My last post, “Assertion,” got my thinking about our move from Massachusetts to North Carolina and I remembered this post from March 2010. I’ve taken the liberty of fixing a few things, out of respect for L and his pronouns, and our conversions to Judaism, which took place in the intervening years (showing reverence and respect for G-d by not spelling out Creator’s full name). Not only does this piece serve as a reminder of the early days of our adult love (more on that later, I’m sure), but it helps me remember how much I loved to write.
There is an unnatural quietness about my apartment tonight. My son is sleeping, my cat is watching the rain dripping from the branches outside the window. Even the neighbors are silent. The strangeness is coming from the hole in our still-forming family fabric where L was this morning and now…is not. He is at his home now—900 miles away. Last night he paced and fretted and wrote me pages of beautiful prose while I do what I always do in times of stress: hibernate. Evidently I slept so soundly that I have no recollection of asking him, upon his return to bed in the early morning hours, whether he had been out buying bread and was he playing golf? (I talk in my sleep a lot.)
So here I am. Not ready to climb into my empty bed alone. Not ready to face the fact that he has been here, part of our daily routine, part of myself, for more than two weeks, and now he…is not. When I returned home from the airport I came into utter stillness. Missing was the laughter that punctuates our day. Missing were the fervent discussions of theology and quantum physics. Missing was the knowledge that he watches me at mundane tasks, a smile playing around his eyes, his love for me in evidence at all times. Missing was the sound of my son avidly telling him of his day upon his return home from school. Missing was his inclusion in my son’s bedtime rituals. Missing are his kisses at the back of my neck while I type this.
In all fairness, I imagine we’ve been luckier than some who live far, far away from each other as we’ve managed visitations for at least eight to ten days out of every month since the end of December. Yet, each leaving becomes more difficult. Each time we are returned back to our respectful homes and reconnect via the invisible umbilical that is Verizon Wireless, I feel more and more out of sync with what should be our lives. I worry constantly about the coming months. My son and I are scheduled to move in early July. We have no place to live, we have no money saved. On the one hand the time can’t come fast enough, on the other, I’m terrified that I won’t have the resources in place to get there in three months.
L has such strong faith and is positive that everything will work out. I am having a disconnect with G-d. I have been faltering in my daily conversations. I’m having trouble laying the groundwork and then getting out of the way so that G-d can help. Control is a tough thing for me to give up and it is something that L and I talk about often—particularly on Sundays after Church when I get so very frustrated at my lack of trust these days. I am forever in awe of how he can maintain such a closeness with the G-d of his understanding (who, it so happens, is pretty much the same God of my understanding as well) when he’s been two years without a job and still has faith that the right opportunity is out there and within arms reach. I look ahead and see roadblocks and danger signs and red flashing lights and can’t imagine how I’m going to make all of this happen.
And he says no. It’s not just you anymore.
So I am missing his presence and trying to make sense of our separateness while at the same time I am working on letting go and letting G-d. I’m stalled on both fronts. I would like to be able to trust that all is well and all will be as it should. I’d like to stop being such a control freak and let the G-d of my understanding do the work that I keep insisting on trying to do myself, however unsuccessfully. I’d like L to be here now. (I know: me, me, me.)
One of my favorite scenes in Out of Africa takes place between Karen Blixen and Farah after she has sold her farm and is preparing to move back to Denmark. Farah wants to know how it will be between them, now that she will be so far away. Blixen asks him if he remembers how it was on Safari when she would send him ahead to look for a camp and he would wait for her. He would build a fire and she would come to this place, and she says yes, it will be like that…only this time she will go ahead and build a fire. He asks if it is far where she is going and she says yes, very far. He then says, “You must make this fire very big, so I can find you.”
In December, I built a small fire and L came to me and we began to set up camp, both in our hearts and in this home. Now, he has gone very far and is preparing to make this fire very big so that I can see it. When I see this fire I will know that my place is settled and it is safe to go. He will not make this fire alone, even as I had help blowing softly on the sparks of the love that brought us together in the first place.