No. 2 Sundays

Sunday morning is different, quieter, and pregnant with past memories of church, family and conflicted new week challenges and fears. Each Sunday since I returned from the Pacific Northwest feelings of aloneness creep upon the dawn of this ominous day. The NYTimes delivered to my front door in the blue blaster wrapper immediately sparks the familiar memory of breakfast at Zabar’s or a sidewalk café, all of us together or alone enjoying the weekly ritual of reading the Times, people watching, strong coffee and bagels. Instead I make my own coffee and toast; plop down on the sofa and begin rummaging through the nine folded sections laying before me, once my cultural sustenance, my unconscious conjures the empty chair at the table; a reminder of what I once loved and enjoyed in my life that is now absent. The irony is: the paper does exist; the person sharing a meal does not. And I understand the value of physical presence; the very reason I sacrifice to pay for the hulk of pulp in Texas. I want to experience the long held moments of joy and connection that I have know for forty years living in Manhattan.  I need it. But really, what we need may not be what we truly need.

To stave off the loneliness, I decide to attend the Unitarian Circle service: event, ceremony, performance, the spiritual church alternative. I get dressed, put on dangling earrings, and at the last minute cut some bangs from the long pieces that are thin and dry nothingness around my face. My forehead has always been a site of contentiousness. In one sense, it is a troublesome feature that hairdressers always want to cover but in another sense a high forehead is very much a memorable characteristic of my odd Modigliani face. Without it I am ordinary. But, at this moment I justify the value of being ordinary especially if I want to be less alone. Most of the world is ordinary, and if I want to join them, then the forehead will have to go. Then I remember what a smart friend sent recently.

Fixing and Editing Ourselves Rachel Naomi Remen A great deal of energy goes into the process of fixing and editing ourselves. We may have even come to admire in ourselves what is admired, expect what is expected, and value what is valued by others. We have changed ourselves into someone that the people who matter to us can love. Sometimes we no longer know what is true for us, in which direction our own integrity lies. We surrender our wholeness for a variety of reasons. Among the most compelling are our ideas of what being a good person is all about.... Few of us are able to love ourselves as we are. We may have even become ashamed of our wholeness. Parts of ourselves which we may have hidden all of our lives out of shame are often the source of our healing.... Reclaiming ourselves usually means coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything. We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. In calling ourselves "heads" or "tails," we may never own and spend our human currency, the pure gold of which our coin is made.

I arrive late but the vibe of music and enthusiasm is so alive I lose myself suddenly noticing that the performer is beautiful and handsome to my eyes. I try not to look at him because (he is married).  Besides I feel invisible and the idea of “somebody” as in “lover,” causes panic.  I loved so much and cared so much and grieved so much when last divorced in 2004, my open heart closed down and the worst part is I still want this “Ex” (hate the term) and somewhere deep inside me hopes I will be with him again, although I really don’t want to; not really, not really. One cannot go back yet how does one go forward?  This is what we’re about here; finding a way to move forward and not stay stuck in the past. Older people do that. They do. I have always heard and now I am experiencing it. It’s repulsive and terrifying to be a statistic, an archetype of the aging divorced woman, man too for that matter.

I photograph my hand often looking at the empty ring finger remembering how hard it was to take it off and how I lay lifeless for days and days and days feeling like a small leaf of great weight drifting to sea bottom. I didn’t see light for a year.  In the interim I had spent all my money, moved out of my home in Manhattan, waking up far away from what I knew and loved. Now a shocking eight years later I am trying in my mind to conjure up a loved one and to see myself as a woman in love with another. Any interested man has suffered my rejection for no good reason. To one nice, really nice man, he learned by email. “It’s time. I don’t want to see you anymore. When he legitimately asked, “Why?” I didn’t have an answer. For now I am heartened to be attracted to any man.

by Ann Smith August 12, 2012