On Being Revered

Which is rather nice, I think, and something I could get used to...

In June, my husband and I celebrated 21 years of marriage. We are quite proud of that, quite proud that we've held on through thick and thin and continued to find each other worth the effort. Consider the fact that we were together five years before we married, and that makes thousands and thousands of days of putting up with each other's little habits. Thousands of days of laughing together at ridiculous jokes. Thousands and thousands of nights spent sleeping next to each other in the same bed.

In a Yahoo article a few weeks ago, the writer commented that since marriage is so hard, she reveres anyone who is married 20 years or more. "Honey," I exclaimed, "we are REVERED!" And it's been one of our jokes ever since.

Imagine how lovely it was, then, to go out with friends last Friday night. Unusually for us we were child-free, having packed the two lovely girls off to their grandparents for a sleepover and intergenerational bonding time. When our friends wanted to hit a club after dinner, we were in.

Over the din of the music, the six of us sat close together on wobbly stools and worn leather loveseats and tried to talk. P scored us rounds of free drinks and the conversation ebbed and flowed. My friends drifted off to dance, following the thumping trance beat trail down to the courtyard while my friend's new boyfriend shared his boyhood memories with me. Because both he and I love F, we were both making an effort to bond, recognizing our respective importance in her life. It was a poignant evening, all of us getting along with each other so well. F, C and I watched each other as only best friends can, paying attention to each other's interactions, knowing each other's secrets and hopes. Feeling so happy to see our friends looking happy and being cuddly and mushy with truly nice men.

I was delighted to kick back and observe, noting details that I tried to press into my writer's mind for use in later fiction. The wood paneling, the locked ice machine, the exposed soundproofing and the way a cockroach crawled slowly across the wall behind K's head -- the tang of my Cosmopolitian and the golden glow of the tumblers of whiskey they held in their hands -- the lonely hunger on the faces of the twenty-somethings in line for the bathroom -- I soaked it all up.

And through it all, there was S. Whenever I caught his eye, we smiled. He talked at one end of the group, me at the other, but the bond between us was strong. Later, I switched seats, coming to the barstool next to him where I could hold his hand and lay my head on his shoulder, where we made each other laugh with our wry observations.

Later, long after we were ready to have left, my friend F grabbed my hand and pulled me out to dance. The music pounded in the brick courtyard, and I tipped my head back to look up and up from the odd triangle of space we were in, tucked in between ancient three story buildings. At the top, a geometry of night sky showed a few pale stars. I gave myself to the dancing and the lights bouncing around over the crowd. I gave myself to being with my friends and just being in the moment. The blue and green laser display shot colors across the walls, now dots, now lines, and I found myself thinking of neural bursts and the way memories travel across our minds.

I had a friend once who lived in this town, right up the street from this club. I wondered if he had ever come here and felt a pang of regret for him that he probably hadn't. Oh, he would have loved this, I thought. This crush of bodies, the movement beneath the sky, a drift of cigarette smoke hanging over the dancing crowd and the insistent, inescapable beat. Wherever he is, I hope he is able to enjoy something similar.

And then S and the guys were there, moving through the crowd to find us. We fell into easy motion, dance rhythms that go back decades for S and me, back to when we first started dancing as uneasy teenagers. His smiling face is the same one I've looked into for most of the dances in my life, and I had a surreal sense of time falling away, of being back to that ageless sensation of adolescence.

That's when people started to notice us. First, it was looks and smiles. Then they nodded at us. As we kept dancing, we started to garner compliments. "You two look beautiful together." "You look so happy." Apparently, my dress was gorgeous, according to several women who passed by.

By closing time, S and I were hanging in the bar, waiting for our people to regroup. F staggered in, a bit too filled with whisky and joy, in search of water. She came over to me and threw her arms around me. "I have to tell you. You are so beautiful," she said warmly, in her soft drunken French accent.

"Thank you," I replied, steadying her a bit.

"No, really, you are so beautiful. I love you, " she started to cry. "It is just so good to see you looking so happy. You and S look so happy together. You give me hope."

She's had a bit of a rough time with relationships. I rubbed her back gently. "I love you too."

"It's not because I'm drunk," she continued. "Well, I AM drunk, but it's still true."

"I know, F, I know." This friend knows all my problems and hardships. She's been privy to the challenges of my life. And she was telling me that she saw me really, truly happy. Because I was.

My marriage is bringing hope and comfort to my best friends. As I said, it's good to be revered. And I feel we have earned it.



*******
On a side note, the drunken French woman and her equally drunken boyfriend did not operate a motor vehicle. We saw them safely transported home, but not before there were even more proclamations of love and joy all around. It's pretty fun to be the sober ones.

Sigh of Relief

Whew. At last I finished my work for July. Just under the wire.

Today has been an arduous, uphill slog. I am distracted and anxious, have almost no focus. Plus I had to write about a residential treatment facility for troubled children. Residential treatment is the last thing I have patience for or want to think about right now.

I am so glad to have this new writing collaboration, but she has really been funneling a lot of work to me. I still need to work for my own clients as well.

Still, now, I have earned some reward time. I'm ready to get away from all this stress.

Arrggh!

I HAVE to WRITE!!! I'm on a deadline!!

Up and At 'Em

I'm awake early this morning. That's a bad thing only because I did not go to sleep early last night - I was busy working til almost midnight. And I love to get enough sleep! But it's a good thing because I have more work to do and I feel like that energy has pulled me up from bed.

It's rather lovely in the morning. Everything is quiet and soft around the edges. The sky is grey, turning to pink, and the birds are chirping quietly. Even my two dogs are calm. I watch them through the front window where they lie peacefully on our driveway, surveying their terrain. They are sweethearts who greet me happily when I open the front door to let them in.

I thrilled our neighbor yesterday. I flagged him down as he drove along the street. "I think it's time to fix that fence," I said. "We'll scrape the money up. Let's get some bids and get it done before the winds start." A huge grin spread across his face. Okay, Bob, we get the point; you're tired of having our dogs out all the time. Okay.

Yesterday was a good day. I got so much done. It's been an intense week. There have been social obligations, and I've had a full docket of work projects, and then there have been extra stressors. Considering everything, we've done very nicely at staying calm and taking one thing at a time.

Monday, our daughter J went to Sea World with a friend. I love the friend and trust her mom, but that was the farthest away from us that J has ever been, and I don't think either one of us breathed easy until she was back in our home, with us hugging her.

Tuesday was devoted entirely to birthday party. My parties are big events and because B's birthday is in summer, I feel like she gets shorted on the festivities sometimes. But this one was a blowout, up to even her rather exact standards.

Wednesday was me working and then gymnastics class for the girls, and always, of course, errands.

Yesterday was a good day. Yesterday, we finally sat down together and got the latest round of bills paid. Check. I caught up laundry. Check. We tidied the house. Check. We went for lunch and for a hike in the lovely weather. Check. I planned my yoga class. Check. I taught yoga. Check. AND I finished five more proposals. CHECK! Now I only have two more to get through this morning, and I earn a bit of breathing space.

Yoga class was as super as always. Students seem to enjoy my style. I think when they realize that I'm the sub they have low expectations. But I've got a very good, warm teaching energy. As S said, I've got the patter. I never thought of it that way before, but I do. I have a soothing stream of narration that I use during the poses, even some jokes I throw in. Before they know it, they are warm and then they are stretching out tense areas and then they are working hard and then they are... ah... relaxing. Subbing for this teacher is particularly easy because my style is so much more comforting than hers that students are markedly enjoying themselves. About 3/4 of the way through class last night, they started to comment on that, almost as if I wasn't there, about how fun the class was and how unusually good but relaxed they felt.

I've had two different magician friends over for dinner within the last week. Both of them were kind enough to do card tricks and discuss their approach to magic a bit. I realized yesterday that there are magic tricks to yoga as well. It's such an energetic form that it lends itself to a bit of manipulation.

If I get people working their spines, they'll feel good. If I get people breathing more openly, they'll feel good. If I put them through a vigorous sequence, they'll feel good. If I cue them to be still and tune in, they'll feel good. And if I put them flat on the floor, still and with music pouring over them, they will leave class stunned by how much they enjoyed it.

I also have my tricks. Every person has poses they excel at and poses that challenge them. Like I don't love triangle or the warriors right now, and I can't even come close to doing cow-faced pose. But I have natural hamstring flexibility. So if I want to impress, I just do a hamstring opening sequence and...ta-da... I'm a pro! Not that different from sleight of hand?

The real truth though is that people don't care about my body, they care about their own bodies. So when my instruction guides them into a pose, they get to experience that. When my correction helps them to achieve a different result, they enjoy that fine-tuning. And all of that is simply good classroom management and a solid knowledge of my curriculum. Ta da!

Okay, two more proposals right now, and we get to spend the rest of today and maybe tomorrow having fabulous fun in Pasadena or Los Angeles. I've promised myself all week. And then Sunday, I teach again. A double feature even. Oh, yeah, and my fabulous friends are having another party. That ought to be awesome.

And next week...finally...I get back to the story I started in June, the story I started for my friend A, just because she and I were hanging out together when I banged the first few paragraphs out and she told me what she wanted to read about. And then... submissions again. Yeah, looking forward to that to.

Prayer

Literature...

I mentioned this poem by Elizabeth Bishop in my June 27 post - which I guess makes it a month ago. It was one of my favorites in Garrison Keillor's anthology. I like it because I think it captures some of the caring that goes into a good friendship, and the sharing of experiences together that I have found with my lovely girlfriends. (One of whom confessed, in tears, that she loved me last weekend. But that's a different story!)

Letter to NY
For Louise Crane

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so teribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

Overkill

My husband is listening to a Men at Work song. I remember we saw an episode of Scrubs once that featured this song throughout the entire show. The singer Colin Hay literally just followed the main character around, singing. Pretty funny.

Tonight, the song makes me think of my friend B. Before the party broke up last night, we pulled out the Tarot cards. Her husband reads Tarot and does magic as well. I'm a primarily intuitive reader, consciously not deeply educated about card meanings, so I was curious to know if he would interpret the cards similarly to me. I did a reading for my friend C and then for D's wife B. It was fun - almost a collaborative effort, with us confering together and discussing what we each saw. B wanted the reading badly, and it was clear from the cards that she has some unconscious stuff going on that she was trying to hold back. She said she'd had a lot of trouble sleeping lately.

"I can't get to sleep/ I think about the implications/ Of diving in too deep/ And possibly the complications/ Especially at night/I worry over situations/I know I will be alright/Perhaps it's just imagination"