years, actually) who thought I was an amazing writer.  Frankly, I think he overstated how great my writing was, but regardless, he really dug my work.  So much so that, upon reconnecting with him after 14 years, I learned that he still has some of my writing. He kept it.  He wants to know things like, why don't I write anymore?  When did I stop?  Have I lost my marbles?  The answers:  I'm not that good at it anyway; I don't remember when I stopped; and No, I'd like to think I am pretty sane. (Okay he didn't really ask if I was crazy, but he has implied heavily that I have no clear concept of just how talented I really am.)

So tonight, as I am struggling to find a simple way to define Satya for my children, I have this epiphany:  I stopped writing when I met my ex-husband.  Just like everything else I stopped doing, and saying, and being, and believing.  All those things that made me who I was without him--all those things I forgot, those things that were the essence of my inner Truth--I just gave them up.  Willingly.  And in doing so, I lost who I was.  I lost the freedom to just be me.

Wait--I think I got something.

"Truth is freedom."  No.  Too Orwellian.

"The truth will set you free."  No.  Too cliché.

"Be true; be free."

And there it is.

The moral of the story and the reason I am compelled to tell it:  Marry the person who sees your Truth, loves your Truth, and knows that your Truth is amazing even when you don't believe it yourself.  Marry the guy who "gets it." Only then can you be free to love yourself and, in turn, love him back.

The blog is back.